ok, you basically saw a bunch of lower end windows. air check is indeed a lower end window and i could never in good conscience install one for a customer; Bonded windows isnt far behind. We refer to Air Chek as rental property windows.
Reliabilt by Lowes, silverline, and alside excalibur are lower end as well, especially silverline/ american craftsman.
your logic of spending more to get better quality is very smart. what most homeowners dont understand is with windows, cheaper is always more expensive. cheaper quality vinyl looks cheap, leak air, and can also warp. this means you will wind up doing your window project twice which is much more expensive than initially going with a quality window. unfortunately many " jack of all trade" as well as local pick up truck type contractors wrongly think all windows are created equal. most of these type of contractors buy the cheapest windows in order to have a better chance of getting the job ( lowest bid) as well as making a better profit.
brands that most window pro's recommend are as follows :
Okna, Himark, Soft Lite, Sunrise, and Gorell.

thanks for the clarification. it was obvious that the Air Chek Windows or Air Check windows ( however its spelled) were garbage .
I will take your advice and looked into those higher end brands.