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.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Wendy said 2:28PM on 10-26-2009
cry-babies??? Kiss my @## . There was nothing wrong with the old facebook. No one's crying, everyone is just frustrated as h***. They need to stop messing with it.
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David94H said 3:09PM on 10-26-2009
ditto
shaynababy13 said 7:43PM on 1-30-2010
I assume your talking about your layout changing? and wanting it back to the original layout? if so, im right there with you, im getting so frustrated with this new layout, i want the old one back and no one knows how to change it back! grrr.
jdc8 said 2:42PM on 10-26-2009
Wendy is right, there's no freekin crybabies here, just FB users who didn't want something fixed that wasn't broke.
If FB IT people needed to change for their own systems reasons, they should have given some notice before just changing and assuming that everyone would understand how the new format works. I'm a PC power user but I don't like having to change something that I think works well without knowing the whys of it. I think the biggest gripe is the lack of notice and the lack of explanations.
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matt said 2:48PM on 10-26-2009
AMEN Wendy
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Bethany said 3:03PM on 10-26-2009
I agree with Wendy... if it ain't broke, don't fix it!
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Denise said 3:08PM on 10-26-2009
I am really getting p**sed with trying to sign on to Facebook. Last week two days in a row and again today I can't sign on due to "maintenance". What a load of crap. Leave Facebook alone, it was fine the way it was. Why fix something that isn't broke.
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SandynSoCal said 3:25PM on 10-26-2009
The problem is, if you do the update that they describe above, you won't see any pics or videos that your friends post. It's not worth it.
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MFinn said 3:39PM on 10-26-2009
Ummm, yes you can. Simply click on "News Feed" in the left hand column and it shows the latest slobbering baby pictures, link of Michael Jackson's ghost and whoever bought a chicken in Farmville. Making the status updates your DEFAULT only means you won't get barraged with all that other extraneous stuff as soon as you log on. For me, it's nice because sometimes the people posting tons of links & photos push away other people's status updates.
Kim said 3:28PM on 10-26-2009
@Denise I am so having that problem for 2 weeks now! cant log in at all even the new FB application for blackberry is messed up! and what is so annoying is that you just cant get a hold of anyone from FB to ask questions! dont know if my account is being hacked or what!
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CATANDY6469 said 3:33PM on 10-26-2009
I wish that each page could be seperate, I have my lists set up, and yes it is easy for people to hide you, but I'd like seperate pages.
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Vj said 3:36PM on 10-26-2009
No crybabies.... who's crying are the FB creators, they keep complaining it's a free service. Then they spend their time changing things. Leave it as is. BTW that 'help suggestion' above doesn't work. If your friends post pics, post status updates from an iphone, post videos, they don't show up in the Status Updates. I don't need all the pics and who's friended who in my news feed! They should have kept the videos and pics on the right hand side and let you CHOOSE if you wanted to look at them instead of being force fed. They do these changes every so often and it screws up things for a few days. I know a LARGE group of us are ready to leave FB and go back to Myspace. At least they don't keep changing things, which disrupts the service provided.
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Kim said 5:47PM on 10-26-2009
ditto!! good thing I never deleted my Myspace account!
oncegain1011 said 4:11PM on 10-26-2009
MFinn... if you have any friends that use an iPhone or such, to update their status, you WILL NOT see it on the "Status Update" section. "Switched" needs to check things out completely before printing a 'fix'. You're right, having all of the other things on the Live Feed takes up too much space. They need to put it back to the right so we have a CHOICE if we what to see it.
Another fix circulating is clicking on "edit options" at bottom of page and changing the number of friends to 5000 (even if you don't have that many) will set it back to the way it was.... that doesn't work either.
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Heather said 4:23PM on 10-26-2009
Call people crybabies all you want but when changes are made that don't IMPROVE the site, what is the point? Faceboook is borderline obnoxious at this point and hopefully someone will come up with something better and Facebook becomes a thing of the past. Who gives a crap who is now friends with who? Most retarded change I have ever seen.
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passionaterage63 said 4:58PM on 10-26-2009
It's SOOOOO funny seeing all the facebook people get upset about the comments.....lol. Get with it people, there's a real world out here, you don't have to use facebook. It's ridiculous to me that people write down every minute thought, or every single boring thing they're doing at the time,or what they're thinking about doing later, and the other facebook addicts eat it up, and even post responses about what THEY think about the boring thought that someone else just had. What a sad life you people have!......lololol
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Chad said 5:06PM on 10-26-2009
What I want to know is what did they do with my friends? When I click on friends now it very prominently says "You have no friends. Let us help you find some now." So I only see things I post on my wall and people's replies.
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techydude said 6:02PM on 10-26-2009
go forth & multiply with your cry-baby judgement. i'm NOT one who has 2749 "friends", so the way it was was just fine thanks. i dont mind features to help those who do have heaps of "friends", but for Facebook to foist it as the default was just rude - again. thanks for the tip though!
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g35bruce said 6:00PM on 10-26-2009
LEAVE IT ALONE, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH?????
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LeRoy Anderson said 6:28PM on 10-26-2009
This disservice comes up so slow it will have to make drastic improvements this week or I won't be back.
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