Hey Peng,
I am in Ottawa, and I have been to both Best Buy and Futureshop. I saw the deal at BB (thanks for the heads up though) but have to go back to BB tomorrow night because the guy I know there isn't in til Friday.
So I went to Futureshop too, it was funny because FS knew nothing of the Pio dropout until I told them a few weeks ago. Long story short I told the sales guy there i want to buy a 6020 and he goes "Oh I'll cut you a good deal!" So he hums and haws and comes back to me and goes "OK, if you buy an extended warranty, I can sell you a 6020 for $5499!"
I just shook my head. $5500 is BB's list price, but futureshop's list price is $6499. Quite the deal, huh? Oh, and guess how much the extended warranty costs at FS? $999 for 4 years of extra warranty.
So yeah, he cut the price down $1000, but just added $1k back in via the warranty. Pretty lame, IMO... so I just went home.
A week or two later I went back to FS and talked to the same guy. I told him I am still interested in the 6020 and I could drive a few hours across the US border and pick up a 6020 for about $5500 CDN tax in... but admittedly I'd rather buy local than go through the hassle of driving there and back and bringing the TV through the border. But at least I had a little bargaining power on my side this time.
So then he changed his tune a little, he said he could go about $5k, but at that price he'd also have to sell me an extended warranty too to negate the lower price of the TV itself. By the time you factor in the TV, the warranty, the taxes it's still going to cost 7 friggin grand. I understand these are cream of the crop units but 7k? Come on.
I don't know why, but it seems like no one wants to budge on the list prices here in Ottawa really.
What makes you say that BB will not deal, but FS will? I was kind of hoping that BB will cut me a little slack, I'm going to go there tomorrow night and talk to a sales guy I know, but I'm not holding my breath that's for sure.
When I first saw that BB was running the 6020 on sale, I called my contact at best buy to see if he had any stock. He said he didn't but he has 6 on order coming in in the next couple weeks and he would hold one for me. Then I asked if he would still honor that sale price when they come in and he said "ya, no problem, it's not really much of a sale, only $165 off so I can keep that price."
Which then got me thinking, he's right, it isn't much of a sale at $165 off the list price.
Maybe I'm crazy and expecting too much, but when you say aggressively discount the price, what exactly do you mean by that and how confident are you of that statement? I'm getting no play here whatsoever. Mostly just looking to see if I am in the wrong and expecting too much maybe? In your opinion, what would you consider a reasonable price for the 6020?
If it means anything, during boxing day FS and BB had the 6020 on sale for $4899 CDN.
Anyways, if things don't work out tomorrow night at BB, I guess I'll just hold on to my money for a while and go back in the summer and try and swoop up a deal on a 6020 then, if there are any still around. Failing that, I guess I am looking at the 58 or 65 inch PZ850 Panasonic.
Do we have any notion the prices are going to stay where they are, or will they drop in the near future due to these sets being discontinued?
I have never seen a discontinued product not get clearance priced, but this may be the first.
Regarding the warranty on the non elite Kuro's: I am fairly confident in stating that the manufacturer's warranty is one year and the elites are two years, although I will dig deeper and post back with the results.
@ Flatpanelwisher:
I respectfully think you're making a mistake on jumping ship on that Elite. Current PDP's on the market can't touch the performance of the 5020/6020 models, let alone the elite versions.
If you have the money now, you had the set on it's way to you, I think you'll be waiting a long long time before you see Panasonic, LG, Samsung or whoever is left that will make a plasma that will trump the pure performance that is delivered by a Kuro Elite.
I'm not quite sure as to why you immediately washed your hands of the elite you bought, but if you had an extended warranty, I don't think any troubles were on your horizon... from what I understand (and correct me if I am mistaken) Pioneer has to stock parts to be able to repair these sets for a certain number of years as per US law. Again, this is just something I read after the fallout of this whole mess.
At any rate, again, I think you should reconsider that Elite if you are not willing to lower your expectations on PQ. Good luck.
