As I mentioned in a comment on a previous post, I decided on which TV to buy and went out and bought it. Here’s a little post about the buying experience, which was less than enjoyable.
I saw this deal at Future Shop for the Samsung LN-T4661F and after doing a bit of research, decided it was a decent deal and the TV was about what I was looking for. BTW, in case that link dies, the deal was $1799.99 for the TV, plus you could add a ‘home theatre package’ to it for an extra $200. The home theatre package was basically an amp / DVD player combo and 5 speakers. Sold on its own, it’s $499 so I thought an extra $200 was reasonable.
Anyways, I headed into the FS in Kanata and started looking around to see if I could find the TV on display. After a short while, I found it, with no help from anyone. I stood around for a while, watching the TV, making sure it performed ok, etc. After a short time, I started looking for someone to help me out, but unfortunately this was difficult to find.
Eventually I flagged somebody down and asked him a few questions. I wanted to actually hear the TV – so I could see what it would sound like without hooking it up to a home theatre system. I also wanted to see what a standard def signal would look like on it, because, like I said before, there are still a lot of channels / shows we watch in standard definition. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to show me a standard def signal, but after considerable effort he was able to get sound piped into the TV so I could hear it.
I asked about the return policy, asking if I could simply return the TV if I wasn’t happy with it, and he started spouting off about how they like to spend some time with me now to make sure I’m getting the right TV for me, and not just cause it’s on sale, etc… I eventually got him to say that yes, I could simply return the TV within 30 days. He then started going on about extended warranties, and how if I didn’t believe him (that they were good), we could go and check CNET for their opinion on extended warranties. I really didn’t want to waste the time doing this with him, but he kind of insisted. We spent way too much time with him searching for information and eventually giving up. The one thing he did find was something saying you should consider extended warranties for laptops and plasma TVs. Hehe.
Finally I convinced him that I was serious and would like to purchase the TV today. I also told him I’d like the deal with the ‘home theatre package’ to which he responded that they were out of stock on that. He said that he could just bring it in from the warehouse though and I could pick it up at a later date. Fine with me. We went over to a computer and started the deal.
He asked me a bunch of questions and typed in a bunch of information before realizing that he had to do the TV and home theatre package separately since the home theatre package would have to be brought in from the warehouse. We started again. I gave him all the requested info again and he punched it all in. He screwed up again, he had punched in the home theatre package as a regular sale instead of ‘layaway’ sale. As a result, we next had to go up to customer service to see if we could get the girls up there to fix it. He took me up there and left me with them, saying he was going to get the TV. Thankfully the girls at the customer service desk know what they are doing – they had me fixed up in no time flat. Kudos to them for that.
I wandered back to find the salesman bringing the TV out from the back. He unboxed it and plugged it in – to make sure thing were good before giving it to me. I had already been at the store way too long by this point, but figured this was a good idea since I didn’t want to end up with a dead TV out of the box at home. It was a good thing that we did this test – the TV was in fact dead. The bad thing is that it took him about 20 minutes to come to this conclusion and then another 15 or so minutes to realize the solution was to go and get another TV.
He got the second TV and we powered it up. (He had some concerns about using the power cord from the 1st TV but I pressured him in the interest of saving some time) This second TV looked good so we boxed it back up and he picked it up with the dolly and we headed for the door. The TV looked precariously balanced on the dolly to me and the guy didn’t seem to be taking too much care in his manuvering – as a result, when we got out the door and he attempted to get down from the curb onto the road, the TV fell off the dolly and crashed to the ground. He suggested I go and get my car and bring it to the door rather than him wheeling the TV the few metres to the car. Whatever…I went to get the car. As we were loading it into my car, I made a comment about how I hoped nothing had happened to it when he dropped it, to which he replied that we could go back inside and fire it up again. I declined, again in the interest of saving time.
On my way home I stopped into Costco to pick up a wall mounting bracket for the TV. Man those things aren’t cheap. $100 and a bit of work later, I’ve got the TV hanging on the wall in the family room. Looks pretty good – but I need to cut a few holes in the drywall and route the cables (power and HDMI) behind the wall so things look cleaner. We also need to pick up a piece of furniture to put the cable box on.
I’ve used the TV for just over a week now and I’m really happy with it. Even without the home theatre package, I think it sounds good, at least as good, if not better than my old Sony (which is now in the basement). I’ve called back to Future Shop to see what the deal is with the home theatre package but have gotten nowhere. There were supposed to call me back but that hasn’t happened. I think I’m just going to go and get my money back ($200 + tax) for the home theatre package and be done with it. When I finally get around to finishing my basement and actually setting up a home theatre, I’m sure I’ll probably want something newer anyways.
The TV is still on sale for $1799.99, at least until Feb 7th, so if anyone is in the market for a new TV – I’d definitely recommend this one. You may want to do yourself a favour and avoid the store by buying online… :)
My sister in Iqaluit decided to order a 40″ (or more, not too sure) from Costco and they shipped it up (via air) for free!
Their return policy is also 30 days and I’ve never, ever had any hassles from their employees about returning items.
Foo – I can’t speak to what Costco’s official return policy is, but I can say that I was able to return an external HDD I bought there almost exactly a year after I bought it and I got ALL of my money back. I used that money to buy a drive that was double to size of the original. :)