Five Cent Deposit

Hey there. Wondering if any of you guys have a recommendation for a decent place to buy a DLP (or whatever) in the city. I tried Harvey's but I thought the guys there were huge douchebags. I don't want someone trying to shove a $5000 plasma down my throat when I say clearly that I am looking for a DLP in a lower price range. My problem with the obvious Circuit City or Best Buy type places is, of course, that the TVs are always set up wrong and they all look like crap. Advice?

CaptDS9E

I know JandR.com is in the city and they carry a few DLP's

Five Cent Deposit

Thanks. I've actually been to J&R and it is terrible. And I mean TERRIBLE. I thought they'd be set up better than the big chains but they were actually worse. I'm looking for advice from someone who has had a positive experience at a smaller store.

toddly6666

I live in NYC and did a year's worth of research before buying my HDTV. I bought my Sony XBR from J and R, but I only bought it there from my extensive research on HDTVs and because of the cheap price at J and R, not from those dumbass non-helpful douchebags whom work there that stand around chattering. The moral of the story is that they are all freaking stupid and have no knowledge of the kind of HDTV questions that we have. If you do the research on the internet, you will learn a lot more than those salespeople. The HDTVs are never set up correctly in a store. Basically, if you are choosing an HDTV from viewing it in the store, just choose the one that looks the best to you. When you get home and set it up, it will look even better. There's no way it can look worse.

The following is the list of NYC stores that I dealt with from best to worst :
1. P.C. RICHARDS & SON: best experience at this store with chill salesmen - they don't know anything though. Good listeners and they enjoy talking to customers.
2. BEST BUY: extremely nice, but they have no understanding of their HDTVs.
3. CIRCUIT CITY: they are just looking for the sale. A bit spaced out, no understanding of HDTVs, but overally they are neutral acting. Best set-up of DLPs.
4. J & R: worst experience here. Bad listeners. They know nothing about HDTVs and they answer questions with answers that have nothing to do with the question. Bad service, they all stand around, hard to get attention of a salesman. Nice selection of tube HDTVs and plasmas though.

Five Cent Deposit

Funny. I've actually told myself not to even bother with P.C. Richard. Maybe I'll check it out though. I'm near a couple of them. I guess... when I read about models online, sometimes reviews (or general consensus) are like "OMG Samsung DLP so great OMG", but when I see them in person my own feeling is more like "Uh. This looks bad. Worse than SD. I'm fucked."

Thing is, I don't care much about true HD broadcasting, and I'm not eager to jump into HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. I have hundreds of DVD's, an Xbox, an Xbox 360, and I'm planning on getting the OPPO player to replace my aging Sony carousel. What I've read is, you can get fantastic performance from a 720p DLP for these applications. But... then something like this happens:

My girlfriend is a movie editor and she comes home and tells me that her boss (the movie's director, duh) is complaining that DVDs look absolutely HORRIBLE on his new fancy widescreen HDTV. Well, shit. Then I go into a Circuit City or whatever and see that whatever they are looping through their HDTVs (Matrix or some other "awesome" flick) looks horrible. Great. Making side-by-side comparisons shouldn't be so hard.

toddly6666

Five Cent Deposit,
I have the same reasons as your for HDTV - i don't care about TV channels in HD and I will not support any of the new High def DVDs - I have hundreds of DVDs and they look fine as is.
If all you care about is picture quality, go with Sony....There is something that bugs me about Samsung and Panasonic too, but Sony looks the best I think. You also got to be careful in these stores when they are playing animated movies, such as on Philips or Toshiba HDTVS - the animated movies look good, but when watching a normal movie, it makes a movie shot on film look like its shot like a day-time soap opera, and I don't mean looking like digital video - it's like watching the making-of the film on the extras DVD.

If you are limiting yourself only to DLP, then you are stuck with Samsung, which isn't that bad, but doesn't look as good as a Sony HDTV

Kromax

Consider this another endorsement for PC Richard & Son.

Five Cent Deposit

toddly- I'm not limiting myself to DLP. One reason I want to see these things in person is so that I can tell for myself if they are all they are cracked up to be. Samsung's DLPs are extremely popular with the online folk. The comments I made in the OP are just about aggressive, pushy salesmen that don't listen.

Kromax- I'll definitely check out P.C. Richard. Thanks.

digitalfreaknyc

I bought my HDTV, my last flat screen AND my DVD recorder from PC Richards. I won't buy anything anywhere else. They always give me a good deal. I've gotten all of them for just over cost and they price matched the internet.

Five Cent Deposit

price matched the internet? WHOA. Okay, everyone fess up- which P.C. Richard locations have you had your good experiences at?

digitalfreaknyc

Well..they value good customers...and I could've just lucked out that I ended up speaking with the store manager. I've bought all mine at the one in Astoria.

dkny75

I live in Manhattan and after looking at all 4 of the big retail stores, I ended up ordering my DLP from TVAuthority.com. They actually have a warehouse in Long Island so it only took a couple of days to be delivered to my apartment. Plus I didn't have to pay sales tax since they are located in California.

Five Cent Deposit

broadwayblue

I live in NYC and bought my panny HD projector from Dell.com (hard to beat with % off and $ off stackable coupons + panny mir) my panny plasmas from visualapex.com (they have excellent prices, are authorized dealers, and have the BEST customer service I've ever known.)