Sorry about your experience with Sammies. Did you check Costco? They have 2 year warranty on all Tvs and 90 days satisfaction guarantee IIRC. Another question, do you only watch dvd/bluray or also download videos?
I'm strictly a DVD and Blu-ray guy. Now that Winnipeg is FINALLY starting to get OTA HD, I look forward to watching the main network programming in HD...which once again highlights the fact that my current big set has no HD capable receiver although my little 22" Sammy can pull in the signal quite nicely.
I'm actively trying to avoid movie downloads as part of my ongoing effort to streamline the various services I subscribe to.
I will say that I don't want to be a Samsung naysayer and I don't want to "warn" people away from them. I realize many people swear by them and I'm perfectly OK with that. But, when I look at my own situation, I can imagine how foolish I would feel if something went wrong:
"Hey Dex, hows that new Samsung TV"?
"Geez, it ain't working right".
"Have you owned Samsung products before"?
"Yes".
"Were they good"?
"No, I had trouble with them".
"If you had trouble with your other Samsung stuff then why were you stupid enough to buy a freakin' big Samsung TV"?
So I just can't justify it to myself.
Regarding Costco and others...no...I haven't looked there yet. And if nothing comes of my current search, I will certainly consider them.
I should add that there is FOR THE SHORT TERM an incentive for me to deal with the Sharp that I have my eye on. With both Future Shop and Best Buy having this set on sale in their national flyers, it's giving me a bargaining position with the local shops. For example, I just checked and discovered that Best Buy is offering five times the Reward points on this TV. That works out to about $130.00 in Best Buy gift certificates. That gives me one more thing to take to the stores next week and say, "OK, you're all offering me the same set at the same price...but Best Buy is gonna give me a $130.00 gift certificate as well...can you throw a little something extra in the deal so that I should get it from you instead"?
I should be able to come in UNDER 2K.
All that being said, this particular sale ends on the 27th. I'm sure, of course, another sale will come along. But for this particular cycle, when FS and BB end the sale, I loose my leverage with the other stores for this particular model. That's not a problem if I really want another set but it will sorta' lock me out of this one. The secondary problem is that I don't want to keep showing up at the same stores trying to squeeze deals and never following through. I realize salesmen want to sell but I don't want to be in a position where they say, "Hey, aren't you the guy that comes in here every month, negotiates a big discount and then never buys from me?"