Possibly due to the disorientating effect of Christmas excess, we foolishly bought a too expensive, too large, too grey, widescreen LCD TV. On realising the full extent of its cost, size, naff plasticky greyness, we took it back. Richer Sounds (UK) don't do refunds on opened stock, but they do offer 14 day home trial if you exchange, refunding the difference. As we've decided we want a black, non-widescreen TV (which doesn't exist at Richer or indeed anywhere really, silver being the new black), I exchanged it for a DAB tuner. I think the salesman was a little put out (a significant refund, exchanging for a completely different product: I guess this wasn't really in the spirit of the home trial offer...), but did the exchange and remaining refund without making a fuss. Which was nice.
And on a slightly related note, though John Lewis's TV range is nowhere near as cheap as Richer's, they do offer a free 5 year guarantee. (Currys/Comet/Dixon and the like costs maybe 20-50% of the purchase price for a 3 year guarantee, Richer's is cheaper at 10% also for 3 years), which is definitely worth considering. And their customer support is somewhat less clueless/arrogant than Currys/Comet/Dixon. Oh, and I bought a refurb 14" iBook (couple of scratches, but big discount and 12 month guarantee) from them too.
LCD makes for awful TV, plasma works better, but is expensive, and doesn't last. At the moment the best technologies are conventional CRT up to about 78cm, and then projection technology for larger than that.
John Lewis are a great place to shop, they are often cheaper than other high street retailers, and as you say their staff are half decent. Richer Sounds are cheap and honest, and while they may not always sell the best stuff they are upfront about things - you can usually get a good deal from them if nothing else.
