H_Hancock

Agree, and I'd go even further and remind that WM has pretty much always brought in at least one ultra cheap laptop and one cheapie desktop specifically for BF, not to mention several cheap priced TV specials for BF. BB better not rest on this BF.....

Yeah, that's the worst, but depends upon where you shop as to how successful the line jumpers are. For the last few years, more like 5-6 years, we've centered our efforts at Best Buy in Augusta, GA, for several reasons. First, we've been fortunate to be first in line there, well outside of last year when we decided to forgoe BF entirely due to my health...was the first BF I'd missed in decades, actually. But the Augusta, GA, BB has an excellent staff that manages the line well as well as having two Sheriff's Deputies on duty for several hours prior to and during the BF sale....and between the deputies and staff, line jumpers are quite unsuccessful. But, in addition to them, we came up with a unique solution on our own. We, as in several groups that habitually go to this BB on BF every year. And here's our solution; how'd it work at other stores is another question, but it works very well at this BB. Below are linked two street views via Google Maps of the BB...... Side View of store. Front view of store, slightly zoomed in. If you look closely, you can see a row of yellow painted concrete pillars that are about chest high in front of the store and stretch to the right.....guess they're there to prevent cars from being able to park on the sidewalk in front of the store. Well, BB puts out all their shopping carts every year just after they close on the Wednesday before BF. They're left along the left side of the store's entranceway. We take the carts and reposition them.....make a short line in between the entrance and exit doors until the line of carts is even with the concrete pillars. This effectively separates the entrance door from the exit door. Then we make a right turn with the rest and line them up alongside the concrete pillars as far down as they'll stretch. Now, we've effectively made a one-way lane into the store and you can only get into that lane by coming in at the end of the carts. Makes a nice blockade against line breakers and the BB management, every year, highly praises the ingeniousness of the design of what we do and has never criticized it at all.

Well, despite us buying a new putt-around car last weekend and thinking that I'd stay in on BF.....I couldn't help myself and found myself in line at Best Buy on Thursday. So...I have a BF addiction....sue me! Anyway, was first in line at the Augusta, GA Best Buy....quite a feat due to the line was 50 deep by around noon on Thursday. The line, by 5AM Friday morning, was almost completely wrapped around the entire building Best Buy is in......and it houses a Best Buy, a bridal shop, and an Office Depot. Line went down the front, up the side, along the back and almost turned that last corner to come back out the front. Over 400 in line......and they still came in and stood with the hopes of getting the doorbuster laptops and desktop computers. Cannot tell you how many people came up to us when they drove up and asked if we thought their chances were good to get any of those....and they were well past 200 in line. Got in at 5AM.....cold, very windy, and had rained a bit during Thursday. We acquired a Toshiba laptop, Sony laptop, the eMachines desktop, a Garmin nuvi 200 gps unit, two 360GB Seagate hard drives, one Western Digital 500GB external hard drive, a 7" digital picture frame, the Logitech MX Revolution mouse and the Microsoft mobile wireless mouse. We were out of there by 5:30AM......pays to be in the front of the line. The "new" car needed struts on front, so went to PepBoys....took advantage of their free install special and 30% discount on struts. Did drop the price of it by quite a lot! Left the LeBaron there and we both took back off in the Blazer.......headed over to Target. What a mistake. 6:25 AM and the place was a zoo. Couldn't move inside at all. Gave up in there after 10 minutes. Piled back into the Blazer.....drove out to Office Max. Picked up two copies of Kaspersky Internet Security suites for us.....$20/ea. Forgot there was a Target next door.....went inside and what a difference 5 miles makes! Store was darned near empty with cashiers just standing around with nothing to do. Deb got some tops she needed for work.......I got the Audiovox 10" portable DVD player. It'll be used on trips pretty much exclusively. I know it's cheap but it works great and has a good picture to it. While I was in there, went looking for the Westinghouse 22" widescreen monitor, the one for $167. (I know, BB had a Samsung 22" for $200.....I walked right by it and forgot I wanted it....sheesh!!!!) None on the shelves....asked a salesman if they had any left in stock. He checked....came back and said they had one but the frame was broken. Smiled and started to say "Thanks for checking, appreciate it!" just as the salesman said "Would you like a raincheck for it?" Never thought they'd raincheck that price on the monitor. Took it.....price is good through first week in January, so I have that price "guaranteed". Gives me a benchmark when looking at other monitors from now to then for price compairsons. All in all, we overspent on Christmas this year for everyone, but had a great time.....frozen and all! Cheers everyone!

You have to understand some people's point of view. Some think anything but a C2D processor or an Athlon is junk....mistakenly, sure, but that's their opinion. Of course, others that slam a Celeron M completely miss the point that the current Celeron M processors found in laptops these days are Core-based cpus. And since this is the Celeron M 530 cpu, it's also 64-bit compatible and has the execute disable bit feature...... Overall, for $200 for the laptop, for what BB usually sells for $599, it's not a bad little laptop.....but you have to take it for what it is. It's NOT a gaming machine (which in some people's eyes makes it junk......) or a heavy duty desktop replacement machine, but for MS Office use (Word, Excel, etc.), internet browsing, watching movies, and the like, this machine will do quite well and suffice one for basic use for quite a long time.

Well, as they say, all good plans of mice and men are subject to change....or something like that. Had my BF list all planned out........then I found this: http://i10.ebayimg.com/06/a/000/77/cf/fa06_4.JPG http://i22.ebayimg.com/08/a/000/77/cf/fa01_4.JPG http://i21.ebayimg.com/04/a/000/77/cf/fa12_4.JPG http://i14.ebayimg.com/03/a/000/77/cf/fa15_4.JPG Picked her up Saturday.....had to drive 700 miles to get her, but well worth it. 1985 Chrysler LeBaron convert, turbo 2.2L, Mark Cross full leather interior, 82K on the clock, digital dash, power seat, A/C, auto, PW, PL.....and no rust, dings, dents, anything, Brand new set of tires, interior is practically perfect....... So, I've had my BF early. Hope all of you have a great one, too. I'll be thinking of y'all standing in line this year.....and actually will miss participating in the madness....but sacrifices must be made. :)

The ads posted here, and for the last 3-4 years, have proven to be exactly what have appeared in the Thanksgiving newspapers......almost without exception everything you see is exactly what you'll find when the "official" ads are released on Thankgiving Day in the papers.

The ticket gets you first dibs on the item.....and you'll get it if you pick it up the first few hours the doors are open....until 9AM this year. Getting a ticket, heading out to WM, only to return two hours later is a sure way to lose your items......because you'll be at the end of any line you try to get into, including the "I've got a ticket for a doorbuster" line....which will stretch quite a ways in the store. Of course, this is after you stand in the outside line until 9AM, trying to just get into the store....behind the other 500 people in front of you who never left in the first place. Having a ticket does no good if you're stuck outside the store waiting to get inside....and neither does having a ticket in your hand guarantee the ability to cut in front of everyone else who stayed in line all morning.

In all honesty, if you show up at midnight on Thursday/Friday morning....you may be #200 in line...if you're lucky. The tickets for the doorbuster items typically give out within the first 50 people or so.....for almost all the items. Rare is it that someone sits in line for 12+ hours for one single doorbuster item....it happens, but is rare.

Well, that's what they're calling it anyway. Sort of so-so prices, to say the least, but one thing intrigued me......and of course, no way to say whether they're doing it or not. But the ad states they're selling laptops at cost, startin gat $495, with this exclusion: "Offer excludes new HP and Toshiba notebooks priced $1449 or above, Panasonic, and Apple®." Anyway, here's a link to the .pdf I got in my email from them about the sale.....trash it as you see fit. http://image.compusa.com/pdf/071116rop.pdf

Actually, all they've done is pretty much match what a lot of the online sellers are already selling RAM for, esp. if you don't mind rebates. For instance, Newegg has single strips of DDR2-800 RAM (a little faster speed rated, but completely backward compatible with DDR2-667 requirements) for about the same exact price right now....and you don't have to fight any lines to get it. Cheaper still is a 2GB kit..... two 1GB sticks, or a pair of 1GB sticks, of DDR2-800 RAM for around $35 after rebate (Patriot Extreme.....as decent as PNY!), or some OCZ Gold for $38 after rebate, or OCZ Platinum for $40 after rebate, or some Corsair XMS2 for $41 after rebate (all those kits are 2GB kits.....two 1GB strips.) All those are way better than that PNY from CUSA....if you can stand rebates and can stand not standing in line.

I think CompUSA has the winner of the cheapie laptop deals. That HP with the Athlon 64 X2 processor at 1.7gHZ, 2GB RAM, 120GB hard drive, a 17" widescreen, and arguably the best imbedded video processor of the cheapie bunch for $450. Seems to me that the extra $50 over the Sony at BB or $150 at CC is worth spending, esp. for the video and the 17" widescreen.

No tickets for non-doorbusters, typically. You'll usually find those items in the same area they're always stocked in....so that laptop will be found in the laptop section. You'll probably have to ask a sales person to get one out for you.

This will be at least the third year BB has employed the ticket system.....maybe longer. My memory gets hazy about previous ones as time passes.....and I age. LOL!

I've never had the Best Buy we frequent on Black Friday have less than the advertised minimum on any of their doorbusters....and many times more than the minimum. But they've ALWAYS had the minimum they've advertised for sale.

If CompUSA is following what they've done the last two years, they open at midnight for an hour or two for a "special early sale", then close and reopen for the normal BF sale at 5AM. Last year the employees were just sooooo happy to be coming in at 11PM to have to stay until noon when the next shift of employees were going to relieve them. Made a long night/day for the first set.

Yeah...right. Another internet tough guy!

eMachines got a very bad reputation years ago when it was revealed that they were taking back returned computers and either refurb'ing them or taking the good parts out of them (like the video card, memory, hd, etc.), putting them into new computers, and calling the whole PC brand new when the machine was actually either refurb'd or built with some used parts. Their reliability actually went UP after Gateway bought them. The original owner and founder of eMachines (the company was originally Korean-based) was just putting together computers to be treated as throw-away commodity items and couldn't care less about reliability. Gateway did and does.

Funai, hmmmm? Makers of those other fine brands like Misakai, Aventura, Durabrand, Esa, and the aforementioned Symphonic? Ummm....no thanks. Made the horrible mistake of buying a Symphonic TV once from Wal-Mart. Worst picture on a tV I've ever had the displeasure of ever having to subject my eyes to. I'll stick with the "major" brands for my LCD TV. And I know...there are only 3 or 4 LCD panel makers out there. But there are many more ways to cheapen a TV for a price point than the panel itself....like the quality of the electronic components behind the panel (there are very cheap capacitors and quality capacitors, for instance. Which kind do you think Funai is using.....the ones that cost 0.02 per capacitor or the ones that cost 1.00 per capacitor? Makes a huge difference in viewing quality and longevity.)

Geez......."HDTV is coming and going they're going to quit sending regular TV out. You gotta get an HDTV receiver to get the new signal." And all the variants above. Such incorrect information and misinformed people. The upcoming switch from analog to digital broadcasting by the over-the-air broadcasters has NOTHING to do with HDTV. It's simply a change in how the TV signal is sent over-the-air.....and will affect only those that use an outdoor antenna to receive their TV shows.....you know the kind, the big old TV antenna you buy from Radio Shack and such. So, the change only affects a very few...typically those very rural or who do not have cable or satellite or choose to subscribe to either of those options. While it's true that older TVs don't have the capacity to tune in digital broadcasts, set top tuners will be sold to convert the digital signals into something the analog tuned TVs can use. The converters will cost approx. $100 from best estimates....but the gov't, who is making the change mandatory, will be offering vouchers for...as it stands right now $60, to help defray the cost of the tuner converters. This has NOTHING to do with HDTV. When the conversion happens, if you couldn't watch HDTV broadcasts on your current standard definition TV, you still won't be able to after using the converter. You'll still need to buy an HDTV.

I agree with chimeralife. Both the internal and external hard drives were gone before about 30 min. had passed last year. While we were in line to checkout....I went back to look for one of the WD externals......and the shelves were completely bare. That was at around a half-hour after the doors opened. As for people looking for the doorbuster TV, laptops and other computers....don't know how other BB's work, but the one we frequent every year for BB has you check out at the customer service desk if you have a ticketed item to purchase. Then, after paying, you either receive the computer right there at the desk, or in the case of TVs and other larger items, you'd drive to the rear of the store and they'd load it into your vehicle. There was no running around trying to find the doorbuster electronics like computers and TVs....they weren't on the floor anyway.

He means that on military bases, which is the BX/AAFES reference, the military don't pay sales taxes on purchases. One benefit to offset the very real hazards of military life.

Probably only during the doorbuster hours, and CC, like BB, probably has that angle covered. Probably won't PM special sales, etc., and then there's the question of is the customer service desk even open during the doorbuster hours for PM'ing or is it closed for that and being used as a checkout counter exclusively?

Yes you did. It's here: http://forums.gottadeal.com/showthread.php?t=81805

If you simply shop by price, you may get burned by longer routing instructions from your GPS. As GPS Magazine pointed out, not all GPS units and their maping and routing instructions are equal. From a recent test of the Garmin Nuvi 250W, which was put against a Magellan Maestro 4050 and a TOMTOM ONE, all three were asked to route from one address to another. Unfortunately, the TOM TOM fared the worst giving routing that was longer than the other two and put the arrival/destination sometimes on the left instead of the right. From the test (condensed): I'd really rethink the TOM TOM ONE in preference to a Garmin.....there's a reason why Garmin outsells TOM TOM by a huge margin.

There is one thing in particular to pay attention to in looking at the laptops. So far you've all talked about the AMD Athlon 64 X2 cpu, the dual-core Pentium, and the AMD Turion X2. What no one has spoken one word about, and is quite important to consider, is battery life and how the various processors will treat that facet of laptop life. Both the Pentium dual core (the one in the Sony) and the Turion X2, in one of the HP/Compaq laptops, are true mobile computer processors. This means they are designed for lower wattage draw when operating, have some power saving enhancements to reduce wattage draw when the computer is at idle, and run cooler. On the other hand, the Athlon 64 X2 cpu found in the HP from Best Buy for the $450 price, is a desktop cpu. This is not uncommon as it's much cheaper to take a desktop cpu and jam it into a laptop. May not be the best option, but it sure is cheaper for the maker. But this means the laptop is going to run hotter, the cpu will use more wattage (power) than a mobile processor, and rarely has power saving enhancements (the desktop cpu...at the time the Athlon 64 X2 was created was rarely looked at a place to conserve power, which is different from today, at least from Intel cpu standpoints. Since there still is no AMD equivalent to the Core-based cpus, the Athlons still draw more power in use.) Just a thing to watch out for. Personally, I'd rather have a mobile processor, either the Intel Pentium dual core (which in the Sony is based on the current Core cpus) or AMD Turion, than a desktop cpu stuck in for cost savings.