one of those "who'd a thunk it" things...
 

Eight years ago I was needing a small TV set for the bedroom. I hit the usual spots and there wasn't much choice in 13" sets. I did want it to be stereo and to be able to receive all the cable channels. If it did DVD's, that was a bonus. I found this one at Wally World for $75 in the closeout/defective pile. It no longer had its box, but the remote, antenna and manual were still present. There was a note taped to the screen that the remote was inoperable. So, I took a chance and bought it. The remote was an easy fix. I can't remember what it was, but it was something like a disc cap or resistor. The set was rather dusty and smudged up, so I took it apart and gave it a proper scrubbing and was surprised to see gold-banded resistors and Nichichon caps on the board! It gets about two hours of play in the morning and again in the evening before bed. I would have never thought it to have lasted this long, but its still going.
It has decent audio from its twin 3" speakers and very good DVD performance. Who'd a thunk it!?! :scratch2:

http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...1&d=1325437383

Is that an Orion-built Emerson? It looks like it has practical placement of the speakers. The Funai-built sets have tiny speakers placed on the bottom and they sound very tinny.

I'm not sure, but I think it was made by Orion. Oh and get this, it has a coaxial digital out on it!

Hey Dan
If it was an Orion, I'm not surprised. They made the crt in my 1981 Portland 19" color..rest of that set was Daewoo. still looks very good.
Over Funai, IMO, these dvd portable 13inchers were more reliable...
Great plus that its got coax s/pdif out

Nice pic BTW!

Rare to find quality electronics at Walmart anymore. Nice score on this.

Well, remember...this was eight years ago! :yes:

I worked on TV's for several years and I can't believe how well these sets perform and their reliability. I worked on color sets when they started selling well in the mid-sixties. They needed repairs at least twice a year. Three times or more a year for Magnavoxes and Sears models.

I realize that smaller CRT screens are going to almost always deliver better pictures, but this one on strong signals and DVD is astounding.

It's kinda like the late 80s 19" Quasar I use out in the shop. Picture on it is quite strong.

...or like my '76 store-brand XAM.
Sometimes they just last seemingly forever

I thought I'd give this old thread a nudge. Anyone else have a cheapo set that's proven itself to be reliable with a good picture?

Actually.....ALL of my little "Coby" style chinese sets. Once I GET them to be in good shape, they seem to never degrade so far. I've had them SHOW UP broken and abused, but in the six years or so since I found and rescued the first one....not one of them has broken yet. I use the ones that have RCA jacks quite often and I've never had to open one up after whatever initial attention it needed.

Almost all of the other sets "drift" in some direction or another....geometry, dirty tuners or whatever, especially ALL the old Sony sets.

I saw a magnavox similar to that one at the local thrift for 12.95. It even had the flat crt, a digital tuner and the dvd! The hoarder in me really wanted to snag it, but the voice of reason (aka- the wife) reminded me that we didn't need it, lol.

Got a 2005 Durabrand DWT 1905 I'm holding onto in case the '99 GE mentioned below takes a dump. It looks surprisingly good as well.

Found a $10 GE 13"set at SA thrift store that WOULD stay on channel 4 if unplugged, which is just what my 90 year-old customer does to both it and the RCA converter box when not using it. I put green paint on the power buttons she needs to hit to get the TV and DT box on, white paint on the volume and blue on the channel button. Living on a hilltop, she gets 44+ channels with an Antennacraft HBU-22 in the yard. Who needs cable?

Back in '03, my Brother-in-law bought a 24" SPC Apex TV for $129.99. He was going on about what a good deal he got on it and that it even came with a two year parts and labor warranty at no extra charge. We all know that Apex is considered BOTL Chinese junk and I was thinking, "This thing will be doing good if it last until the warranty runs out". Well, it lasted until last night. They were watching it when the TV suddenly lost vertical deflection. He said that he changed channels and the picture came back up and then collapsed to a line again. He decided to get a flatscreen and said I could fix/sell it or use it for parts. I opened the TV and found one pin on the vertical IC that had next to no solder on it and was wiggling. I resoldered the vertical IC and the TV is now working again. The picture is not bad, considering it's a ten year old low end Chinese TV. I guess some of that cheap Chinese junk actually lasted.