Mountain Biking - Giant Faith or Bighit?

I am going to start riding freeride/downhill and was wondering what your guys' opinion was, the 2006 Specialized Bighit 1, or the 2005 Giant Faith 3.

They are both good, but once again, look at some boutique brands (Intense, Cove, Foes, On-One, etc.)
You can get much more bang for your buck, and hit the slopes with a bike different than every other Joe.

Thanks, but if you had to choose out of those two....?

I'd take the Giant because of the Maestro suspension design.

I'd take the Giant because of the Maestro suspension design.

Do you like it better than the FSR?

Do you like it better than the FSR?

Is the linkage on the BigHit not the same as the Norco fully's?(A-line and such come to mind.)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Bighit is just using Horst link? I know horst link is great, but I've heard soooo much great stuff about the Maestro suspension design.

It's a pretty hard decision for me, my friend has the Faith 3, it's pretty nice but he has had to take it in for a lot of brake problems, the thing is only a couple months old and he has already had to take it in like 3 or 4 times [then again he sort rides like an idiot], and i'm sort of new to the technical stuff of mountain bikes so i don't really know what you guys are talking about with the linkage, although i do know most of the components, so anyways it's pretty hard for me to decide because my local bike shop has both on sale for about $1500 which is a great deal considering both are normally priced at about $2000.

-Green

If you're new to the sport I'd recommend you get a hardtail first. Norco makes some nice long travel hardtails.

Faith.

i said i'm new to the technical stuff not the sport