Two decades is an LCD screen's life expectancy

By Andy Walker

What is the life expectancy (in hours) of a brand-name LCD HDTV? Is there any way to find this information out from the manufacturer when buying an HDTV?

Brand-name manufacturers say their LCD TVs have a life expectancy of about 60,000 hours. That means you could watch your TV eight hours a day for more than 20 years before it fails. By comparison, a plasma TV has a life expectancy of 30,000 to 60,000 hours (10 to 20 years of watching eight hours of TV per day).

Manufacturers don't get specific on the number of hours any given TV will last or publish those numbers in their specifications. These are only general guidelines. I suppose they don't want upset consumers coming in to their offices in a decade's time angrily stomping their space boots because their TVs only lasted 8.6 years.