I have a Harbor Freight 12" and I like it. I did have to do some realigning of the fence to get it to make a straight cut, but that wasn't hard. I do want to get a Wixey so that I can accurately line up when I tilt the blade, but I also want that for my table saw.
My first non-slider was from HF. Didn't make as long cuts as I wanted. So raised the table. By putting I think two layers of 2X4 bolted down using the fence bolt holes. Then glued a fence to the rear of that. This increased the cut length from 4+" to something over 7", or 8", forget exactly, it was a 10" blade. Took a number of retries, with a square on the fence and blade, before I got it bolted down accurately. And, accurate it was. Cut a trial piece, tried a square on the cut, dead on, then flipped it and used the square again, and dead on. All I needed was 90 degree cuts so it worked like magic. Then the saw burnt up, and used that as an excuse to get a HF slider. And the base wouldn't fit the slider, so tossed the base. The slider wasn't quite as accurate, the rods stuck out the back, eventually got rid of it, and got another non-slider. This saw works, but I think when I find a 12" I can make a new base for, I will get that, make my mods, and figure I should be able to get close to a 11" cut with that 12" blade.
The HF saw worked as I wanted, once I modded it, dead on accurate. I'm thinking of doing some custom boxes in the future, and a miter saw would really be helpful. So, I'm thinking of picking up another, when they are on sale, perhaps two, and modding the base(s) for angle cutting. Once that base is set up, no need to adjust anything, and in fact likely couldn't adjust it anyway. I used a HF sat, because at the time that was all I could afford. Even so, one of them would work just as well for me as something more expensive. Don't know if I have any pictures of that first saw or not, if I can find some I'll post them. Don't ask how I did it, it was mostly Zen woodworking, and I just don't know where I got the idea, or just how I did it.
