Flashjeff

Between Best Buy, Circuit City and Sears, which of the three has the best selection, customer service, knowledgable salespeople and protection plans when it comes to purchasing an HDTV?

Ratman

They all have similar selections. There are some brands that one or the other doesn't.
If you're 'shopping'... you can get better info here.

Quality of customer service depends on the store and it's personnel.

Knowledgable salespeople? You don't have to be knowledgable to sell. They are few and far between!

Protection plans may be good depending on the fine print and price. If you want one, you may want to look at 'third party' plans that may be less expensive and not overlap with your manufacturers warranty.

Seared Steak

I would add location to your list. This could be very important if you did have a problem. In case of a mishap, will you have to wait a long time for a tech to come out? Will you be responsible for transporting the set to a local "service shop" in the event it can't be repaired in house? My advice would be don't count out the local B&M shops. Many times they can match or beat the price and offer equal if not better service than a chain.

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mkohrs

I agree with Ratman. My experience was that CC had more knowledgeable salespeople-in general. There will likely be one person in the store that knows how to correctly answer your questions. Read up on this forum first to get your facts straight, CNET has good HDTV info as well, Consumer Reports is pretty good. As far as protection plans, buy one direct from the manufacturer. They are 1/2-1/3 as much as the retail extended plans and they pick up where the originally warranty stops, rather than double-coverage for the first 1-2 years.

flyonthewall

If you have an AmEx card use it to buy TV. They double the warranty for free. I found best price via Amazon and best info right here.

Flashjeff

Seared Steak: From where I live, Sears is only a mile away, Best Buy and Circuit City around five. But I don't own a car, so taking something somewhere could be problematical.



Something else I wasn't aware about. I'll have to investigate that. Thanks, mkohrs!

bru87tr

Tweeter can have some good deals at times.

I got my Sony Wega 36XBR800 HDTV for $1100 new in box over a ayear ago. back then that was an unheard of price for that tv.

Splicer

Best Buy worked well for me. Got my set as a floor model that was marked down from 1899 to 1699 and I talked them down to 1350 WITH a set of monster component cables (I know but I needed something then and there so I got the cheapest ones). As the others have said, at the time it was an incredible price and even today I think it holds up just as well.

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Nightowl

I tried to buy my Philips at Best Buy, but they stopped selling the 30" I was interested in and didn't have a good alternative. I found it a week later at Costco's for $500 less than it would have cost me at Best Buy. I also found that while the guys there were knowledgeable, getting their attention to ask them questions was like pulling teeth.

corpkid12

I had absolutely horrible luck at SEARS. I'm sure it was just the sales staff there but I would have to figure that companies have policies on how much they need to know before they can work in certain areas. Circuit City and best buy both had knowledgeable people around (not as much as this forum) but I spoke with 4 people at sears and none of them knew the difference between a regular rear projection TV and a DLP rptv. I gave them the manufacturer's stock number and they still couldn't find out wether or not they had the TV I was looking for. I ended up buying my TV from crutchfield.com but would have bought it from Costco for cheaper if they hadn't run out of them before I could come up with the money.

armentage

In the NYC area, Circuit City's salesmen are usually a bunch of useless idiots. Young kids who don't know anything about what they are selling and seem disinterested in actually selling you anything.

BestBuy salesmen (again in the NYC area) are a little better...

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chefbigal

Figure out what you want. go to your local chinatown or indian store. pay by cash and you get no tax and free shipping. most likely you will talk to the owner of the store instead of some high school kids at those major store who knows nothing.

dbdynsty25

I agree...the sales staff i spoke to at Sears was terrible. It's a good thing I got all of my information from here and the AVS Forums before I went shopping so I knew what I wanted, regardless of what the sales guy was trying to sell me. That's the beauty of the internet.

The good news about Sears is that they were fairly easy to haggle with. I got my Hitachi 46F510 for $1200 (was $1425 on sale supposedly) along with the 5 year protection plan for $250 (the price of the 3 year plan) and free shipping. So basically I walked out the door under $1600 bucks.

They delivered on time and the set was pretty much perfect right out of the box. It's got quite an impressive picture.

ebubman

dbdynsty25.............wow, what a story. i'm shopping for our 1st hdtv. i'm curious, would you characterize it as difficult, easy, or somewhere in between to negotiate the favorable price you got @ sears? amazing...bub

Rich

Here in Connecticut, I think the Best Buys have the best selection of flat panel sets. Bestbuy also had a "no name" 42" ed plasma that had a really good picture, much cheaper than the Sammy that was next to it (that was a couple hundred more) (I cannot remember the name). CC and Tweeter's selection is not as good, IMO. On hd tube sets, I think selection is about the same.