I read on Techbargains that there will be a Black Friday sale Nov 24.
Is this worth getting excited about? I'm in the market for a new laptop
and am willing to wait if this is usually a better deal.

Black Friday is just the Friday after Thanksgiving, and you should know
that there are ALWAYS sales at absurd hours early in the morning (5am,
mostly) at every major national retail chain.

Some of the deals are spectacular, but you have to know what you are
getting into: Most Best Buy stores, for example, will have lines
forming 8 to 12 hours before they open, by the time they open the lines
will likely be about 1,000 people long, and the really good deals might
have 20 to 50 items per store. [Most stores pass out "tickets" for the
hot items to the people at the head of the line about 30 minutes before
they open]. CompUSA is opening for "Black Friday" on Thursday night
from 9 to midnight, closing for 5 hours and reopening at 5am. Most
other stores are opening at 5am or 6am. But, again, lines will form
many hours earlier.

There are two major sites devoted to the various Black Friday sales, and
at this point ALL of the major retailer's Black Friday catalogs (which
normally are distributed with Thanksgiving day newspapers) are available
for download as PDF files. The two major sites (there are others) are
bfads.net and blackfriday.gottadeal.com.

In my opinion, the deals have gotten signficantly worse in the past two
years from what they "used" to be in 2004 and before. But there are
still some spectacular deals (not all deals will sell out, many of them
run all day Friday and Saturday, but the best deals will sell out within
20 minutes, and officially end at noon anyway).

By the way, this is strictly a "crazy American" thing, as far as I know.
Black Friday might well be called "national shopping day".

[As to laptops: There will be a LOT of deals for $399 low end laptops,
and if you can get one, fine (quantities will be extremely limited).
[In fact, Wal-Mart already had such a deal back on November 5th, as a
"warm-up"] But if you want a higher end laptop, you might do better
later in the Christmas shopping season. While a $399 extremely low end
laptop may be what you are looking for, it's likely that later ... say
December 1st to 15th ... you will be able to get an extrememly high end
laptop (say normally $1,200 to $1,500) for $700 to $900. Which may
actually be a better deal.]




shareyourknowledge@hotmail.com wrote:

Black Friday is just the Friday after Thanksgiving, and you should know
that there are ALWAYS sales at absurd hours early in the morning (5am,
mostly) at every major national retail chain.

Some of the deals are spectacular, but you have to know what you are
getting into: Most Best Buy stores, for example, will have lines
forming 8 to 12 hours before they open, by the time they open the lines
will likely be about 1,000 people long, and the really good deals might
have 20 to 50 items per store. [Most stores pass out "tickets" for the
hot items to the people at the head of the line about 30 minutes before
they open]. CompUSA is opening for "Black Friday" on Thursday night
from 9 to midnight, closing for 5 hours and reopening at 5am. Most
other stores are opening at 5am or 6am. But, again, lines will form
many hours earlier.

There are two major sites devoted to the various Black Friday sales, and
at this point ALL of the major retailer's Black Friday catalogs (which
normally are distributed with Thanksgiving day newspapers) are available
for download as PDF files. The two major sites (there are others) are
bfads.net and blackfriday.gottadeal.com.

In my opinion, the deals have gotten signficantly worse in the past two
years from what they "used" to be in 2004 and before. But there are
still some spectacular deals (not all deals will sell out, many of them
run all day Friday and Saturday, but the best deals will sell out within
20 minutes, and officially end at noon anyway).

By the way, this is strictly a "crazy American" thing, as far as I know.
Black Friday might well be called "national shopping day".

[As to laptops: There will be a LOT of deals for $399 low end laptops,
and if you can get one, fine (quantities will be extremely limited).
[In fact, Wal-Mart already had such a deal back on November 5th, as a
"warm-up"] But if you want a higher end laptop, you might do better
later in the Christmas shopping season. While a $399 extremely low end
laptop may be what you are looking for, it's likely that later ... say
December 1st to 15th ... you will be able to get an extrememly high end
laptop (say normally $1,200 to $1,500) for $700 to $900. Which may
actually be a better deal.]




shareyourknowledge@hotmail.com wrote:

Hi Barry- Thanks for the thorough reply. I will be on the lookout. I
don't suppose you could get some of these "hot" items online of some of
the retailers as opposed to waiting in line in the wee hours? Regards,
Bob
Barry Watzman wrote:

Hi Barry- Thanks for the thorough reply. I will be on the lookout. I
don't suppose you could get some of these "hot" items online of some of
the retailers as opposed to waiting in line in the wee hours? Regards,
Bob
Barry Watzman wrote:

Hi Barry- Thanks for the thorough reply. I will be on the lookout. I
don't suppose you could get some of these "hot" items online of some of
the retailers as opposed to waiting in line in the wee hours? Regards,
Bob
Barry Watzman wrote:

Hi Barry- Thanks for the thorough reply. I will be on the lookout. I
don't suppose you could get some of these "hot" items online of some of
the retailers as opposed to waiting in line in the wee hours? Regards,
Bob
Barry Watzman wrote:

<shareyourknowledge@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1163600036.086236.121990@h48g2000cwc.googlegr oups.com...
We were just discussing this at a local breakfast diner ... What if you
know you want a TV that has ltd qty ... you go to Best Buy late next
WEDNESDAY and buy the TV for $1500. Then take it home and don't open it.
( You know that on Friday it's on sale for $999 for 4 hours.) If you go
back on Friday, (even during those 4 hours) do you think they'd give you
the $501 adjustment in price ? Or would they want to take the TV back
for a full refund ?

Bobb

<shareyourknowledge@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1163600036.086236.121990@h48g2000cwc.googlegr oups.com...
We were just discussing this at a local breakfast diner ... What if you
know you want a TV that has ltd qty ... you go to Best Buy late next
WEDNESDAY and buy the TV for $1500. Then take it home and don't open it.
( You know that on Friday it's on sale for $999 for 4 hours.) If you go
back on Friday, (even during those 4 hours) do you think they'd give you
the $501 adjustment in price ? Or would they want to take the TV back
for a full refund ?

Bobb

Some of the retailers do in fact have some of the specials online. But
not the best ones.

shareyourknowledge@hotmail.com wrote:

Some of the retailers do in fact have some of the specials online. But
not the best ones.

shareyourknowledge@hotmail.com wrote:

Good thought but not original; none of the retailers do price matching
or price guarantees during the time that the "door buster" sales are in
process, or subsequently to those prices. And the stores and registers
are so swamped that they usually don't do returns during that time either.

Funny you mention TVs; Best Buy will have a 56" Toshiba DLP HDTV on sale
for $1199 (it's currently $1899). But that is not a "door buster", it's
good all weekend WHILE SUPPLIES LAST, however. I discussed this with a
salesman and he thought that item would last long enough for anyone who
wanted one to get it on Friday morning at least. But he added that
while that was his guess, he could not guarantee that. The only problem
is that while it's a very nice set, it's 720p and I really wanted 1080p.


- Bobb - wrote:

Good thought but not original; none of the retailers do price matching
or price guarantees during the time that the "door buster" sales are in
process, or subsequently to those prices. And the stores and registers
are so swamped that they usually don't do returns during that time either.

Funny you mention TVs; Best Buy will have a 56" Toshiba DLP HDTV on sale
for $1199 (it's currently $1899). But that is not a "door buster", it's
good all weekend WHILE SUPPLIES LAST, however. I discussed this with a
salesman and he thought that item would last long enough for anyone who
wanted one to get it on Friday morning at least. But he added that
while that was his guess, he could not guarantee that. The only problem
is that while it's a very nice set, it's 720p and I really wanted 1080p.


- Bobb - wrote:

<shareyourknowledge@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1163600036.086236.121990@h48g2000cwc.googlegr oups.com...
In general, no, as that would take some of the "fun" out of it. There are
exceptions, though -- this sort of topic is common of the web sites that
revolve around Black Friday (e.g., bfads.net); check out their forums.

<shareyourknowledge@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1163600036.086236.121990@h48g2000cwc.googlegr oups.com...
In general, no, as that would take some of the "fun" out of it. There are
exceptions, though -- this sort of topic is common of the web sites that
revolve around Black Friday (e.g., bfads.net); check out their forums.

"Barry Watzman" <WatzmanNOSPAM@neo.rr.com> wrote in message
news:455B44CB.2000708@neo.rr.com...
The latest Consumer Reports (December 2006) tests that TV and many others of
each of the main varieties of large screen: rear projection, LCD and plasma.
The best rear projection sets are Toshiba models 62HM196, 56HMX96, and the
one under discussion 56HM66 and were ranked 1,2,and 3. CR comments: "[these
sets] are among the best TVs we've tested... All have excellent detail,
color, and black levels (though whites tend to be cool or bluish.)" CR also
comments that "resolution alone doesn't determine picture quality. Black
level, brightness, and color accuracy are also important... from a normal
viewing distance, the best 1080p set won't look dramatically better than the
best 720p TV."

"Barry Watzman" <WatzmanNOSPAM@neo.rr.com> wrote in message
news:455B44CB.2000708@neo.rr.com...
The latest Consumer Reports (December 2006) tests that TV and many others of
each of the main varieties of large screen: rear projection, LCD and plasma.
The best rear projection sets are Toshiba models 62HM196, 56HMX96, and the
one under discussion 56HM66 and were ranked 1,2,and 3. CR comments: "[these
sets] are among the best TVs we've tested... All have excellent detail,
color, and black levels (though whites tend to be cool or bluish.)" CR also
comments that "resolution alone doesn't determine picture quality. Black
level, brightness, and color accuracy are also important... from a normal
viewing distance, the best 1080p set won't look dramatically better than the
best 720p TV."

I understand, but I will be driving the TV with a computer via DVI/HDMI,
and the driving resolution will be higher than 1280x720. I've been
researching this whole matter in depth, and I'm pretty knowledgeable
(I'm a degreed EE with an FCC license who has worked in broadcasting as
a TV engineer). AND I subscribe to Consumer's Reports. [Did I mention
that I also stayed at a Holiday Inn last night? :-) ]

The set that I really like best is the JVC 1080p HD-ILA, but I'm scared
to death of the JVC lamp life issues, as there are web reports [lots of
them] that JVC sets have a VERY short life of the $200 lamp. JVC says
explicitly and point-blank on their web site that the lamp has an
AVERAGE life of 6,000 hours, but anecdotally, there are a huge quantity
of irate JVC owners reporting lamp failures at between 600 and 1,500
hours, and there is talk of a class-action lawsuit.



iws wrote:

I understand, but I will be driving the TV with a computer via DVI/HDMI,
and the driving resolution will be higher than 1280x720. I've been
researching this whole matter in depth, and I'm pretty knowledgeable
(I'm a degreed EE with an FCC license who has worked in broadcasting as
a TV engineer). AND I subscribe to Consumer's Reports. [Did I mention
that I also stayed at a Holiday Inn last night? :-) ]

The set that I really like best is the JVC 1080p HD-ILA, but I'm scared
to death of the JVC lamp life issues, as there are web reports [lots of
them] that JVC sets have a VERY short life of the $200 lamp. JVC says
explicitly and point-blank on their web site that the lamp has an
AVERAGE life of 6,000 hours, but anecdotally, there are a huge quantity
of irate JVC owners reporting lamp failures at between 600 and 1,500
hours, and there is talk of a class-action lawsuit.



iws wrote:

"iws" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:9tL6h.25377$2A4.22016@newsfe24.lga
Years ago I learned not to put too much stock into by what Consumer
Reports says. Their testing methods are just too amateurish IMHO (I'm an
electrical engineer) and half of the time doesn't mean much. And I have
seen them given rave reviews to some real pieces of junk in the past. Or
are they better nowadays?

--
Bill