I like and have solid hard wood flooring in my house. It doesn't sound "cheap" when you walk on it.

With wider planks being more popular now (4" or more), we have come to love and appreciate how an engineered hardwood is so dimensionally stable throughout the year with little to no cupping and warping. It looks just as gorgeous as a solid, and great quality engineered wood will sand the same width as a solid wood. Solid will always be great, but engineered is finally appreciated more with wide plank lovers.

This year we installed more engineered wood than solid!

A high quality Engineered floor with 6mm wear layer is the best of both.

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I want to like solid more than engineered, but engineered planks make so much sense sometimes. We shopped forever for our hickory wood floors, and when the floor dealer with the best reputation in the area said they do not sell wide planked hickory in a solid, we were sold. Engineered wood it was. It is beautiful, and we made sure to buy a product that had a very thick surface that could be sanded (up to three times, they promise). We should only need one or two.

Wide plank solid hickory can be very tricky. It can move a lot.

What manufacturers, besides Hallmark, offer a sawn cut veneer that is 4mm or greater?

It appears anytime you get into quality engineered wood floors with a 4mm or greater veneer they end up the same cost if not much more than a comparable solid hardwood, at least in my market.

I install both, and my rule is simple: solid for nail-down over a wood subfloor, engineered when it goes on a slab or the humidity swings a lot. Wear layer matters more than the label, so I'd look for at least 4mm if you want to refinish it more than once. Species like hickory and birch move more with humidity, so they're better as engineered. The engineered and red oak boards on their hardwood page are a good reference if you want to see typical plank widths and pricing. Whatever you pick, let it acclimate before installing.