Pnambic

I own both a 1st gen and 2nd gen Nabi. I also have a (just turned 4 2 days ago) special needs son (and three older sons from 7 to 14) and it has worked great. The nice big bumper has been marvelous at absorbing both accidental drops and the general rough treatment my child has put it through. It is a fully functional Android tablet with a child-proof interface option (that you can bypass when you want to manage the tablet or just use it yourself). I was able to pick up the Nabi2 last Black Friday for $100 from Walmart. I'm a pretty geeky guy. In my home, we have or have had 2 Samsung Galaxy Tab2 7's, a Samsung Galaxy Tab3 10, Samsung Galaxy S5 phone, several Droid Incredible 2's (had some trouble with those), a Droid X2, the two Nabi's, an off brand 10in Android tablet, an LG G-tab 8.3 (LTE),two Windows 7 laptops, Ubuntu 14 on both an old Dell laptop and a more current desktop, a stack of older desktops and laptops that have just outlived their hardware's ability to run modern operating systems, a Blackberry Curve, a 2nd gen iPad, an iPhone 3GS, three iPhone 4's an iPhone 4S and two iPhone 6's. I say this simply to demonstrate that I'm pretty well versed in the many form factors and operating systems on the market. Personally, if I were going to buy a tablet for my 4 yr old son today, I would set my sights on a Nabi and wait for the best deal between now and Black Friday. If I were going to buy a tablet for my older sons, who can take better care of their devices, I'd set my sights on a Samsung Galaxy Tab4.

And anyone here have any hands-on opinions on the iPhone 6's?

Hey, that looks familiar...

Verizon makes you send in the phone, they look at it and then determine if it's in "perfect", "good", "ok", or "not acceptable" shape and then they send you a Verizon gift card for the amount corresponding to their grade of the phone. They said this will take several weeks, like 6 to 8. The gift card can be used towards Verizon bills and accessories or other phones. Who is your DS with? Did they give the trade in value to your son up front?

Thats only GSM, right?

You might be suprised to learn that the only truly native (not "enhanced"/scaled up from lesser content) 1080P content available even today is direct from a BluRay disk or some PS4/Xbox/games. And 1080P has been out now what, 7 years? Maybe longer? No major studios, even today, either over the air or on cable/satellite, broadcast true 1080P. They all still broadcast in either 720P or 1080i. Though DirecTV and Dish do provide 1080P content for Pay Per View, there is a lot of discussion on the quality of that feed due to compression during transmission. I can't imagine how long it will take before we actually see 4K content of any value. From what I've read, big media houses aren't even playing with the idea of making new 4k Blu-Ray players - they're looking to stream it all, so if you buy a 4K TV, I hope you have a good broadband connection at your house. Netflix says you need to have at least a 15Mb/s connection to stream 4K and that's just for one TV. If you have more than one going in the house at the same time, wow. And you just KNOW that Comcast and the like are going to have conniptions over all the extra bandwidth it's going to take. Personally, I value 4K capability as much as I value the quantity and quality of the little rubber feet that are on the bottom of the stand for the TV (which I would never use anyway as it would be mounted to my wall). Paying an extra penny for a 4K TV is SO not worth it.

This is interesting... IMHO, the iPhone 6 launch is a bit of a fizzle... But it looks like the major carriers had been really looking to it to bump sales. And now they're already making huge adjustments in order to try and drive growth... Sprint's new $100/family 20GB data plan looks almost too good to be true for me, so I'm looking into it too. I'm currently with Verizon, have been for years as they had the best coverage by far in my area when I went to them. My phone is out of contract in December. My son's phone is out of contract already. My tablet has another 18mo, my wife's phone has 15mo and my other son's phone has about 8 months. I haven't calculated the early termination fee yet.

Words to live by concerning tablets: While there do exist some nice, high-end tablets like the one Len mentions above, that are easily paired with keyboards/mice and have usb ports to attach optical drives and other peripherals, you can pretty much count on the $50 Black Friday Door Buster NOT having ANY of these features. - Cheap tablets are generally GREAT at consuming content. They can browse the Internet, stream videos from YouTube/Netflix/etc, check and send short emails and play fun little game apps. They're far more portable than laptops, let alone desktops. A touch screen interface generally works OK for these uses. That is their strength and what they're good at. - Cheap tablets are NOT particularly good at creating content. It you have to write a term paper, your cheap tablet is the last place you want to have do it. If you want to watch a DVD/BluRay, nope. If you want to do anything even remotely close to "gaming", count your cheap tablet out. If you want to do just about anything Office related - working on Excel, Powerpoint, Access, Word, etc, a cheap tablet is terribly difficult to perform these tasks on, if they can do it at all. If all you're using your laptop/desktop for is browsing the Internet, streaming online videos, email and simple, app-type games, and honestly, this may be the majority of people out there, then a cheap tablet may be able to replace your older laptop/desktop. But if you have kids who need to do homework, or you have to use the computer for work on occasion, a cheap tablet will leave you either frustrated out of your mind or simply stranded high and dry and unable to perform the tasks you might need. Cheap tablets are fun little toys. They definitely have their place in the market. (I have a couple.) But in the vast majority of scenarios, they are NOT replacements for a traditional laptop/desktop computer.

Len, where's my invite? I am so bummed about plasmas going away... I don't think I'll buy another TV until OLED's have matured a bit.

http://www.blackfridaycharts.com/ We should have this stickied or something though...

Yup, that's why I try to do my TV shopping in specialty stores. There was a store up in Indianapolis called Ovation that did a great job of this. They had a test room that they'd set up the amp and speakers you were looking at and you could A/B them right there with the very equipment you intended to use. You could even bring in your own stuff and test it there if you were looking to upgrade just a part of it (ie bring in your amp to test their speakers). And they had several sitting/viewing rooms where you could control the light and everything. Awesome stuff. Just about guarantee they'd sell plasmas like hotcakes over LCD's as they were actually presenting them in the right fashion - not under banks of super-bright (and glaring) lights that you don't have in your home. Those guys really knew their stuff too. Haven't done any significant upgrading since I moved down here to Atlanta. Need to find a new spot I suppose.

Wow!

The Nabi was made from the ground up with little kids in mind. The Kindle was not. I think the Nabi is a fine choice for kids. The Nabi is going to be far more difficult (nigh impossible) for the 3 year old to mess things up on.

The 60" screen has almost 20% more screen area than the 55". Time to do some research and see what the reviews look like on those two tv's. For me, I don't think the 60" would fit above my fireplace without significant architectural changes...

Regarding trampolines, as much fun as they are, be aware that your homeowner's insurance company will probably need to be notified of it or they might not cover injuries resulting from its use (it's a common exclusion - check your policy). It depends on your insurance company. And they might charge a little extra for it once they know about it. But if you have a litigious neighbor with kids, and who doesn't nowadays, it could be a major difference maker should something bad happen.

A 60" for $688 really is a heck of a deal. I would prefer 240hz over the one in the ad that has 120 hz, but at that price point, that looks like a great deal. The 46" is again 120hz, but for $500, that's not a terrible deal. But personally, I would (and may) buy the 51" plasma for just a few bucks more at $427. I'm hoping the masses fall for the marketing junk and rush to the 1080p LED/LCDs and leave the good stuff - the plasma screens - for me.

Walmart's ad has a 32" for $98. Though it is not a superstar - it's only 60hz and they're not even telling you the brand.

Your quote reminded me of something I remember reading about a long time ago. While I am a staunch supporter of plasma HDTVs, if you happen to live at very high altitudes, say in Denver, CO, plasmas have been known to create a buzzing sound. Personally, I've never encountered such a thing, but I'm told on good authority that it happens and at one time read about the physics behind it. And since we're missing some good HDTV banter and jokes, how's this for filler? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCLYh4JSus8

Yea, but the same thing could be said about a baby's bottle. If the baby dropped it, someone could step on it and fall and hurt themselves. I doubt the store will mind, so long as you don't take a Target flag into Walmart or something...

Am I the only person who thought of animal "marking" when reading the thread title? Probably....sorry. I don't think stores take kindly to that kind of behavior, though I've seen worse... Flag idea sounds great to me. Use a sharpie if you want to customize the flag....though maybe having her as a fake deal decoy could draw some of the other shoppers away from the deals you're looking for.

Awesome find. Too bad the idiots in charge at Nintendo and Rockstar Games/EA/etc can't get their collective heads out of their rears and make a deal to get some of these great games on the WiiU...

By the way, I thought this was a really interesting read. http://gizmodo.com/5981823/beat-by-dre-the-inside-story-of-how-monster-lost-the-world

Please, no offense intended, but while I do believe the Beats line of headphones are overpriced by half compared to their actual sound producing value, I believe Bose are even worse price/value wise. Both companies have poured an enormous amount of money into marketing and that money has to be recouped somehow. If you're buying a status symbol, then just admit to yourself you're buying a status symbol and be happy with your status symbol. I don't think anyone denies that status symbols can bring much joy just by being a status symbol. But if you truly are interested in value and sound quality, hit up some of the larger audiophile websites and see what they're talking about there. Personally, I've been very pleased with Klipsch ear buds for value to price. Relatively inexpensive at $50 on sale at BestBuy a couple years ago. Very comfortable and great sound. I can wear them for 8 hours a day with no fatigue (I do a lot of database report generating and analysis....lots of time sitting, coding, not leaving my desk...). Back in the day, my dad had some nice ear phones that were HUGE and really heavy, but they sounded incredible. Can't remember the brand... Akai or Koss maybe? Long time ago. We're talking vinyl and reel to reel tape decks people...haha.

Someone else put it best - If it MUST be portable... - Tablets are best for CONSUMING media. - Laptops are best for CREATING media. Tablets are great for reading your email, and simple responses. They're great for browsing the internet. They're REALLY great at social media. But if you're in class and your professor it talking a mile a minute, and you're taking notes faster than you can think, I haven't met anyone who could do that better on a tablet than they could on a laptop. I've even seen some people hook up a little directional usb microphone to their laptop and make audio recordings of the lecture at the same time as they're taking notes. I know tablets are cool and sexy (insofaras technology can be sexy), but buying a tablet for taking notes in school is like buying a Mustang GT as your second car when you have three kids. Sure you'll look cool using it. And it's fun when you're doing what it does best! And it can get the job done. But you'll quickly realize that whenever you need to take the family somewhere, you'll choose the other car - the one with the bigger back seat, or maybe even a third row - while the Mustang continues to look very sleek and sexy, albeit in your garage, not getting used. My bet is, your kids will get very good at using the tablet in class....for tasks (social networking) other than taking notes. And if they don't fall into the trap of playing in class, they'll soon end up carrying both the laptop AND the tablet to class, meaning they'll be carrying even more weight than they would with just the laptop. A laptop and a relatively smart cell phone should be able to cover all their needs on both the class side as well as the social side.

Great question. I remember reading that this configuration, multiple tablet controllers being used at the same time, was available when the WiiU first came out, but I have yet to find a separate WiiU tablet controller available for purchase. Have you seen them anywhere? My sons are on Minecraft all the time. They swear its not even worth playing anywhere except on their tablets or on the PC.