Traditionalists might balk, but the holiday shopping season is already underway. Skeptical? Head to your local department store and you'll be inundated by Christmas trees and ornaments. Bargain hunters, though, know that the real deals are more than a month away.
Black Friday, traditionally, is when retailers truly slash prices. Early birds can save hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars off of their holiday bills. Switched.com checked with a few elves, who gave a sneak peek at what you can expect deal-wise this year.
Blu-ray Players and Movies: Blu-ray is shaping up to be the biggest door buster of this year's Black Friday. de Grandpre expects at least one retailer will offer a Blu-ray player for just $49. Look for bargains on Blu-ray films as well, with last year's hit titles (such as "Iron Man") to fall as low as $5.
Laptops: With the proliferation of Netbooks this year, it's never been easier to find affordable portable computing, but Dan de Grandpre, CEO of DealNews.com says it will get even cheaper on Black Friday. Look for well-equipped Netbooks to sell for $199 – and basic 15" laptops to go for as little as $249.
HDTVs (Pretty big): The holidays are typically the best time to buy a new TV – and Black Friday is the time to do it. If you're looking for a normal sized set, you're in luck. Piper Jaffrey analyst Mitch Kaiser says he expects to see 32-inch LCD sets for as low as $299. GottaDeal.com is estimating 37-inch plasma and LCD sets will fall to $399 or less.
HDTVs (Really big): Need something bigger? How about a 46-47 inch LCD set for $599 – a 25 percent savings? Or a 52-inch LCD for $999? Dealnews says you can expect both. Plasma deals will be a little harder to come by, but a 50-inch set should run roughly $899.
HD Camcorders: You've wanted to shoot your child's school play in HD for a while, but haven't been able to spring for the pricey camcorder. This might be the year. Low-end, flash-based 720p models could drop as low as $60 (though you won't be able to zoom with those). Expect a high quality 1080p HD camcorder for $349.
GPS: While navigation systems have dramatically expanded their reach this year – even making it onto the iPhone – there's still a market for car-based systems. Dealnews predicts you'll be able to find a no-name entry-level system for $49, while a Garmin or Tom-Tom brand will be as low as $69.
Digital Picture Frames: Showcasing your digital pictures consistently gets cheaper. This year, skip the 7-inch screens and focus on the 8- or 9-inch ones, which should be available on Black Friday for as little as $30.
Monitors: Computer monitors might not be the sexiest of gifts, but they're usually welcomed with open arms – and they'll be cheap this year. Name brand 22-inch LCD models may go for as low as $99, while 24-inch models will drop below $150.
Memory: Don't know anyone who needs a monitor? External hard drives are always popular, since they're an easy way to back-up data. Dealnews expects a 1TB drive to fall as low as $49 this year. Gottadeal is looking for 8GB flash drives to hit $15.
If you were having trouble receiving e-mail on your BlackBerry this past weekend, you weren't alone. On Friday, users began reporting that messages were being received very late or not at all. For some, the problem had resolved itself by late Friday night, though for many the slowdown persisted through much of the weekend. BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, or RIM, has blamed the outage on a software glitch and has not said how many of its North American customers were affected.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Richard Finkelstein said 4:16PM on 9-10-2007
When my Blackberry's e-mail went down I went to my ATT store to see what the problem was. Once the nature of the problem became clear I contacted RIM to learn where users might be able to get status info as their website had no mention of service interruptions. Their only response was that since I received my Blackberry service through ATT, this was ATT's problems and that RIM wouldn't deal with me. CLEARLY this IS a RIM problem and I am quite disappointed with their "F-off" response to what a reasonable person would consider to be an appropriate inquiry.
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Roy Agostino said 5:03PM on 9-10-2007
Companies like RIM have spent billions of dollars on software from big vendors to fix slow or failing applications but these monitoring tools only go so far. Unfortunately, CEOs or CFOs aren't aware of the problem until the service - such as Blackberry - goes down or underperforms. Organizations need to be able to ensure the predictable operation of mission critical applications to ensure that business systems operate at their fullest potential—essentially allowing a service outage or slowdown to be resolved before customers are impacted. Without this, companies like RIM will continue to face the scrutiny of unhappy customers in the face of ongoing service outages.
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