I wonder if people know that most air conditioners(in fact most electronic products, no matter what brand name) are made in China.
So when selecting air conditioners, do not worry about the product too much, as long as it meets your basic requirements. Any honest repairman will tell you that besides the outer grill design and a few frills all the products - compressor make, circuits, fan motor are virtually identical.
Look for the service that is promised by the maker. In this regard it has been my personal experience that almost all "manufacturers" like Samsung, LG etc use the services of some poorly trained local shop which they very grandly refer to as their "service centres" so some simiar fancy term.
At the end of the day, these are the people that will respond to your call for repair or service. And sorry to say that their basic work ethics and quality is still the same that it has been for the last 20 years.
Poor workmanship, effort to make money by increasing the scope of repair, trying to bypass the company and asking you to call "directly" to save money, using fake/poor quality spares etc.
My experience with Samsung was like this"
Repair company did not come for 3 days, claiming all their "engineers" are busy(what engineers, they are local boys that learn the rudiments of dismantling an A/C which any novice can do after watching it a couple of times. They have no knowledge of correct practices, basic safe working procedures etc) anyway.
Once here they haggled with me about the cost of repair, starting with Rs 2000 and finally settling for Rs 1200(no receipt given)
While examining the motor, I saw the repairman yank out the connections and later he just taped the wires back - no connectors.
This resulted in a short circuit after they returned my A/C and they disclaimed all responsibility when showing them the same wires had burnt the motor. They in fact claimed more money for its repair.
Swivel motor was not working after it was repaired - they said some part is broken and claimed money for its repair. It was pointed out to them that this was working before, but of course they denied they had anything to do with its non-functioning.
While these repairs were going on Samsung grandly announced a "free check-up" week during which no charges will be levied for a check-up but these guys still insisted on Rs 350 for each visit.
THE MOST IRRITATING PART IS that all efforts to contact Samsung have resulted in a typical response "we will look into the matter and get back to you". If you call their help line and ask to speak to someone higher up they will flatly tell you there is no-one else there and continue to stonewall any attempts to get to speak to someone senior.
So the bottomline is - FORGET SAMSUNG at least, they really dont give a damn. My other AC is a Bluestar, and for the last 18 months it has worked fine, so I have not required to use their repair service. However, all promises of 2 free services etc of both SAMSUNG as well as BLUE_STAR are nonsense, as NOBODY comes to do anything of that sort.
UPDATE 5 MONTHS LATER: I just thought I would update readers about the state of the Samsung AC about 5 months later - The A.C is still working. Thats the good news. The swivel is broken and nobody has repaired it. The front panel does not work. The only way for control is by the remote. If my remote is damaged/lost then I will really have problems. The cooling is not as good as it was, and it is definately noisier. The plastic removable air filter frame broke when I was cleaning it. This was in spite of my best efforts to be careful but the frame is so thin that it broke. There is extensive rusting on the compressor body.
In conclusion - 18 months after purchase the AC is on its last legs. On the other hand I must say that the Blue-Star AC is now about 24 months old, still going strong. It was transferred and shifted to another room, it was not used for several months. But at the first press of the button it started, its cooling is better than the lousy Samsung(although it is a 1 ton unit and the Samsung is 1.5 tons). All the buttons on the unit still work like new. Definately no comparison. Not yet had a chance to check the Blue Star repair service, so cannot comment on that(but remember that they never give you any "free" service inspite of promising 2.)
AS FOR SAMSUNG - A LOUSY PRODUCT & TERRIBLE SERVICE. As long as customers quietly accept being taken for granted like this, such companies continue to offer such garbage.