A Olevia 542i is not a good Flat Plan TV

Few things in a man's life are as precious as when he purchases his first Big Screen TV. King Arthur couldn't have felt as Royal as I felt sitting in my huge recliner in front of my 42" Olevia 542i LCD TV, hanging above my fireplace, hooked up to my surround sound. I was a card carrying "Hi-tech Redneck”. My heart racing, I manned the remote, pointed it at the TV and pushed the power button. It came on and it was an OK picture. Not yet ready to throw in the towel, I knew it may need some fine tuning, but then the remote stopped working all together. It wouldn't turn off with the remote plus the TV controls on the front of the TV didn’t work.
We waited until Monday and after holding for over an hour were told how to reset the remote. I must say this; once we reached tech-support they seemed to know just what the problem was and told us we may need to send them back this TV and we had two choices, give them our credit card number so they can put a lock on it for the amount of another TV and they would send another at once, OR send this TV and when they received it they’d send a replacement. Olevia has only been out a short time and there are no parts available.
Well, we reset the remote six times the first day. The picture has never gotten better than just OK. The screen has been covered with tiles a few times resulting in having to reset again and again. Resetting isn’t that big of a deal, you unplug the TV hold down some buttons on the remote and count to 15, then plug it back in.
I called the store I purchased the Olevia Flat panel TV from and asked my options, they said I had 90 days. I cut my losses and told them to come get it. Now let me say this: we did our research. We got on the computer and found where people had bought them and had "nothing" but good to say about this TV. I now believe that the Olevia people put those in.
The tech people didn’t sound surprised at all we were having problems and we did stay on hold for over a hour, that tells me somebody else is having problems too. I followed the instructions to the letter, the box arrived in perfect condition the TV was just junk. I have ordered a Toshiba 42” as a replacement, my old TV was a Toshiba and it has been a great TV, I wanted the new flat panel and the bigger screen. The American Way “Bigger and Better”.


Wayne Cox
Tyler, TX.
WayneCox@cox-internet.com