Pnambic

I am firmly a Black Friday Online shopper. Or if I can get a store to honor a Black Friday price, I may buy the item a few days early and then saunter into the store later in the day on Friday to get a price adjustment - used to do that at Circuit City. All the aggressive people fighting and cutting in line and everything has just turned me off. Decided not to expose myself to it as it puts me in a bad mood. Tried a WalMart Black Friday up in Indiana one time 7 or 8 years ago and I felt like Simba in that wildebeest stampede...

If you're not counting the Sprint Ad... Harbor Freight 10/15/2012 Happy Birthday me!

And for each child you learn of like this, how many others don't you know about? We try to adopt at least one family for the holidays every year, but its just heartbreaking sometimes when you see how many people are in need and you just can't help everyone.

Wow, nice find. Thanks!

www.woot.com/WhatIsWoot.aspx Normally, Woot does one item per day. Sometimes they sell out before the day is over and sometimes they don't. If they don't sell out, it sits on their shelves somewhere waiting. But during a Woot-off, they'll blast through all of these left-over items, sometimes 20 - 30 items or more in a day, and it'll last for several days generally. Woot is gud.

Know how much I spent at Target the last 2 years? $0 You're not the only person to get bad customer service from them...

They also make DVD/CD polishers / scratch removers. I have one and have used it to refurbish a number of used CD's, DVD's and Wii games. Used to have to keep it handy for Netflix. It would allow you to buy these with a little more confidence.

Hey Scott, Actually, I'd probably suggest the 46" Panasonic plasma at Best Buy for only $400 righr now. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Panasonic+-+46%22+Class+/+Plasma+/+720p+/+600Hz+/+Smart+HDTV/2125242.p;jsessionid=18EE7B22596308129EDBF7D6EADB7570.bbolsp-app04-43?id=1218322059156&skuId=2125242&st=TC-P46X3&cp=1&lp=1

Now how are we supposed to compete with that??? :) Let's see, my first Black Friday that I took seriously was in 2006. I was sitting flush with cash after a severance pkg and had already secured a new and better job, so I was rolling in the dough as far as I was concerned. I was on the hunt for an HDTV, but not just any HDTV - I wanted a Panasonic TH-42PX60U (it had gotten rave reviews on various forums and consumer reports if I remember correctly). Turned out, that was the TV that Circuit City and Best Buy were going to feature that year and they battled fiercely. First, Best Buy's ad was leaked with a $999 price (regular price $1400 I think). Then Circuit City's ad came out with a $899 price. I went to Circuit City and bought it in advance on the Tuesday before at the regular price (this was when they would honor all price changes within 30 days anyway) and planned to stop by later in the day on Black Friday to get the refund. Then on Thanksgiving Day, Best Buy lowered their price on the TV to $899 as well. I called Circuit City and asked about their best price guarantee and they said they would beat any verifiable price by 10% which would lower the price by another $90. But they wouldn't honor a price that was only advertised on the web (not in a printed ad), so I went to Best Buy bright and early to see if I could buy one of the Panasonic's there (the receipt was definitely a verifiable price) and get Circuit City to beat it. Long story a little less long, I got the last Panasonic at Best Buy, took the receipt to Circuit City, got my price beat, went back to Best Buy and got a refund (never picked up the TV from Best Buy in the first place). Still my primary HDTV and I love it....though probably not as much as you love your best Black Friday find. I do almost feel guilty about how Circuit City went belly up not long after. I know if wasn't just my little transaction that did it, but I do miss them.

So, ya wanna join my club of Target Grudgeholders? :)

BTW, Meritline has a bunch of cheap adapters to convert from VGA to different other formats for around $4 or $5 ea. Your local computer store probably has a similar selection for about $5 more. Its probably not too difficult to piece together a couple connectors to get from VGA to S-Video/DVI/HDMI to connect to the TV if you wanted to go that route.

Walmart has the 1300LM right now for $99 with no rebate mess.

Looks like the Samsung 32 inch is kinda the sweetspot this year. But personally, I'd buy a Panasonic plasma. I've had very good experience with them standing behind their product and respect that a great deal. I believe that for $399, you can choose from a 46in Panasonic plasma at Best Buy or a 42in Panasonic plasma at K-Mart.

Yeah, but I don't like Target. Call it a grudge if you will.

Sure there are. Make sure you check the right box if you want to specifically select Target. Depending on the width of your browser window, the checkbox might appear on the line above. Click the checkbox to the left of the name Target.

Stationchief has put together a marvelous little tool for the site to look at things that way if you like. Click here...http://blackfriday.thestationchief.com/gdcc.php You can select HDTV at the top and click the Display Chart button. Then you can continue to whittle down the chart based on your requirements... - Screen greater than 39 - refresh greater than 60 ... You can filter on 1080p and LCD/Plasma if you like as well, but if you read the first couple pages of this thread, you might choose differently. - Plasma refresh rates are around 600Hz, (notice the extra zero in there) a lot of people don't catch that. - 1080p is mostly useless as most people don't sit close enough to their TV to be able to physically recognize the difference, let alone the lack of real 1080p content...

Ideally, you should only have two cords going to the TV, an HDMI cable and the power cable. Put your money into a Receiver that can control everything else and some speakers.

I'll see if I can find it later, but I've read that you can't tell the difference between expensive HDMI cables and cheap ones....up to about 15 feet. The red/blue/green component video cables work for longer distances, but also cost more. If you're throwing in a couple connections there too, its possible that you might get some artifacts from signal loss if you use the cheap HDMI stuff. Take some measurements. Detail it out. Receiver to HDTV: - 3ft from Receiver to the wall - 10 feet (in wall) from receiver wall jack to TV wall jack - 1.5 ft from TV wall jack to HDTV --------------------------------------- - 14.5 total HDMI cables from receiver to TV BluRay to Receiver - 3 ft HDMI DirecTV/Cable to Reveiver - 3 ft HDMI PS3 to Receiver - 3 ft HDMI XBox to Receiver - 3 ft HDMI Monoprice offers discounts on certain quantities.

First, where are you shopping? I don't want you stealing my deals....hahaha The brands you mention aren't considered, "name brands" per se in high-end electronics. But if you intend to buy the Walmart protection plan anyway, it might not matter to you. These are the units I might possible consider if it were me: - Meijer has a Thanksgiving Day deal on a 32" Samsung for $279 - Sam's has a 32" Samsung for $278 - Sears has a 32" Samsung for $279 - Walmart has a 32" Samsung for $278 - BJ's is selling a Samsung 32" for $279 - OfficeMax has a 32" Toshiba for $279 - Radio Shack has a 32" Toshiba (w/ WiFi apparently!) for $259 - Staples has a 32" LG LED HDTV for $299 - BJ's is selling a Vizio 32" for $239 Under $300, I don't think you will get a quality set larger than 32"...except maybe that Sharp at Best Buy. Looks like Samsung is the popular Black Friday HDTV manufacturer being pushed this year. Most of the big places appear to be selling the 51" Samsung plasma for $499 and the 32" LCD for $279.

+1 on Monoprice. I've bought all my cables there for years now. As discussed here many times, with the analog component and composite cables (reddish/blue/green/red/white and yellow/red/white), the quality of the cable made a difference. But with digital signals such as those used in HDMI, it doesn't matter near as much. When it's digital, it's just sending ones and zeroes. It doesn't matter how strong or weak the one or zero is as long as it gets there. And the loss rate on even the worst HDMI cables is sufficient for distances of 15 ft or less. There are several versions of HDMI though. The newest standard is 1.4, so when you're shopping, make sure you get HDMI 1.4. This one should serve you well (assuming you don't need the cable longer than 6ft).

Generally speaking...if I type in a manufacturer's name and can't find a website (like Dynex) or at least not one in English, I run away. If I find a website and it looks like a 7th grader made it....like Sceptre's, again, I run away. As discussed, 60Hz is the bottom of the barrel. Sure, it shows you an image, even a moving one, but discerning people complain that it tends to blur heavy motion shots to a noticeable level when compared to 120Hz and better. Plasma's are generally 600Hz, plenty fast. But if you only use your TV to watch "The View" or "Good Morning America" with the occasional "Desperate Housewives" thrown in, 60Hz will probably be fine. If you intend to watch much in the way of sports - like hockey, baseball, soccer, things with fast moving objects - you may experience blur. From the looks of that Sceptre's reviews, assuming all people, happy and mad, reviewed their purchase, you get about 1 in 8 that gave it a 1 or 2 star review. Compared to a similar sized Samsung at Walmart with more than 100 reviews, you get about 1 in 20 giving it a 1 or 2 star review.

Here's an interesting site... 90% doesn't seem to hold up to real life tests, though it does use less.... Trouble is, you're talking less than the average person is carrying in their wallet right now. Yeah, LED may use 50% of the electricity that plasma does, but over the course of a year, you're probably talking about a difference of $30. Not $30/mo - $30 over a year. An important thing to take away from that page is how important it is to properly calibrate your TV.

Everyone is welcome to their opinion. Even if they ARE wrong.... It used to be popular opinion that the Earth was flat. We all know how that worked out.... Honestly, when you go with good quality, its not going to really matter one way or the other. On the cheaper quality, 60hz LCD sets, you will see a difference.

Outstanding review. Thanks!

Ok, please excuse my ignorance on this. I've never done the wait in line thing at Walmart for BF, but considering all the Walmarts around here are 24 hours anymore, the logistics of this have intrigued me. So for the doorbusters that start at 10pm on Thursday, when will Walmart allow the line to start forming? Where will they start the line, in the isle blocking other shoppers or outside? Assuming there will be multiple doorbuster items, would they form multiple lines outside and escort them in? Or will there be multiple queues in the store near the items? Camping out in the electronics section of a Walmart doesn't sound too bad - you've got a buncha TVs to watch, even a couple game systems set up, no worries about rain or snow or cold weather, etc. Might be tough to cook something up on the grill though... I read stories every year of people camping out for days for certain doorbusters, where does a 24 hour Walmart accommodate these people? Sorry if these questions sound naive, but the pictures in my mind make Pamplona look like a springtime stroll through the park...