What Not To Own: A Rear-Projection TV

rptv If you want to find something that’s always available to buy right now on Craigslist, it’s used rear-projection televisions. These hulking masses of electronics positively litter not only Craigslist but just about everywhere else where things can be posted for sale freely.

So what happened? Why are these big-big TVs being sold left and right? Is there something inherently wrong with them? What’s the deal here?

A rear-projection television is a white elephant from the moment you buy it. The thing costs way too much to buy and always has, you will never get back what you paid for it (you’ll maybe get 20% or less if you’re lucky) and they have a really nasty habit of breaking down in less than 5 years.

What breaks down in rear-projection set can be anything and everything, usually all at once. Could be the color guns, could be the backlighting, could be the projector itself, etc.

Not only do RPTVs break down more often, they also cost more to repair, but woe be to the soul who actually has to move one of these things.

You’ll notice these days that most major OEMs dropped RPTVs from the lineup entirely; this is because LCD and plasma sets have dropped enough in price where the big hulking RPTVs are no longer necessary.

Here are my recommendations:

If you have an RPTV, get rid of it. If you don’t do it now, you won’t make a nickel off it in the future. There are still some fools out there idiotic enough to buy these things. Make sure to put in your ad that you absolutely will not ship it and that it’s local pickup only.

If you see cheap RPTVs in Craigslist and are enticed by the big-big screen, don’t buy it. Chances are very likely something is very wrong with it, and the problem won’t present itself until the set has been on for about 20 minutes. This means even if you test it before buying, it will probably still break after you get it home, confirming you just bought someone else’s white elephant.

Like what you read?

If so, please join over 28,000 people who receive our exclusive weekly newsletter and computer tips, and get FREE COPIES of 5 eBooks we created, as our gift to you for subscribing. Just enter your name and email below:

David M
Pretty much the CRT of the television industry.
Karl9s
My Sony KDS-55A3000 workhorse is running strong after all of these years! I have no plans of shelving it until it catastrophically fails. Sony finally got it right with this one after several oooops predecessor models.
Panda
One thing good about RPTV’s – the fresnel lens that is on the screen!
Here’s how to remove the fresnel:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Salvaging-the-Fresnel-Lens-from-a-Rear-Projection/
and here’s a neat thing to do with it:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Giant-Fresnel-Lens-Deathray-An-Experiment-in-Opti/
http://aaronfournier.50webs.com/ Aaron Fournier
I can’t say for certain, but I think my uncle had one of these things. It was very large and had a terrible viewing angle. Even when you were in the perfect spot, it still didn’t look that great. Thankfully he recently replaced it with a nice 50″ LCD.