Lcd Tv

[TuxedoPk]

I was at a local dept. store today and looking over the LCD TVs they had just killing time. I've been toying with getting a 17-19" one for the kitchen.

They had a 23" HD w/DVD Mintek display model, no box for $389- great looking picture. Paid for the unit, then found out they didn't have the manual or remote as I was told. The manager offered me a 10% and then finally 20% discount which would have brought the price down to $312 which seems really great for this type of tv.

For the kitchen, the HD and widescreen features are more than I would have purchased. The VGA input might be useful for someday using it as a computer monitor.

Q. Does anyone have any positive/negative feedback on Mintek TVs
Q. For $312 plus another $20 to purchase a remote does this seem like a terrific bargain that I should go back for or just a so-so deal?

http://www.mintekdigital.com/detail.asp?ProdID=DTV-233
Again, this is for a kitchen tv and I'm not going to be turning this into a home theater unit.

[pmreed]

Mintek is mostly known for their inexpensive, mobile DVD/LCD TV products. You know, the little handheld jobs and the keep-the-kiddies-happy, hang'em on the seatback units. They're acceptable quality for their price point. The larger units, like the one you're looking at are pretty decent. Even considering you are buying a used unit, $312 + 20 is a very good deal for the LCDTV/DVD combo. Low street on that unit is about twice that. If it looks good to you (good display, no dead pixels etc), go for it. I'm sure the manual is available online. Just get a guarantee that you get the full warranty, and that you can return it if the remote you purchase won't activate the unit's features, indicating a display receiver problem.

Phil

[RedDog]

I was at my cousin's for a family party on New Years - she had a 17" Zenith LCD sitting in her kitchen window that looked great.

[TuxedoPk]

Phil- The unit does come with a 30 day money back guarantee, and as far as I could tell in the store no dead pixels.

From comments on Amazon, most universal remotes won't work with it (non-standard codes) and it's remote won't control other devices. If I purchase the unit I'll buy the real remote for the unit so it will work with all the extended functions.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...activeda227-20

For a low-mid $300 tv, would you recommend this particular deal or would you give up size, the dvd, or hd functionality and go with something else?

[DAULEY]

i have dells they are about the best www.dell.com
if you want a cheep one go to walmart 17inch ranging from 200up

[synack]

My experience with Mintek has also been with the little portable DVDs devices. And with those the LCD screens are usually pretty mediocre. Now, your device is surely much better quality wise than a $150 portable device. The $300 price tag with DVD is really quite good!

I looked around quickly and what I find quite odd about this product is that NO ONE anywhere seems to have any warranty information on this unit. Not even Mintek's site (which has a section dedicated to manuals...but not a single manual is available!).

The gotcha about getting the less expensive LCD units is that the mfrs can cut corners on the design of the backlight system (inadequate cooling) and that their dead pixel policy's suck. With the resultion of the screen being 1280x768 that means that there are just under 3million transistors in that screen. It's just amazing that they can even get all those working on most screens! If any one of those go bad, that could mean a dead pixel at that spot. What sucks about the budget screens is that a mfr will not replace a screen under warranty unless a certain amount of dead pixels exist within a certain area. For example, there must be a minimun of 12 dead pixels within one square inch (size of quarter). So I would find out what the warranty policy is and keep an eye on that screen for the next 30 days!

[mattyboy]

Tux,
one big thing to remember when the heat goes out in the house the water pipes won't be the only thing that freezes and cracks

[TuxedoPk]

Tux,
one big thing to remember when the heat goes out in the house the water pipes won't be the only thing that freezes and cracks

Ouch... you really know how to hurt a guy! Aside from being the guy who owned the place it was really spectacular to see. Every toilet bowl had a solid block of ice in its tank. You could have kept a 6 pack cool for a month until it melted.

[Lenny]

Richard, I have a 17" Toshiba combo DVD/CD LCD tv at the end of the "bar height" run in my kitchen. It is for sitting on the stools and watching while someone is cooking or viewing from kitchen table. It gets more use than any other now. I also attached the ultra adjustable flush wall mount bracket to it and a pair of Logitech satelites and a sub woofer

Happy with it. It was about $575 US$ complete.

[TuxedoPk]

From everyone's comments it sounds like at that price the 23" Mintek is the way to go.

W/o a integrated HD tuner the high def part isn't really adding any value but it's always there.

Having the DVD player will be nice as it will allow me to eliminate the CD player on the same counter.