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.
We grumble about our iPhones as much as the next guy. It takes forever to open a text message, boots up slower than our '90s era Pentium-powered Gateway, and requires us to use the bloated, buggy, and just plain awful iTunes [Editor's Note: Terrence is particularly known for his iPhone irritations]. But as big of a headache as it is, we draw the line at putting a bullet in it -- at least publicly. 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mark said 1:51AM on 10-03-2009
Section 2903.21 (Aggravated Menacing) of the Ohio Revised Code says that:
(A) No person shall knowingly cause another to believe that the offender will cause serious physical harm to the person or property of such other person, such other person's unborn, or a member of the other person's immediate family.
(B) Whoever violates this section is guilty of aggravated menacing, a misdmeanor of the first degree.
If you are reporting the whole story, then this charge should be thrown out and the cop investigated. If all he did was express frustration, however extreme, with his iphone and then threaten to destroy it, and then back up his threat to destroy his OWN property by merely showing the tool of destruction (in a nonthreatening way) then he's not guilty of anything other than the failure to disclose his concealed weapon.
Which, btw, those laws need revising anyway.
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krjem said 7:00AM on 10-03-2009
I think if I was working in a mall store and a customer revealed a handgun.........I would feel threatened. A person who is so aggrevated by a cell phone that they are tempted to shoot it with a gun, which they have with them, might be unbalanced and probably shouldn't be walking around a mall full of people with a handgun. Suppose the kid in the food court aggrevates him more than the phone did.
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grizzly said 2:23PM on 10-05-2009
"when you give up your freedom for security,,you have neither"...Ben Franklin.......... here where i live,if you have a concealed weapon permit,you can get in trouble for accidently allowing someone to see your firearm,conceled means concealed. i think the man with the firearm had poor judgement in allowing the kid to see his firearm,i think the kid and the manager both had poor judgement in shiting their pants,i am however inclined to cut the latter some slack,as those two will brobably never develop the abiltiy to think for themselves.
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Someone with a brain said 11:42AM on 10-08-2009
You two can't be serious.
Mark, showing a weapon in public, especially after claiming one has no problem shooting, is a threatening action. He didn't just say he was going to shoot the phone. He actually showed a gun. That is a threatening action. There is no loophole that would allow someone to pull out or flash a weapon and claim to only want to shoot one's own device. Any reasonable person would have immediately bent over backward to appease the person instead due to the threat imposed. If this person had no intention of threatening anyone, he could have said he was going to shoot his phone, not flashed his weapon as to not pose any threat to the employees, gone home, and followed through.
Grizzly, the manager and employee showed proper action. They were dealing with an irate customer who not only threatened to discharge a firearm, but proved he had one on him. Apple employees have been shot. The last time was only three months ago in Virginia. My fiance works at an Apple store where, just a few days ago, a customer had to be removed by security due to the physical threat he was posing to the employees in his anger. When someone is so angry they not only threaten to shoot an electronic but flash the weapon to do it, it is responsible to alert police.
Also, before you talk about others not learning to think for themselves, you need to go back to elementary school and learn such basics as capitalization, punctuation, spelling, etc.. You have at least six errors in your first line alone. One more error could potentially be debated. But perhaps you consider this to be "the ability to think for" yourself.
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