What an idiotic statement. 90% of the worlds electronic components are manufactured in China, as are iPhones for heaven's sake. 2 years!

We have a brand war

Now £324 with vouchercode

Thanks for this - ordered, not looking for anything too special, just a cheap 4k smart tv that will tide me over.

So Bonzobanana - would you say this set is decent for the price?

I went into a local dealership the other day and saw a Panasonic tv with horrible judder and wondered if it was a Vestel model. I remember the number included 500 so was part of the 500 series. A horrible tv and not actually Vestel now it seems. A quick look online confirms it was made in the Czech Republic and seems to have a much lower motion interpolation than the Vestel chassis likely based on a even lower performance chipset at its core.

I might add my Vestel is based on a quad core chipset but Panasonic seems to have gone with a lower performance dual core arrangement for their 4k CX400 series of last year so not comparable to some other Vestel models. How long Panasonic remains in tv's in Europe anyway is debatable. They have already withdrawn from the US market which made their showing at CES with their new OLED range using LG panels all the more weird when they aren't intended for that market. The Panasonic badge means very little nowadays certainly not premium anymore its really just a badge slap on other people's technology. They don't make or design the panels or the chipsets at the heart of their televisions. Samsung and LG are the market leaders with technology with pretty much the chinese companies in pursuit. So the point is Panasonic tv's are inferior now to many other Vestel brands either because they are lower spec'd vestel models or just lower spec in general which they screw together themselves in the Czech Republic. Hardly a premium brand for their entry level models at least.

Look, I'm not going to get into another argument - I was merely expressing my own opinion from what I've seen with my own eyes and experienced first hand. If you're happy with your Vestel, then fair enough and good luck to you.

As a side note it seems that Panasonic have stopped Vestel manufacturing their cheaper models - maybe they've finally realised that sticking a premium badge on an inferior product wasn't a good idea.

I prefer to go with the real statistics of a wide range of reviews and the reliability ratings of 10s of thousands of people. If you are a service engineer how on earth can you form an opinion without working out the ratio of failed sets to working. Vestel had something like 40% of the lcd market in the UK a few years ago and the rest of it was shared by many other brands. Clearly as a service engineer you were likely to see more. Some service engineer forums have stated UMC as worse. I understand DOA is different to long term reliability.

My 4k vestel tv doesn't buzz at all and I often use it silently as a pc monitor when web browsing. It's faultless and fast in operation.

You only have to look at a page like this which is full of vestel tv's to see end users are generally very pleased with their sets.

http://www.argos.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Browse?storeId=10151&langId=110&catalogId=25051&mRR=true&c_1=1%7Ccategory_root%7CTechnology%7C33006169&c_2=2%7C33006169%7CTelevisions+and+accessories%7C33008651&c_3=3%7Ccat_33008651%7CTelevisions%7C33017148&r_001=1%7CBrands%7CBush%7C1&cmpid=GG05X&_$ja=tsid:13536|cid:137130765|agid:7462990485|tid:kwd-67526741685|crid:168105500547|nw:g|rnd:5296243351471559159|dvc:c|adp:1t1&gclid=CjwKEAiAtefDBRDTnbDnvM735xISJABlvGOv_OLUaAFTZZUaWbroOksJlY8YJUYyD-uUVmJN8UWnuRoCS_fw_wcB

When you compare to Sony review ratings on the same site they are actually lower on average.

http://www.argos.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Browse?s=Relevance&storeId=10151&langId=110&catalogId=25051&mRR=true&c_1=1%7Ccategory_root%7CTechnology%7C33006169&c_2=2%7C33006169%7CTelevisions%20and%20accessories%7C33008651&c_3=3%7Ccat_33008651%7CTelevisions%7C33017148&r_001=1%7CBrands%7CSony%7C1

The evidence doesn't support your view either with consumer review ratings or the which reliability survey. Many field service engineers don't even see the DOA stock because its returned directly to the supplier to be reprocessed on a larger scale.

how is the smart feature on this TV? Netflix, BBC, ITV, YouTube etc all work OK?

I have learnt so much unnecessary information from this post

Nope, I've not seen the inside of a Vestel or UMC factory but I have seen and worked on the innards of the product they produce.

You only have to read the reviews on Vestel made TV's - Like the Techwoods, DigiHome and low end Panasonics to see they all have issues out of the Box. Their current 4K offerings 48-55" all buzz like mad when you lower the backlight basically because Vestel opted to use a cheap transformer. On their backlit (not the edge lit) models they now try and use as few LED's as possible so they drive the few they install harder, brighter so they fail prematurely. I've poked around a few Vestel's both working and nonworking and to me they're designed to fail and built to as cheaply as possible - Electronically, they're designed terribly using components at or very near their rated limit. UMC on the other hand use off the shelf boards which are better designed and more reliable, also easier to fix in my opinion. This is reason I rate UMC over Vestel when it comes to TV's.

Sharp is still involved in the design and development of its TV's under licence to UMC. UMC then acquired sharp production plant in Poland to manufacture the televisions. So UMC produces Sharp TV's now with design and development support from sharp from the same manufacturing plant which used to produce sharp to Europe prior to the agreement.

I'd be interested how you've come to the conclusion that UMC are better than Vestel, what evidence do you have to support it? Have you actually seen the Vestel factory its pretty much state of the art in Europe and even assemble their own panels. Vestel claim the lowest DOA rates in Europe. Check out AVforums just to see how good top end branded tv's do. I don't think you can simply claim Vestel are worse. Panasonic has vestel based models in their range, entry level large sets and small screen sets and remain the most reliable brand according to Which. Technika was one of the worst performers according to Which and are UMC. Don't get me wrong I'm not stating its a black and white situation but when you look on AVforums you see many top brands with lots of issues and returns. The current flagship under £1000 is the Samsung KS7000 range and seem to have major issues. I've got a Vestel made Finlux set and its brilliant, my mother has a UMC bedroom set and its basic but gets the job done. Both are fit for purchase and have shown themselves to be reliable.

This is a thread about Sharp tv's and when they made their own CRT sets in Spain they were the least reliable CRT sets you could buy according to Which many years ago they then stopped production and used Vestel for their CRT sets just before LCDs came in and there was a huge improvement in reliability. I've still got an old Vestel 21" CRT Hitachi set going strong without issues.

Your post implies that the components used won't last 2 years because they are made in China which is patently untrue.

Jeez, talk about an over reaction - notice the bit where I stated "generic parts"

I have no issue with made in China products, I have two iPads, an iPhone and a plethora of other made in China items that are perfectly fine including a made in China Hisense side by side Fridge Freezer as well as a Hisesne 4K TV. The likes of Apple have their stuff manufactured in China to THEIR specifications where as UMC, Cello, Seiki etc just buy whatever's cheapest off the shelf, make it fit and stick a brand name on it in an attempt to fool customers into thinking they're buying Japanese quality - example, this deal.

You only have to read comments on reviews for these rebadged TVs to see they're plagued with issues that you never see on a main brand TV - also have a look at comments on previous deals on here. They're not made to last at all. They're made to see the customer past the one year mark and guarantee obligations, usually lasting two years or so depending on usage.

Also I'd like to know what you thought was idiotic about my original post, everything I stated was perfectly true.

Thanks, that is really tempting as I have a friend with staff discount, now the question is, any chance of a staff double discount any time soon?

What an idiotic statement. 90% of the worlds electronic components are manufactured in China, as are iPhones for heaven's sake. 2 years!

Is it a 10-bit or 8-bit display? I want to get a 10-bit tv under 400 for xbox one. Any advice?

2 year mark? What utter nonsense.

Thing is, there are so many sets now and there arent many reviews at all of the 'smaller' ie 43-49 " sets, even with the bigger name brands like Sony and Samsung. There are a lot of reviews of 50"+ sets across the board and a lot of reviews of the higher end models, but with these it seems you are relying on word of mouth and customer reviews/AVforums etc.

What would your recommendation be for around £350 then? Would you suggest the Hisense over this?

Sharp's in-house manufactured TV's were quality until they sold their European TV operation to UMC in early 2015 - especially their bigger examples. They were well made, with quality components and often over engineered but they couldn't compete with the likes of LG, Samsung and even Vestel churning out budget TV's, basically there was no profit in TV manufacturing for Sharp.

UMC TV's are better than Vestel but they're basically a collection of cheap generic parts (all made in China) and will likely not last past the two year mark.

Personally if I couldn't find a reliable review I'd avoid

A couple of other things to note-

It is also available at Tesco for £349.99. No discount codes but somebody might have a load of clubcard vouchers saved up and/or staff discount making it a viable option.

The closest model I can find is this one on amazon:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sharp-49-Inch-Ultra-Smart-Freeview/dp/B01N8Q6MQT/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

This looks to be essentially the old version of the same TV (the one on AO is the 49CUG8462KS whereas the amazon one sold for £450 is the 49CUG8362KS).

That one has good reviews generally speaking so for £329 I think it looks to be cracking value. That said, having just checked again, the reviews on that page are all for an older 40 inch model. Not very helpful amazon!

Sharp TVs in Europe are made under license by UMC as are Blaupunkt I believe, might give you an idea of the quality to expect and to confuse matters further in the U.S Sharp is part of the Hisense brand.

Not turkey vestel then !

it's in my basket for £329 not £329.99 every penny counts xx

PERKBOX20 gets you £20 off so £329