At the store we couldn’t decide between this one and the Samsung LN37A550 because they looked so similar. But then the completely unhelpful Video Only sales guy finally checked stock (after talking to him for 20min about the damn thing) and found out he didn’t have any, so that made the decision for us.

Video Only still has better prices than the big box stores (every model was exactly $100 less than the sale price at BB and CC, so they must watch their ads closely) and when we’ve bought stuff before they negotiated prices. This yahoo sales guy refused to budge on the prices for anything. He never once answered a question, never recommended one unit over another. All he did was parrot what was on the product tag. Kind of annoyed that we had to give him the sale; wondering if VO has moved away from commissions for their people.

The TV is stunning. I also bought a blu-ray player for downstairs and we popped in Ratatouille and were blown away. Later, I ran upstairs to watch a blu-ray on my older DLP and it couldn’t compare. So much for everybody saying you can’t see a difference between 720p and 1080p; you can.

Now I’m just waiting for the TivoHD to arrive. I found that tivo.com had refurb Tivo HDs for $179.