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.
_thumbnail.jpg "Vintage Keyboards")
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jose Farrugia said 8:42AM on 5-21-2009
Oh, I'll be joining this! Check out a few ideas already here:
http://www.mangochico.com/firefox-tab-browsing-is-yesterday/
Reply
midgary said 9:29AM on 5-21-2009
FWIW, Opera was not the first with tabbed Browsing. If you go back to your parent company archives, you will find that the internet only dial up service they bought in 1996, GNN, actually had tabbed browser. The service was essentially scrapped by AOL when they began offering an "all you can eat" plan for dial-up.
back to lucking.....
Reply
Galley said 9:48AM on 5-21-2009
I believe NetCaptor, a browser shell for IE had tabbed browsing before Opera.
Reply
Kyle B said 10:36AM on 5-21-2009
Sorry but when I browse the web I usually have anywhere from 10-30 tabs open at a time. I like to multitask on the web, and come back to sites later.
Reply
Frostie said 11:25AM on 5-21-2009
I dont like it.
Reply
Steven Parker said 12:02PM on 5-21-2009
What is wrong with finishing your work or whatever you are doing and then closing a few tabs and then opening some new ones? Do you all have attention Deficit Disorder? Who needs 30 topics open at once?
Reply
Carrie said 4:08PM on 5-27-2009
Well, I like browsing some sites that may have many links to possibly open (deviantArt, some shopping sites, even Switched if there are multiple interesting stories) and then go to later. I don't call it ADD so much as I do "finish this first, then do this later".
bob said 11:09PM on 7-16-2009
I typically use tabbed browsing because every IE session I launch takes forever to come up on the screen. Also viewing web links in tabs helps compare the same information on the same browser. Unless some other method is invented to replace the browser, I doubt tabbed browsing will go away. Now cell phones and limited devices will have a growing up stage and will need to be fed Gerber-net, till they become as powerful as laptops. The technology is here with no economy to drive it yet into a product. Putting an Intel Atom into a cell phone / Pda would kill the need for such contrived browsing without tabs.
Reply
Adam said 3:49AM on 7-18-2009
The bottleneck for mobile devices vs. tabbed browsing does not reside in the particular aspect of hardware that you're suggesting, bob. On the contrary, many devices have no problem with the speed/memory aspect of tabbed browsing (and use it, in fact, if not on such a grand scale as 30 tabs open at once, heh -- Opera and Webby being two examples).
The bottleneck, and the point of this initiative, lies in the size of the screens. It's a truly confounding problem, from a hardware design point of view, considering that you can only increase screen size by so much before you negate the integral "mobile" designation :)
So, it needs to be a software design solution.
I use a Firefox extension called "FaviconizeTab", another one called "Smart Bookmarks Bar", and a third called "IdentFavicon". The first minimizes a tab to show only it's favicon when double-clicked, and the second shows only favicons on the bookmark toolbar. The third automatically applies a random abstract favicon graphic to sites without one. I don't think this would solve the problem entirely, but I have to admit, I wish I could do a combination of these things on my PPC.
Crice7 said 3:52PM on 7-21-2009
This crushes me! I normally have between 30-160 tabs open at a time. I have many research projects that require me to compare multiple pieces of data, and the easiest way to do so is with tabs. Not having tabs will be a huge hindrance...
Reply