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Yeah, the laptop coupon would be nice when the new Centrinos come out. BTW, if you want lower prices on laptops (and desktops) go to www.cyberpowersystem.com . Their prices are a heck of a lot lower than Dell. They're reputable as well. In fact the Dell $500 coupon makes Dell just slightly more expensive than Cyberpower's equivalent laptop (as opposed to way more expensive).

I got myself some HP Bluetooth Headphones for my Ipaq.

I gotta try this some day!

As far as I know if you drop your laptop they will not cover it if there is any signs of physical damage. If you drop it and it doesn't work but you can't tell you dropped it then you might be safe.

Some people I see have gone totally wacko over some of these deals this year. Lining up at 7 PM? Sheesh! I have a hard enough time coping with standing in the store working for 8 hours, I can't imagine waiting 10 hours just to get in. The laptop deals weren't even that great. Yeah, its a laptop and yeah its $500, but its not like its even a good laptop. Sure it does fine for basic tasks as any computer, but with sub-standard specs its really not so great.

Do SD cards count as accessories? It doesn't appear so

Thanks for the SD Card tip. You can never have too many SD cards especially when you got a PDA and two digital cameras. It really doesn't take too long to fill out those rebates. Took me about two solid hours to photocopy all the materials and send them out. There was if I recall correctly about 12 rebates I had to fill out, some were for as low as $15-$50 and some were as large as $200-$300. But this year I am not buying much more stuff because my house over the last two years has taken on a eerie resemblence to the inside of a Best Buy as it is. hehe.

I am going to pick up all/most of the free after rebate items and also some CD-Rs, cases for said CD-Rs, USB Flash Drive, and if I find a good deal on a SD card I'll get that too. Then if anything catches my eye I guess I'll add that to the cart. Not a very big list this year. Last year I got the laptop, desktop, as well as a dvd burner and a lotta other stuff (about $3,000 worth of stuff, and recieved back $1,200 in rebates).

Yeah, the 15" LCD is a beter deal probably. But for $199 with a 17" CRT and XP its a pretty good deal. I'd almost buy one if I already didn't have 4 computers and a PDA at home (yeah, I finally bought a HP 3115). Best Buy does not deal with Lindows or any Linux system pre-installed as far as I know. Maybe in concept stores, but definitley not in any I've heard of. So you will definitley get XP Home Edition. Those emachines are alright if all you're doing is web and MS Office and occasionally dealing with some mp3s or something. I wouldn't recommend it for gaming or serious development.

LOL! I almost spilled my Pepsi when I read that.

Doorbusters are also the sales that bring in the customers. When someone hears of a sale where laptops will be $499 and CD-Rs are free they'll sure as hell show up to check it out. Me, my brother, and one of his friends have made up a plan to fan out over the stores (Best Buy, OfficeMax, CompUSA) with each of our shopping lists and buy all the items we want from those stores for eachother. That way we all get what we want. Then we'll just go over the receipts and pay eachother whatever money we owe eachother and sort out the rebates.

Compaq and HP are really one company with two names. They are very reliable as well and have been around a long time and will continue to be. I don't think you'll find any "generic" laptops, Zitadelle. I bought the Toshiba last year and it still works, but I admit I don't use it often, maybe two or three hours a week.

Well sometimes its just easier to swallow a $20 return without a UPC (and resell it as an open item at a loss but at least getting something out of it) than it is to have to call the cops on a customer. Yes, I've seen this happen myself. In most cases this was as a result of improper training and the retail employee thought it was true. This is most common when customers ask obscure questions we're not prepared for. I usually say "it should cover it, but let me check" (and I check with a manager) or I say "I'm not sure". But some employees will say yes even if they don't know just to move past the question. Only in few cases during my time working at Best Buy have I seen someone knowingly lie about the service agreements - and in each of those cases it was a manager. The reason is simple. We don't work on commission (some do, some don't, but no Blue Shirts work on commission), we have no reason to lie. Managers are bonused at the end of the month. This happens because we're told to hit it at least 3 times. He's not trying to annoy you, he's just following procedure. You'll find this happening the most during the weeks when holidays are over and firings begin because that's when secret shoppers evaluate the employees. Thanks, I'm happy to offer my services to all of you. Yes, there are some bad reps. Mostly those who have a promotion pending or are in a position to get bonuses like managers. That's when they have incentive to do whatever it takes for you to walk out the door with an item. Out of the regular part timers you come accross they are 99% good people, from my experience. We really mean well and if you're nice to us we'll try to find you a good deal. Generally as I've said about the salespeople lying, this happens rarley and when it does it happens with people like managers the most. This is true especially on service agreements. Almost every piece of electronics has its own service plan or replacement plan with its own exceptions and rules. It's very technical. Even cell phones have two seperate service plans (one for prepaids and one for contract phones). When someone tells you something is covered and you know it is not or that the service plan works in a way you know it shouldn't or may not its usually because the sales person doesn't know better or gets confused. This is why when angry customers come back and demand refunds despite store procedure and rules showing they shouldn't get one, sometimes they are granted one.

Yeah, price matching strategy will work if the lowered price is a real reduction in the price at checkout, it will NOT work if the lowered price is a result of a mail-in rebate. That's the point I was making, because a vast majority of the black friday deals will be the same as everyday prices except you'll get mail in rebates that result in an insanely low final price.

I live in the suburbs of Chicago.

You won't find anything but the bottom of the barrel on sale (at least at an amazing price, I'm sure they'll have some minor sales on the more expensive ones too but they'll still be expensive).

Well I know that the $499 laptop will be $899 before the rebates, so be prepared to spend that. Also, at the Best Buy I worked at every department had tickets for their best items. For example in wireless we had a $20 prepaid cell phone last year (this year there's a free one) as well as a cheap PDA. What happens is before opening a person from each department goes outside and goes to the line in order pre-selling the items. They do this for every item that is likley to sell out - i.e. Laptop, Desktop, Free Items, Super Cheap Items like Plasmas, etc. If they don't have a ticket for it that means they don't expect it to sell out too quickly. The reasoning behind the ticketing is simply to prevent a mad dash for a certain section of the store that would likley result in looting. Can you imagine 100 cheap laptops on one shelf? There'd be casualties. As far as getting in line... well this depends on your local Best Buy. At my Best Buy I got to work at 5:40-ish for my 6 AM shift and my dad and brother dropped me off and promptly got in line. They were about the 20th people in line and were able to get everything they wanted in tickets (laptop, desktop, dvd burner, and some other stuff that I forget). So That's 20 mins before opening and comfortable line. I have heard of stores where getting in line an hour before opening was needed. I also know someone who went to a Best Buy early, they were sold out of the laptop, and proceeded to go to another far suburban Best Buy and were able to buy the $499 laptop as late as 11 AM - that's 5 hours after opening - and this was because several ticket holders did not claim it by the minimum time and they were in a seperate line to be next in case this happened. That however is a lucky break, so don't count on showing up at noon and getting the goodie items. If you have no clue what so ever what the traffic is going to be like in your area, I'd say show up at like 5:15-5:20ish. That's probably the safest balance between showing up and being somewhere near the beginning of the line so you can still get some of the goodies on tickets and being too early. Last thing you wanna do is freeze your genitals off standing in the cold for 3 or 4 hours BY YOURSELF. Then again, it all depends on how badly you want that sale lol.

Yeah, I guess a new model we're not aware of for BF only makes more sense in that case.

I love your avatar Ohioguy! :)

Wacky, I think that 42" Plasma is going to be the Daewoo just because thats the cheapest 42" plasma they have now. That means its more releastic they drop the price on it just a little more than on another one more steeply.

Yeah, I wasn't trying to blast any of you as I will myself be engaging on blackfriday sales goodness before I start work at 10 AM, I am just giving you all a warning about these tactics that retailers are ready for (some more than others) so that you're not disappointed. That way you can come back to those forums and talk about the great deals you got not about how you feel you got screwed because you tried to cheat or find a loophole in the system.

I don't work FOR best buy, I only work IN best buy. I don't get trained on Best Buy's procedures, so all my information I have about them is what I see with my own eyes or what I learn through convos with my co-workers. I don't care if you guys don't listen to me. It's your money that's going to go down the toilet if you screw up the whole rebate thing. Go ahead, do these strategies, I don't care. It's your money. A lot of my customers don't listen to me when I tell them that the service plan doesn't cover certain cases, either, then they always get mad at me when they attempt to utilize their service and are declined. What you're saying here reminds me of that. I think as an employee working in the store with inside info from other employees I work with I'd know better than you what is going to work and what won't work.

It's not a question of whether or not its "okay" to do the return/rebuy, its a matter of that not being permitted by store procedure. I can't of course speak for every store, but with Best Buys I'd be wary as steps have been taken over the last year to cut down on the store getting screwed or on customers cheating the system. I fully expect overzealous customers to get screwed. It's one of the most rewarding things to witness while working that day, especially to see the customers that annoyed you get ripped off. But I am just providing my advice to help all you guys here from falling prey to the system so that you're not the guy throwing the cell phone at me or wasting my co-workers time.

Feel free to spread the word about these two potentially disappointing strategies to anyone who is considering trying them so that shoppers everywhere know that they can't get away in many cases with this and know what the risks are. That way it saves us employees a lot of time in the weeks following by preventing many shoppers from coming back angry they're not getting their rebates.

WARNING: Don't buy things before the sale and hope to have them price adjusted. I spoke to a few employees at the store I work at today and I found out this will not be doable in many cases. Items where there is an instant rebate or mark down, this may work. But if the price difference is a mail in rebate you will not get that mail in rebate because the conditions of the rebates as printed on the forms will say "must be purchased on November 26". So if you come back to the store for the rebate, they'll give you the form, but when you send it in you will not get it as the original receipt will show a different day. WARNING 2: DO NOT return items and expect to be allowed to buy them back. Returning items and buying them back is not going to work either. I don't know about other stores, but the store procedure where I work at from what I learned via convos with the customer service people is that once an item is returned it is not put back on the shelf until later that day or the next day once its been verified to be in proper working condition. Also, all items returned are labelled "Open Items" and a few bucks is taken off of them (like $2 off a $50 item for example). When you buy an Open Item you have to fill out a form saying you know you're buying a returned product and the miniscule price adjustment is made on the register. Open Items are NOT eligible for most, if any rebates. So both the strategies of buying items ahead of time, and returning and buying back an item, will most likely not work. My advice is to just show up early like everyone else and hope for the best. Trying to screw the system or get around the system may produce a situation in which you get screwed out of the rebates, you waste a lot of your time, employees time, and no one is happy at the end of the day. So just play fair and show up early. :)