dn325ci

Small screens in the ads so far. Looking for a great 70 or 75" deal on a Sony or Samsung or similar name brand.

Yep. That's my strategy. Get out. Be one of the first 15-20 people in the door, make a beeline to what you need. Keep it to the 1-3 hot items. I had two this year - Sony 40" LCD and Compaq laptop. Don't screw with DVDs & CDs that save $5. Go for the big $$ items. Be out the door in 15-20 minutes or you'll be there for hours. Don

Yes, I got one at the store. It wasn't an online buy, simply unadvertised in the paper and therefore online. It's a beautiful TV. Don

This happened last year AND the year before in Ohio. I did not go to BB for two years for this reason. Looks like Ohio is back and Iowa gets this "special" deal. Don

Careful with the liquids, man. Every year I take coffee and every year I have to leave the line at least once to pee. If you don't have line-buds, you're hosed. Don

I have been doing this successfully for 5+ years. I've never missed what I've sought. I usually am going for 1 or 2 high value electronic items. Last year I was primarily after Circuit City's $199 laptop. Usually I'll keep it to one store, two tops, since I'm a man and my shopping skills are stunted. My preferred strategy for the primary store: 1. Keep it very simple - 1 or 2 key items. 2. Scope it out the day before - know where things are. If you can find the key items, count them to know how many there will be. 3. You DO NOT have to be first, but be one of the first 10 in line outside. At Best Buys here, that means being there about 3AM. At Circuit City last year, it meant being there before midnight. The $199 laptop was a huge draw. All the first ten people were there solely for the laptop. 4. You DO need to be first at checkout. If you are not in the checkout line within 3-5 minutes after store opens, you will probably be there for hours. Especially at electronics stores. Margins are very thin (even negative) for the loss leader items, so sales persons are commanded to try to upsell warranties and services to improve margins. This practice takes a very long time - maybe even 15+ minutes for each customer. For this reason I prefer to go alone to make myself lean & mean and in line first. I am usually checked out and back outside within 10 minutes. That's it in a nutshell, though there are some trade secrets I'll keep to myself! See you in line... Don

I'm using it now. This is probably my 6th or 7th notebook, and I like the big bright screen. I did have to remove a lot of crap trial software that was pre-loaded, but it is quite nice. For those who haven't noticed, you can turn the screen brightness up another notch or two with Function-F7. Don

I went to the Tuttle Crossing store 3 years in a row, though I skipped last year since nothing was particularly compelling (wasn't last year the whole $15 rebate / $100 spent fiasco?). I consistently arrived there each year at 3:30 AM +/- 10 minutes. My line position ranged from about #6 to #14 over those years. The first year they did not hand out the coupons in advance. All subsequent years they did. In every case, my line position was good enough to get what I came for. Some will always stay up all night to be certain, but in my experience it hasn't been necessary. Don

I'm usually at BB by 3:30 AM. Line position varies each year but at 3:30 I will land between #3 and #10 in line. My strategy is to be out the door within 10 minutes. 1 year I went with a friend who wanted a PC, which kept us in the store too long. The check out line took 1.5 hours by the time we made it through. 3 years ago, BB opened at 6AM and CompUSA at 7AM - don't know if they do that anymore. So I was in and out of BB in 10 minutes. I pulled up at CompUSA about 6:15 and I was 1st in line! By 6:45 there were 30 people in line, nearly all from BB. Ha! Don