Panasonic PT-50LC14 50" Widescreen HD-Ready Television
Nice picture, expensive to maintain, poor technical support
I purchased the PT-40LC12 in late 2002 since then have had to replace the lamp twice at a cost of $300 each and the lamp ballast at $1,000. Panasonic claims life expectancy of the lamps to be 5,000 hours, but my experience has been about half that. <br /> <br />With the latest problem, Panasonic technical support was not helpful at all -- after a 30 minute wait for a technical representative, I was told to go to an authorized repair center (50 miles away). The tech. at the repair center knew immediately the problem (and also had two other Panasonic LCD sets in for the same type of repair). Subsequent calls to Panasonic technical support resulted in long waits on hold (25, 26 and 47 minutes respectively). <br /> <br />I have no complaints about the quality of the picture, but I am concerned about the lack of tech. support and the fact that Panasonic appears to be ignoring a known problem with reliability.  <br /> <br />Perhaps they have improved quality and reliability with newer generation models like the PT-50LC14.   <br /> <br />In general, however, I would be wary of purchasing a rear projection model that requires a costly high-intensity lamp that is not considered a warranty item and has a low life expectancy.