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I wanted to chime in earlier, but knew what I have to say will be controversial to the majority of early color television devotees.
How can one have a definitive answer to the question of this thread? It depends on one's perspective.
miniman82 makes a good point: The tubes and circuits of the 50's era televisions was what the engineers/manufactures had to work with at the time.
Electronic M makes an excellent point in the Model A analogy. Time passes and technology progresses.
In the 1950's, there was a standing joke, when you bought a color set, you had to hire an on-duty engineer to keep it running. Heat build up inside color televisions to my way of thinking is the number one destroyer of other components inside the set. I know it goes beyond that though.
Think about it from a consumer point a view. The average public did not possess the technical knowledge to repair and keep up their color sets in the 1950's era (and that includes me) unlike the majority of members here who have and had careers repairing televisions.
From my personal point of view and the controversial part, I would say the first practical color televisions were the Sony's starting in 1968. I remember the naysayers very well saying the Trinitron could not be made for larger CRT sizes. When Sony introduced their first 17 inch color set, they were on their way. With Sony, you now had personal portable solid state color sets as well as the monster 43 inchers with very reliable performance, simpler circuits, reduction in convergence requirements, etc.
I know many here take issue with the Sony's. The American color television industry disappeared as well as the jobs to sustain the old technology (tube sets) to Japan. The question of what was the first truly practical color set depends on the time and the perspective.
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