Woohoo! I got a new TV!

I finally bought a flatscreen (LCD) television to replace my ancient 27" Sharp tube television. I came up with a few of what I consider to be good reasons for getting it:

1. It uses less power than the old TV,
2. I'll be able to read text on it from across the room, and
3. I got a great deal on it.

Ok, I'm not really sure whether it uses less power than the old one, but I think it does (anyone know how much power a typical LCD TV uses? What about an old tube?) And, as it turns out, the text is still hard to read. I really did get a great deal on it :)

I bought a Toshiba 37HL95. It's a 37" LCD. It has some pretty cool features, like hundreds of different inputs (dual antennas/NTSC/QAM/OTA tuners, a couple of composite inputs, component inputs, HDMI input, PC input, assorted A/V outputs, etc). And it looks great - not too big, not too small. And, of course the picture is stunning (over the air (OTA) HD rocks).

But like many things, it wasn't without issues. The first problem I ran into was with it's built in TV Guide feature. As part of the setup, I told the TV where I lived and who my cable provider is. Armed with that information, it can show me a TV guide, with the next week or two of program data.

Works great, except for one little thing... The guide lists the channels in random order. They're not in numerical order (e.g. channel 2, then channel 3, then channel 4, etc), nor is it in alphabetical order based on the network names (e.g. ABC first, then Bravo, then CBS, etc). It's just random.

Toshiba's web site had a link to email questions to, so I did. And they responded very quickly. But their answer wasn't too helpful:

Dear Sir/Madam,
Thanks for writing!
I apologize for theinconvenience.
I recommend contacting our Customer Solutions Department directly for assistance with your issue.
Their number is 1-800-631-381x and they are available Mon-Fri, 8AM-7PM Central time.

Not particularly helpful. I didn't really feel like calling, so I just lived with the issue (it's not really that much of an issue).

But then I started to think about securing the TV somehow in case of an earthquake for example. There are a couple of bolt holes in the back; they're meant to be used for wall mounting. Earthquake mounting, wall mounting, close enough. But I had no idea what size the bolts were. Rather than ask Toshiba, I went to the store I got the TV from - I figured not only would they know what size the bolts were, they might even have some.

Nope. They didn't know what size the bolts were, but they were perfectly happy to sell me a kit to mount the TV on my wall. So I e-mailed Toshiba support again. Seems simple enough, right? They responded, once again quite quickly with this:

Dear Sir/Madam,
Thanks for writing!
I apologize for the inconvenience.
I recommend contacting our Customer Solutions Department directly for assistance with your issue.
Their number is 1-800-631-381x and they are available Mon-Fri, 8AM-7PM Central time.

Look familiar? Yes, it's the exact same text, though each e-mail was signed by a different customer service representative, implying different people are dissing me.. I sent them another e-mail asking if there was a particular type of question they considered themselves capable of answering - they didn't respond, which I suppose answered my question.

But this time I took them up on their "contact the customer solutions department" suggestion. I first asked about the bolts - I mistakenly assumed they would have more details on the TV than I did. They did not. After 15 minutes and consulting "many" different sources (which I think mainly meant flipping through the owner's manual), the representative suggested I call a Toshiba service number (I eventually found a reference on the web - in case anyone is looking for them, the bolts are M6 (6mm), readily available at various hardware stores).

I then moved on to my next problem (the TV guide sorting). Yes, it's not important, but I wanted to give the rep a chance to answer a question, you know, go home thinking "well, I answered 50% of the questions I was asked today." I thought for sure this was just stupidity on my part.

Nope, it didn't happen. I explained the problem, and she said "that's the way your cable company sends them to the TV." Ok, fine, that's the way they send them, but they also send a "2" indicating channel 2, a "3" indicating channel 3, and so on. It seems logical to me that the TV would sort them using the channel number, no?

No, apparently it's not logical, because the TV just doesn't do it. But as sort of a consolation prize, the rep was going to open a trouble ticket of some sort with the programming group. That was several weeks ago, I've not heard back, so I'm guessing she was just messing with me - making me feel like she cared when she really didn't.

Toshiba's report card looks like this:

Television: A-
The TV is great - stunning picture, HD shows rock, and it's great having half a dozen different inputs, and I love the TV guide feature - especially the picture in picture deal where I can continue watching what I've decided I don't want to watch anymore while I look for the next thing I'm going to watch. But seriously, what were you thinking with the plastic bits in back for covering and holding the cables. There isn't nearly enough room in the back to run cables for all of those different inputs at one time. And the plastic bits covering the cables and holding them in place - I can't see them sticking around for too long (good thing I got the extended warranty)

Customer Support: D-
E-mail support wasn't helpful at all, unless I was looking for the customer service phone number, and the customer service person I spoke with was not able to answer any questions I had, nor has she (apparently) followed through on the trouble ticket she was going to open on my behalf.