Both are exactly the same with reference to quality of materials.

Can you tell me where in lowes you found white subway tile? My local lowes has it as special order for nearly $5/sf (something like $4.85). I'd rather pay $1.91. I'm planning to use AO tile, not dal. Thanks!

Lisa-- may I ask why one and not the other?

The white subways were in boxes at Lowe's, mixed in with a bunch of other basic field tiles on shelves near the display tiles. They weren't on display at all, so they would be really easy to miss if you weren't looking specifically. I think I'm going to go with Daltile myself, since they're a bit cheaper - every little bit helps, and when buying 300+ sf, pennies add up quickly!

Sure you may ask ;).

Because I already bought (from lowes) a 3x8 embossed vine tile and it is in AO ice white. If there is a daltile that matches AO ice white perfectly I would happily go with that one. I guess I should check but i just assumed it wouldn't.

I can order AO subways from fast floors for what comes to about $2.50/sf with shipping or I can buy it at my local tile store for $3.79/sf and they stock it but I've got a 10% off coupon for lowes burning a hole in my pocket and that $1.91/sf looks MIGHTY tempting. I'm considering taking a ride to the BIG lowes (where they told me at my store to go to buy the black pencil liners I want, they have much more stock) with my coupon and buying as much of the ice white subways as they have (I have a largish bathroom and need about 235 sf of subways for the walls).

These are the tile samples I have (all AO):

and here's one of my elevations.

Thanks so much biondanonima! I found 1 box at my local lowes (whoopeee), 19 more to go (boxes, hopefully not lowes!)

Lisa, if you ask at the flooring desk at your local Lowes, they can check the tile stock at the other Lowes in your area and perhaps transfer more from other stores (policies on that vary from store to store). I had to do this with my vinyl tile and it worked out very nicely.

I already tried that with my accent tile and it was a no-go for in-stock items (though the guys at my lowes are not really that helpful).

But we went to the BIG lowes hopeful because the online store allowed me to add 2000 pieces of their subway tile to my cart (same system as the inventory in the stores) and I got my 20 boxes. We opened up a lowes credit card for 10% off (my 10% coupon expired) and it came out to $1.60/sf plus tax. We luckily got a lowes guy in this store who was helpful and he even hauled a pallet of the stuff down from the top of the shelves for us and transferred it all to our cart... poor dh had to load and unload the car though. We were low-riders for a while.

Thanks again biondanonima! My lowes is so lame that I never would have found the one measly box of subway tile they had if you hadn't posted this thread - they even told me they had to special order it if I wanted any! I found ONE single tile floating around there once and that was it. They also had 138 of my black pencil liners there (twice as much at the tile store) so I'm jazzed.

Happy to help! I went to Lowe's and Expo on Long Island and in both stores, they seemed to be hiding the nice inexpensive AO/Daltile and pushing the $5 psf white subways that look exactly the same. I went into HD out there too and I didn't even bother to look for the tiles, because I knew they'd be buried on a back shelf somewhere, probably with no pricing in sight. I'm hoping that the HD in my 'hood (Queens) won't be hiding theirs in shame!

There's a thread in the kitchen forum on Lowe's Subway tiles. We used them and were quite pleased with the quality of the tile and the end result. I have pics posted on the other thread.

Here is a link that might be useful: Kitchen Thread on Lowe's Subways

My Daltile rep says that Daltile makes the American Olean tile. We met with her recently to try to find the best shade of white match possible to our Delft tile so we could make recommendations to clients.