At one time, I was a fan of laminate flooring. Easy to install, affordable, and they looked nice. But since they are basically compressed paper dust, eventually moisture affects them and they start to rise at the edges. Depending on humidity in the air, and that's all it takes, it will eventually rise and give you a ridge at every edge. Additional moisture, either from wet shoes, water leaks or anything else, and this gets even worse.
The bigger names come with great warranties. If you have a bad piece of flooring, they will replace it for free. They will not install it, or pay for somebody to replace it, they just give you the replacement piece of flooring.
Laminate flooring is probably the hardest type of flooring to replace. It breaks at the edges as you take it apart. I don't care how slow and careful you are, a majority of it will break and become junk.
Most is slippery, and scratches easily.
I'm not talking about any one particular brand because I've dealt with just about all of them, and they are all the same.
If you want something similar, but more durable that does not care about moisture, look at the new types of vinyl flooring. It's heavy, but goes together the same, by interlocking edges, or the easier, but cheaper types glue together. There are quite a few out there to look at, and I'm not aware of one being better then another. That's all I use now, and what I recommend to my clients. The decision on what brand is always on which one they like the look and feel of better. I haven't found a brand from the box stores that I consider junk and wont recommend, but that doesn't mean I've tried them all. Just quite a few.
Having said that, tile is still king!!!!
