kubla77

CC lures people with their crappy mail-in rebates. Though I agree that CC had better deals (on paper) than BB on a lot of things, I saw way more people at BB this year. It's just that CC's tend to be smaller stores so they can't deal as well with bigger volume, and as a whole, they are much MUCH less organized than BB. BB frustrates me for other reasons, but at least they know how to organize a Black Friday like no other.

I absolutely agree. Circuit City is THE worst on BF. They seriously need to learn from Best Buy. We went to BB at opening and got out in 45 minutes. We went to CC at 6, and it took 2 hours and 45 minutes! and all we got were a few blank CDs and flash drives! We looked at items for about 5 minutes and were in line for two hours! Best Buy has ONE line for check-out. It works very smoothly, it is VERY clear where that line starts and ends. One BB employee actually holds a balloon to show you where the end of the line is, and my BB blocks off the line with merchandise so people cannot jump in and out of line. CC has multiple lines with no clear end to the line. One line I stood in moved 4 people in an hour because they had one register and the girl at the register was manually entering the UPC codes! It doesn't help that my CC has a 250 customer limit so when we got there at 6, we had to wait in line for 40 minutes and when we left at 8:45 a.m., there was STILL a line!

Circuit City is the worst on BF. They seriously need to learn from Best Buy. We went to BB at opening and got out in 45 minutes. We went to CC at 6, and it took 2 hours and 45 minutes! and all we got were a few blank CDs and flash drives! Best Buy has ONE line for check-out. It works very smoothly, it is VERY clear where that line starts and ends. One BB employee actually holds a balloon to show you where the end of the line is, and my BB blocks off the line with merchandise so people cannot jump in and out of line. CC has multiple lines with no clear end to the line. One line I stood in moved 4 people in an hour because they had one register and the girl at the register was manually entering the UPC codes. It doesn't help that my CC has a 250 customer limit so when we got there at 6, we had to wait in line for 40 minutes and when we left at 8:45 a.m., there was STILL a line!

I brought my corporate e-mail with me, but I had no problems on my PA for the Olevia 37", and the beautiful thing is that on BF everyone was so busy shopping that there was no line at guest relations! I'm sorry to hear that they gave you a hard time, that's ridiculous, every Target should know their corporate policy, doesn't seem like it would be too difficult for them to know! One thing that might have been the problem is that there seems to be some confusion as to whether the price adjustment is on items that go down in price the same week or within 14 days. I think it has to be bought the same week but you have 14 days to price adjust it if it went down in price in less than a week. Might have been your problem...

There is a tuner included, I didn't have time to play with the tuner today before I had to go to work, so I'm not sure, but in theory "SOME" channels should be broadcast in HD for free, but there won't be a lot of them! If you want HDTV, you really should consider getting a HD plan thru your cable company or satellite provider.

I have not heard failure rates that high, but just in case, I bought the 3 year service plan for $60. I signed up for the target card and got 10% off, so essentially, I got the service plan for free.

Excellent work, mystic mage! Very thorough!

Just remember that for that set size, 1080p does NOT matter. i don't care what people say, go see it for yourself, you will not be able to tell the difference. besides, no one broadcasts a true 1080p signal. if you don't have a PS3, bluray or HD-DVD player, you CANNOT tell the difference between 720p and 1080p. All 1080p does is "future proof" you. And even if you do have 720p on a larger set (42+"), an HD-DVD player will look stunning, much like theatre quality, but it will not have that life-like "soap opera" look of a 1080p. The 37" Olevia is a great price at $550. Those etxra 5" make a big difference over a 32" set IMO. Buy it today and price adjust it on BF! I know I posted this in many other places, but it's amazing how many people are planning on WAITING on BF for hours in the wee hours of the morning when you can go buy it right now and get the price adjust! When I bought my set today, the sales guy said, "Hey, did you know that you can price adjust this for our two day sale?" I played dumb and said, "Really, you don't say?"

Depends on how big your living room is... I just got my 37" olevia today and it is plenty big. I too was worried about size, but if your couch is pretty close to your TV, 37" should be plenty. if i were you, i would go to target tonight and see it in person. if you like it, pull the trigger and save your receipt for the price adjustment. And as for the person who lost your receipt, i would call them or go speak to guest services. they seem to really stress having the receipt.

IMO, everything ive read and seen, polaroids are crap. get the olevia 32" at kmart on thanksgiving fir $420 or the 37" olevia at target for $549. go to the target forum and click on the olevia 37" thread and see how you can buy it today from target and price adjust it on BF or afterwords.

best deal, most convenient: target 37" olevia LCD HDTV 1080i/720p for $549. Buy it today for $799, sign up for their target credit card and get it 10% off, then price adjust it on BF or even afterwords (you get 14 days to price adjust).

wait, why are people going so early? for "big ticket" items, go buy it today at regular price and get a price adjustment on BF.

make sure you say "price adjustment", NOT pricematch. PA = their own sale price PM = another store's price I went and bought the 37" olevia today and asked about PMing and the customer service gave me some attitude saying that they price adjust but don't PM on black friday.

True 1080p gives you that "live" look (the "soap opera" look)... some people actually find this a little frightening at first, because it's so different than what you normally see at the movies. I personally think it's awesome... It looks like you are watching the movie live. You should go to a store and see a 50+" 1080p TV with an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player to truly see the power of 1080p. My Circuit City had Pirates of the Carribean playing on two TVs, both with Blu-Ray, the only difference was that one was 1080p and the other 720p/1080i. Now unless you have a blu-ray or HD-DVD player, you won't know what you're mising. And even in 720p on a 50" TV, the movie in Blu-Ray still looks stunning. It just won't look "life-like". True 1080p sets are basically trying to "future proof" your TV for when all HD programming will be 1080p. so to answer your question of 1080p vs. 1080i/720p, you should ask yourself, will i be using a blue-ray or hd-dvd player any time soon? if the answer is yes, do you want your movie to look like it does at the theater or better than the theater? like the theater = 720p/1080i better than the theater = 1080p.

And on the BB website, it says that the cost with no installation is $1149, so I'm guessing that is the price of the TV on BF, no reason to think that they will give you more money off minus the installation.

Go see this TV in person. I went to see it, and I have to say that if it is ANYTHING like the one at display at my BB in Michigan, AVOID THIS TV AT ALL COSTS!!!! All the TVs on display receive the same HD feed, and this one was fuzzy and looked like a bad standard def TV. I was thinking about getting this TV myself before I saw this. I laughed out loud when I saw the TV, the fact that it's listed as 1080p is some kind of cruel joke. Again, AVOID THIS TV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I went to my Best Buy today to look at the 40" 1080p Samsung that was one of the secret deals on BB's website, and I have to say that I was REALLY REALLY disappointed. The screen was fuzzy and it seriously looked like a standard DEF TV... AVOID THIS TV AT ALL COSTS!!!!

Their website says that the cost of the TV is $1,199 without the installation. Thanks for nothing, Best Buy. It's official, the TV deals are crapola this year.

I went out to look at the Samsung 50 " Slim DLP and I was VERY disappointed at the floor model. The screen was very dark, and I'm guessing this happens quicker than on LCDs. Yes, and they are NOT true flat panels, a bit of a bulge in the back.

Good point... however, the 65" at "sale price" on the BB website is $1999, which is not much more expensive than the 56" which is $1799. Considering the price on the 65 inch, I'm going to say $1300 for the Samsung 56".

Thanks for the scoop, Stealth! We are all anxious to hear! The one on the BB site is $1799 with their "sale" price. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8293839&type=product&id=1173577986549 It is 1080 p and gets pretty high reviews on their website. My guess is that it will be on sale for around $1400-1500. Everyone seems pretty unwilling this year to give you the insane 40-50% off deals like last year.

DVDs will go fast too, but you probably don't need to get there hours before it opens and line up. I would probably go pretty early though around the store opening (5 a.m.) or at least before 7 a.m., if there are specific DVDs you want to get. By noon, all of the popular DVDs will be gone, I guarantee. Last year I went back to Best Buy around noon and most of the DVDs were gone. And because this year, there aren't many really great high-end, big ticket item deals, you can be sure that a lot of people who are going to BF this year will be getting a lot of "small" things like DVDs.

I believe the question is how do you get multiple items as in getting tickets for more than one DIFFERENT ITEMS (i.e. - I got one ticket for a 40" HDTV AND one ticket for a xbox 360 AND one ticket for a digital camera, etc.) People all ready said this, but I want to be clear, because many ppl are answering the wrong question (how do you get more than one ticket for the SAME ITEM): You can get one ticket per item per customer. This means one person can get one ticket for EVERY ITEM (or as many as you like), but only one ticket per item type. The policy is written clearly in their circular, it is not something that will change on a store by store basis. And that is what they did last year. Can you imagine how hard it would be to "prove" that someone all ready got a ticket for a doorbuster if you were only allowed one doorbuster per person??? The crappy thing is that some people will get a ticket for EVERY item and try to sell the tickets they don't want to people later in the line, or buy them all and eBay some of them.

Boo, retailers! Another WSJ article says that some are predicting that consumer spending on electronics will be up 2% this year. I say that they will be DEAD wrong and regret it if they continue their stinginess. My prediction is that BF will be really bad this year with the sagging economy, and we will only stand to benefit in 2009 when they create better deals to lure consumers back.

I think the biggest complaint about the BF "deals" are mainly in TV prices. There are no jaw-dropping deals like we saw last year. If there were a $300 32" LCD HDTV that would bring people out. I also would be pleased with a "brand" name 32" to be around the $400 range. If there were a 42" for $500-600 that also would get people out in droves. Maybe this just isn't the year. Last year before BF, HDTVs were not selling as expected. That led to some insane BF deals. Typically, after a year of technology improving, last year's TVs should be significantly cheaper. Of course as we all know, they are not. K-Mart is selling pretty much the same Olevia 32 " HDTV (for their thanksgiving sale) at $420 that was sub $400 at Microcenter or around ~$450 at other places last year. This year's cheapest HDTV that is 32+" is Circuit City's Element 32 " that is $400, and if you look at the feedback on this TV at their website you will see that it is HORRIBLE even at that price; it is much worse than the Olevia they were selling last year for $475! I'm not really sure what is responsible, but HDTV prices are just generally out of whack across the board. It's like they can't figure out what the market will "bear" for HDTV prcies. And the truth is that HDTVs are still massively over-priced for the established brands. You could have a 32" HDTV for $480-850 right now depending on brand-- which is a huge differential for the same product, and that's not even a sale price. Is it worth it to pay twice as much for a Sony / Toshiba than a Vizio or Element? I don't know... But I really wish the industry would get their crap together. It's so freaking unstable right now, and as a result, there are a TON of disappointed people right now at this big dud of a Black Friday. I think, overall, the retailers are trying to discount the least amount of money on their TVs and still bring out the crowds. I HOPE someone is reading the message boards around sites like this and will see that it's going to backfire on them BIG TIME. I am holding out for some great last minute HDTV to go on sale like everyone else, but I'm not holding my breath. When all the retailers see the numbers for this year's BF and see that the numbers are way down from last year, they will have no one to blame but themselves.