In a few weeks, I will be retiring my trusty Epson SP 1280 for an Epson R2880. So far, the best price that I have found is at Tiger Direct. Consumer Reports gives this retailer a favorable rating and I have looked at comments posted online, which are mostly good. Does anyone have experience buying from this company?

I bought my Patriot Xporter 8Gb flash drive from Tiger Direct based on favorable reports I found through PriceGrabber, and

1. I found out after the fact that I could have gotten the same drive from Newegg for the same price but -0- shipping, a 25% saving. (TD charged me $7, which seemed excessive, but I'm a lousy shopper.)
2. I don't know if it had anything to do with TD, but I got my rebate relatively quickly.
3. I'm not really clear in my recollection, but I remember being unhappy about TD's delivery process...notification, maybe time, too.

The flash drive, though, is a winner...no problems with it.

That's the best I can do at the moment, Jon, but if I have any flashbacks I'll let you know.

Good luck with your new printer.

Edit: According to Shopzilla, CircuitCity matches TD's price, but you might also take a look at PCConnection Express, which is even cheaper after a $200 rebate and free shipping. (I've no experience with them!) (Never mind, too!)

I've had luck with both PriceGrabber and Shopzilla, so it'll probably be worth your while to go through the offerings presented at both websites.

Thanks, Artie. Newegg is out of the running for two reasons:

1. Their total price (including tax and shipping) is higher than TD.
2. Epson is offering a $200 rebate on the R2880 but they specifically exclude purchases from Amazon, Newegg, Best Buy and Office Max. It always pays to read the fine print in the rebate form before closing the deal.

I wasn't suggesting that you buy from Newegg, Jon, merely using them for comparative purposes.

(See my edit to my original post.)

Are you sure about the rebate amount? It appears to me that the $200 rebate was for products purchased between 02/01/09 and 03/28/09; the currently active rebate, for purchases made between 04/01/09 and 06/30/09, is for $100. At least, that's my take on the fine print.

Edit: never mind!

Ah! A quotation from Emily Litella (aka Gilda Radner on the old Saturday Night Live). For those who need to know, the current rebate (good through 7/3/10) is for $200. I downloaded the form from Epson a few weeks ago and it's waiting on my desktop for the great moment. As I'm sure you noticed, the link that you provided is for year 2009. Go to this Epson page and click on the link for Mail-in Rebate.

In all matters. The big print giveth but the small print taketh away.

ryck

To put some closure on this issue, I bought the printer from BuyDig. For financial reasons, I wasn't ready to make the purchase when I started this thread. In the meantime, TigerDirect raised the price from $650 to $800. BuyDig's price ($697) was the best that I could find and shipping was free. Service was excellent with the item shipping the next day; I received it the day after. The box was just the Epson box with no additional packing but Epson appears to have packed it really well.

I haven't yet set up the printer (it just arrived today) but I will be spending time with it tomorrow.

If anyone is looking for a good vendor, BuyDig has been very very good to me.