I have an Edgestar 28 and love it. I bought it from Compact Appliances (their website, not through Amazon) as a open box unit. I was looking at buying the scratch and dent one but some guys on another forum I frequent had some seriously problems with them. One showed up with a broken door so he had a custom one made. Other ones showed up so beat to hell that they got a refund. Open box units are the way to go IMHO as I think mine was only $130-$140 shipped? I forget but can check for you. They do sometimes have dents but they are not that bad. It took me two weeks to notice the one on the back of mine haha.
Anyways, I am very happy with it but it is something you will eventually out grow as I believe it holds about the same as a 52QT cooler, maybe a little less.
As far as the one year life span, I have only had mine a few months but my understanding is that they can last much longer than a year but it depends on different variables such as how long it is running, what temperature it is set, etc. but mine has been working fine for the few months that I have had it. I have not heard of too many that break within a year though and I believe in those situations it was just a fuse or something that needed to be replaced. As I said though, I can only go by my experience and I am very happy with my purchase. I just need to finally get around to ordering some of the custom shelves/drawers for the inside and I will be set.
