After sharing a long and happy life with our 37" Panasonic TV, he'd turned 9 years of age and so we decided to upgrade the technology, and pass him on to my sister for her bedroom. We replaced Panny with an (allegedly) all-singing, all-dancing Samsung 40" model 15 months ago - our first ever Samsung product.
Based on our fault-free relationship with the old TV (which is still going strong by the way), we felt we shoulldn't have to be pressured into buying an extended warranty as (according to an EU directive), a brand new TV set of any make or model should last a minimum of four years anyway. Anyway I have to say we were very impressed with our first ever Samsung product... right up until this week. Remember, this TV is 15 months old, and just 3 months out of warranty.
We switched it on as usual the other day, and were horrified to see that the picture was very dark all over. And when I say very dark, I mean we couldn't make anything out on the Programme Guide at all, and the picture on every channel was exactly the same, left to right and top to bottom. We went back to our local branch of Curry's/PCWorld where we'd bought it from. They offered no help at all of course. In fact the only thing the Sales Assistant could come up with was an obnoxiously smug and rude comment about how we probably should have taken out their extended warranty after all.
So if anyone from the Samsung Corpration ever actually reads this comment, rest assured that not only will we not be recommending any Samsung products to friends, family and online associates, but we will make a point of actually steering them away from all Samsung products. Instead choosing to sing the praises of Panasonic and LG based upon our (now) almost 11-year-old TV from Panasonic which is still working perfectly. On a serious note, this is just not fair, it's very poor practice and customer service, and it serves as nothing other than to stamp all over any positive reputation which Samsung continues to try and build in the EU. Samsung should be ashamed!
