Ugh, the built in soundbar is a deal-breaker for me. Anyone who has this kind of money already has a home theater. I don't want or need the extra weight or cost it incurs.
Do you think there will be a BFGD with no soundabar from other companies?
First of all, don't worry - it can be detached! In fact, during the demo, it's just sitting on the table under the TV, although it does include a bracket to wall mount it under the TV. Also, I specifically challenged the HP product lead on this, asking whether this was "thrown in" to justify hitting the $5,000 price, and she said that in their consumer studies, the majority of users said they wanted the sound bar included, and that in reality it didn't add much to the cost (on the order of $100). The only thing that I'm a little worried about is that they didn't survey the right consumers, because I agree that anyone with $5,000 to spend on a "TV" (that's not a TV, by the way, since it has no tuner), also has a high-end AV setup.
Anyway, so far, no one else has announced a BFGD, and even if they do, don't expect them to come in under $5,000 even without a soundbar.
