They're actually the largest manufacturer of TV's in the EU, together with their home appliances brands their revenues last year were over USD 3.5 billion. Not a small player.
Sure they keep to certain price points and they cannot compete with the big boys for picture quality given exactly that reason, but I don't believe they're crap. Their OLED line will be released within the next few months, and they've recently started their in-house R&D function which means they'll start developing their own imaging engines (e.g. as in Sony's Bravia etc). To-date they've been bulk sourcing imaging boards and power supplies from the Chinese marketplace, and they're aware the failure rate of these is higher than the in-house branded boards the big brands use, not to mention the picture quality being inferior. However, again, they get to keep to a certain set of price points allowing many of us without a £500+ budget to buy a 40-48 inch TV.

If anything, Vestel and UMC-Slovakia have shown the big boys where to go with their inflated pricing - just look at the pricing trajectory that Sony, Samsung and LG have been forced to follow over the past two years.

I've 2 of these cheap sets at home, a 32 inch Vestel re-badged Pana in a bedroom and another 32-inch UMC re-badged Sharp in our conservatory. We use the Sharp almost daily for a few hours, still going strong after a year. I paid only £129 for it in the recent Argos sale, even has Freeview HD which works perfectly.

Many moons back I remember paying £300 for a 14 inch CRT TV, had to pay for it on a hire purchase scheme (or my credit card, can't remember!) for 12 months. The screen was too small to watch from more than 6 feet away in order to make out detail, yet at shorter distances your eyes would hurt if you watched it for more than an hour or so due to the scan lines.

Can't believe how far we have come in terms of both innovation and pricing, by no small means due to players like Lucky, GoldStar, Orient, Samsung etc breaking into Western markets with their cheap and cheerful electronics - these were the Vestels of yesteryear.

And how do you know that? Any proof or is this cheap talk?

Boxed?

Great price for 4k and 3D!

Wow hot!

V

Bear in mind it's unlikely to be true Panasonic. A lot if these cheaper models are The Turkish built Vestel TVs.

You get what you pay for. That is all

manufacturer refurbished

Also possible issue with the smart, heard that certain apps won't update along with flash player so can't use YouTube.

Any reviews out there?