TazErase

I believe Amazon is putting out a tablet this year for $249 (retail price, might be slightly lower on BF but since it will be brand new to the market there's a good chance it won't be on sale BF). Considering they will have the tablet which can do everything the Kindle can and much more for that price, I would expect the Kindle with 3g to be about $100 - $129 this year. This year I predict tablets to be in, and all the older Nooks, Kindles, etc. to drop greatly in price due to the competition of the tablets. I would also not be too surprised to see a price drop on the Ipad 1 and possibly a slight drop on the Ipad 2 shortly before BF.

If I remember correctly, this was the Acer One. Exact same specs as the one Target and Radio Shack had for $149, with the only exception being no choice of colors.

You asked numerous things so I'll try answering each. First, I would always recommend waiting till BF. I saw numerous deals on items but then on BF you can usually expect another 10-20% or more off even those prices. I have purchased netbooks as well. There are a main things to consider. First, it is not a laptop, it will never be as fast as a laptop. Also they don't have cd/dvd drives. Last year I grabbed a few for $149 (Acer 1 gig processor 160 gig hd, webcam, etc). While it is nice to have rather than carry a laptop, they are much slower, can not run as many programs at the same time, and it cost about another $50 to get a cd/dvd drive. My main purpose was to have something small rather than carry a bulkier laptop with me. It serves my purpose, but unless you intend to take it out of the house enough to make it worthwhile, you are much better with a laptop. I would not be too surprised to see the Acer for about $129 or less this year, but if you get a drive, unless you are looking for something mainly for portability, you should be able to pick up a more powerful laptop for about $149 (I expect the BB Toshiba to be about this price this year) and many other places for about $199. Also I would recommend stick more to proven brands. You said you bought a netbook for $99 that was garbage, rather than throwing out $99, for another $50 you could have gotten an Acer (proven quality). Problem is if you are comparing the netbook to a laptop, they will all be garbage in a head-to-head competition.

Yup, thank you very much, it was appreciated. I have at least 3 "trainees" this year, possibly more by BF. I have already starting training my son by making him get out of bed quickly in the mornings, stay close to me in stores, and carry a bunch of stuff in his arms, lol. I know there is always a lot of controversy over taking kids. Having gone for many years, I base my decision to take them or not on whether they can do it safely at their level. My daughter has been going with me since she was 8 and until she was ready, her main job was to get on the BB line while I shopped, and then went right to the front. He has been bugging me to go for many years but I refused until I felt he could handle it safely. Now that my daughter is 13 this year (and taller than my wife, lol) she is a veteran herself and been a huge asset to being able to be in more than 1 place in the store at a time, lol. Our usual plan for Best Buy is we all have a few items to get, while the youngest (or slowest) in our group goes immediately the the front of the line. Has worked great for many years, and often by 5:15am we are on the way to our next store.

Yeah I remember a few years ago when I had a chance to get to Walmart. I believe they had bicycles for $29 that year and a lot of people waiting. They would not let anyone touch the items until 5am. There were a number of items we wanted to get so we didn't even try for the big ticket items (even though we got there at about 11pm) As soon as the Walmart employee turned around, someone made a dash for the bicycles. Everyone else not wanting to be left out then also went for them. Total chaos as everyone jumped on the pile all at once. Poor Walmart employee turned around to find almost all of the bikes gone in less that 30 seconds. As far as the taped off areas, even though when we arrived there was no line, they made us walk through the carriage/tape barriers before we could get in. Once inside half the store was taped off and even though it was a 24hr store, they were smart enough to lock the doors at about 2am to avoid total overcrowding. Just glad I wasn't stuck outside, lol.

I'm really hoping so. My daughter is bugging me for a tablet but I will not buy a cheap no-name brand. I would rather pay a little more to get a brand name I know and trust.

There will tons of deals prior to BF, but BF is the biggest push to get customers in. I always wait till BF for any electronic purchases. As far as the Ipods, like Freesia39 said, they never go on sale but they will have gift cards for Itunes with it usually. Apple has in their sales agreement with anyone that sells their product that they can not sell it for under the price Apple tells them to sell it at.

I'm sure you can find someone in these forums that would be happy to help you out in Tx. I've met many people through this site, and although I always do BF locally, I have had offers to join people from other states already.

About the only thing I see that my kids would like is that laser chasing R/C car.... of course with my kids they would probably wait till the cat chased the laser from one side and watch the car and cat have a head-on collision, lol. Gotta love boys and trying to figure out how they can make a toy even more fun, lol.

It works great, you can change refresh rate from 1 sec to a few hours (although a few hours and you will miss the deals, lol). You will have to highlight and then left-click after highlighting it to set it. You can change the refresh rate speeds in the options.

Sent a PM about 4 days ago and haven't heard back yet.

I did the same thing 6 years ago and had to recheck my routes, lol. Before I moved all the stores were scattered all over the city, many of them a 20 minute drive between them. I picked my main stores with the best deals and found out where they were clustered together. Even though it was a 45 minute drive to get there, all my primary stores were within a mile of that location. Now in a 5 mile stretch I have 90% of the stores that have BF sales, couldn't be better.

OK, I'm going to give a HUGE hint to those that feel they have to keep refreshing every 5 seconds for the update... There is an add-on that will automatically refresh for you, and when there is a chance it will send you an audio alert letting you know there was a change to what you're watching, such as a price update. Get Firefox (Mozilla.com) and then pick ADD-ONS from the drop down menu and get C4C (check for change). It will automatically refresh your page every few seconds (you choose how often it refreshes). As soon as the price changes in you cart it will play and audio alert letting you know it changed. To pick what you want to check for change you need to highlight the price, then right click to set refresh rates. Guaranteed you will not miss when the update changes, and if the volume is loud enough, even if you fall asleep it will let you know when it changed so you can make your purchase.

There are actually some people that don't know where to even find the unannounced deals when they get on line. For 1 thing, people line up over a week before BF in some places and just HOPE the unannounced deals are going to be worth it. I don't particularly like the unannounced deals but it makes sense to keep them quiet so they can have the best deals without others learning them. The unannounced deals are kept very few employees in the store even know. As far as the other items on sale BF, I have already showed some employees the ad during my recon missions and that was the first they ever saw the ads or knew what would be on sale. Having worked retail myself years ago, even as assist manager I was not notified until the Monday before BF what the sales would be.

Wow... my kids don't even know what a cassette tape is, lol. In that ad they had cassettes for $6.99, lol. Can't believe a 13" picture tube tv with vhs for $299??? lol Loved seeing it. Just think how this years BB ad will look to others in 15years? Scary huh? lol

Nah she didn't want to cut, she wanted me to pick up a laptop (which everyone with me was intending to get for themselves) and let her buy it from me at cost. Bad enough if she wanted to cut, heck 1 person cutting, I'd still have gotten my laptop, but if you really want the item, you get on line early. If I had let her cut the line, or even a friend of mine, I'd be lynched by the crowds. I never hold spots or let people cut. As many of you know that would cause a riot in most locations, lol.

lol, I work at UPS and I often tell the employees what the good sales are a few weeks before when GottaDeal posts them. Funny but truth is at many of these stores they honestly don't know the deals until about 1 week before... except the ones I referred to the site.

One of the funniest memories I have from last year.... OK, I was first on line for Best Buy. A lady shows up at about 8pm Thursday night, goes to the front asking what her chances are of getting the $189 laptop. I told her there was no chance at all and she then gave me a sob story about her friend's mom that died and she wanted to cheer him up by getting him a laptop. Then she smiled at me and said I look like a nice guy and she knows I'll do the right thing... HELL YEAH, I didn't wait on line all this time to get a laptop for someone that shows up after the line has a few hundred people and try to guilt trip the first person in line. My whole point of being there was to get that laptop for my family. Yeah I'm a nice guy, but nothing stopped her from attempting to get there earlier and beat me on the line, of course that would just mean I have to get their earlier next year, lol.

WoW!!! Lining up at Dollar Tree? 75% off... get the items for $.25? lol Seriously I never knew Dollar Tree to be a big draw on BF, lol

ROFLMAO... I seriously thought someone was really asking something so crazy this soon. Figured they should at least wait another day or 2 to start asking where the ads are, lol.

Both of you have a point but since many others will be selling cheap laptops and netbooks, I's expect Best Buy to have a laptop for about $149 this year. Laptops are still one of the items to draw the biggest crowd. Amazing how people show up at midnight thinking they may actually get one of the cheap laptops, but many of they stay hoping to get some other good deal on a different laptop. Those deals are limited to only the first few, and since they are very limited, if they can bring 100 people through the front doors, but only have 13 (that's what our store had last year) many of those waiting on line will go for the next laptop deal. Deals were much better when CC was around and in fact 2 and even 3 years ago BB didn't have a cheap laptop deal. Last year, even with CC gone, they brought it back because they needed to get people to come in because having been on the line all 3 years, 2009 and 2010 the lines were shorter than ever even without the CC competition. The BB deals improved last year, and while not as good as 2008, the lines were about 25% longer than 2009 or 2010. Of course they were still only about 40% of what it was back in 2008.Even the 3rd group to show up at BB didn't arrive until about noon on Thanksgiving day, and they got the same laptop as I waited much longer for, although until the store opened they weren't sure if they'd get any where I knew being first I was guaranteed to get mine.

lol, glad to see I'm not the only 1 who has been preparing. I am getting my team together for this year and working on getting all the gear prepared. Not sure if Old Navy will be open Thanksgiving Day and midnight BF like last year. In the past the entire mall was closed and we'd have to go to the local dinner to go to the bathroom. Last year with Old Navy right next door to Best Buy in the mall, they let people in to use their bathroom and warm up a bit rather than getting bored on the line all day. If not, I still have my old gear such as propane heater, etc. Amazing how many friends I get every year by letting people who didn't know what they were in for warm up their hands by the heater, lol. The location I go to is actually mall property so they don't allow tents, generators, or many of the other things many of you bring. Just a few chairs, water jugs, heater, a small table, and a few other minor things is about all they've ever allowed.

Rocketfish is mostly accessories not so much the items themself. I have a few Rocketfish mice and they work fine but without all the options that most of the name brands have.

Not sure if they would hoarde up on older technology items this soon. I hope so though, that's what my daughter wants the most this year. I've been looking at the 7" tablets which I think would be fine, but I think she wants the 10" for about $100. I know and trust the HP name so if they have it for the right price I'll get her one.

As far as the main topic, I am spending about half what I usually spend on BF. Usually it is not uncommon for me to spend $4000 or more on BF, this year I'm not even sure if I'll be able to come up with $2000. I still plan on being at Best Buy first though in large part because I'm training a few new rookies who have never been BF shopping. Personally I think the one is just looking to get on the front page of the newspaper like we have year after year, lol. Our local paper covers BF at the mall and Best Buy always has the first and longest line so that's where the story always is.