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.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Galley said 2:42PM on 10-07-2008
IPTV is the future.
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StrangeBum said 4:42PM on 10-07-2008
I can't even tell you how long I have been saying the same thing to all my friends and family, I'm trying to help get them adjusted to digital media now so that down the road such transitions won't prove to be any sort of problem for them.
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TVGenius said 11:54PM on 10-07-2008
Cerf can stuff it.
I can tell you, first hand, that the penetration of broadband is nowhere near what it needs to be for that to become a reality, and it's not going to get any better. I've been waiting for five years, and still can't get DSL at my house in the center of town. I pay $40 a month for a 128kbps WiMax-like service that's been operating here for ten years. Sprint has no EV-DO here, and AT&T no 3G. And with more and more ISPs adding bandwidth caps that equate to less than 10 hours of HD programming per month, there's no way it can become a reality.
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Kris Marshall said 8:49AM on 10-08-2008
There will be little progress on these fronts for probably the next 10 years. Our first efforts, in the wake of the world wide economic collapse, will have to be energy self sufficiency, green technology, basic infrastructure repairs. Luxuries will have to wait, just as they did while the world fought WWII after the Great Depression.
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C said 4:04AM on 10-14-2008
I certainly hope that this prediction is not overly optimistic... The problem with downloadable video content at the moment is poor video quality. There is so much hype about 1080p resolution being able to be downloaded via the internet, not everyone is looking at the severely low bitrate used to compress these horrible looking 1080p video signals. So what that you get 1902x 1080 pixels per frame?? With the low bitrate that is even less than SD DVD, you just get about 2 megapixels of terrible looking dots! The recently announced VUDO that promises less compression HD content take over 3 hours to download over cable internet! And it is NOT cheaper than renting Bluray or watching HD TV, both of which have much higher bitrate than what is offered today.
This man, when predicting the future demise of TV broadcast, forgot one important thing: HD video quality becoming cheaper and more common place. The majority of consumers are getting bigger and cheaper HD display TVs. Anything that takes more than 30 min to download, cannot offer high quality HD video content without compression artifacts, and costs more than rental discs or free over the air broadcast will NEVER proliferate.... In only 10 years? I certainly hope so....
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C said 4:15AM on 10-14-2008
Corrections to my post...
2012 is only 4 years away, not 10 years... So this is even more a ridiculous claim....
1080p signals are not 1902x1080 but 1920x1080 pixels. My bad...
andy said 3:37PM on 11-21-2008
look how quickly music sharing leapt from FTPs and web clients to napster- it changed the culture of music distribution overnight
the networks & studios won't be caught as unaware as the music industry was, so there may be a workable business model in its formative stages- or piracy could take over, we're not far from a leap in bandwidth and hard drive size that will make sending large video files no more difficult than downloading a dozen albums was on napster back in what, 2000?
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