len_mullen

RT came with Office. It was kind of like buying Office and getting a free tablet to run it on. Not my cup of tea, but attractive to a lot of people. Jumping to a more capable Surface meant a huge leap in price PLUS loss of Office. The 'laptop' I purchased was nearly the equal of the Surface Pro, cost less, and included Office. Not sure how you beat that.

http://www.frys.com/product/8018614#detailed

It's always open house. It's easy to see why plasmas are going away. Plasmas are the beta max of the flat screen era. Beautiful image, but heavy, reflective, and expensive to build/ship. It's too early to get into plasma vs 4k, but people shopping for a TV should spend some time looking at TV screens before BF. Nothing like an informed buyer. For the record, the reason I am looking for an LED for my pool room is that they can survive an occasional cue ball hit. I don't see that happening, but I could never be comfortable with 12 ft^2 of glass so close to a billiard ball.

Today is a good day to shop for a laptop on Staples.com. 1) http://www.staples.com/coupons has $150 off computers regularly $499 or more (38812) 2) http://www.staples.com/coupons has $150 off clearance computers (93281) 3) http://www.staples.com/coupons has 25% back in rewards These are all in store (the rewards is only in store). If you are Discover Card user who happens to take your rewards in Staples gift cards, you can use up to five of those on this purchase. Since they are 'same as cash' they have no impact on discounts or rewards. These $25 gift cards cost $20 in rewards, so that is another $25 off.

I'd like a GD hoodie as well. I prefer a pullover to a zip hoodie. Maybe Brad should put up a poll to gauge interest at some price points and another to pick among available designs. For any BF garb, I always want the back to say, "If you can read this, I probably got your door buster!" I'm pretty content to pimp the web site on the front... http://www.yourgamesource.com/images/flash_banner_pictures/Black_Friday_Good_Deals.jpg

Still don't get the appeal of a Chromebook. Or an RT tab for that matter. Are we doing football helmet Avatars this year? Or are you guys covering up for a tumultuous BF season?

I know EXACTLY what you mean. It's not as easy to remove the keyboard as with the Surface's magnetic cover, but you aren't going to break it. There is a button at the top of the keyboard. Press that and pull the display off. Push the display down on the keyboard to reattach. It's a two handed operation, but it's an intuitive two handed operation.

Yeah. It's routinely $349.99 and I applied a $100 off. They run these things a lot on SUNDAYS for some reason. If this sounds like a computer you could love, add it to your cart and try all the $-off coupons every Sunday morning.

A couple weeks ago, I bought a 64g Asus T100 from Staples for $250. This *may* be the perfect PC and is, at least, worthy of your consideration. For starters, it's very portable. It weighs just over two pounds and the battery lasts for eleven hours! It's also very powerful. The quad core atom processor idles at 1.3ghz but soars to 1.9ghz when an application demands more processing power. Despite this, it is fanless which makes it silent and less vulnerable to heat/lint related failures. Wow! Huh? It just keeps getting better. It runs FULL windows 8.1 which means I can run all my old legacy apps -- even the ones that run on DOS. This is very important to me. It has connectors for usb 2, usb 3, hdmi, an SD card, and bluetooth. That means when I use it at home, I can run a real mouse, keyboard, and display. The screen itself is a touch screen and the keyboard detaches so this thing can work as a tablet as well. Finally, it comes with a full license for Office 2013 which retails for $140 all by itself. http://www.staples.com/Asus-T100TA-C1-GR-2-in-1-101-Laptop/product_574373

this is just k-mart making fun of themselves for running Christmas ads in September. Black Friday sales will come even earlier this year and they want everyone to know their layaway is open for business. The implication is that you can layaway stuff now for Christmas. Merry Birthday everyone!

I'm looking for me too. I bought the 42" plasma (just got my cash back notification, so $144 OOP) and am hoping to apply the $125 eGift card to an LED for my pool room. I have a wall that would be ideal for a 60-70" screen. I have a couple 32" LCDs that would look nice in two corners. My wife thinks I'm a little nuts, but not completely. We used to spend a lot of time playing pool and we all agree that it would be much more safe and economical to not have to drive home after a Sunday of football, billiards, and everything that goes with that.

http://accessories.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=A7658008 60" VIZIO 1080p 120Hz LED Smart HDTV + $200 Dell eGift Card - $797.99 FS @ Dell 60" 1080p LED Backlit LCD Display
120Hz4ms Response Time5M:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio300 cd/m2 Brightness4 HDMI and 2 USB Inputs53.1" x 8.7" x 32.8" (w/ stand) Plus another $80 cash back via shop discover for a $500 60" LED smart tv It's always black friday somewhere!

I think this BF will be about 4k tvs. Most of the major players have announced their exit from the plasma market and prices on plasmas and LEDs are insanely low RIGHT NOW. For instance, Dell has a 720p, 42", plasma for $299.99 with a $125 gift card earlier this week. $300 - $125 is $175 -- an insane price for a 42" anything. You could also rack up 15% in Dell and ShopDiscover cash back. $600 60" LG plasmas have been pretty common this summer. I got mine the day before the Superbowl. Midnight55, you should be looking at televisions already. I think the 4k sets look pretty good, but there is a lot of variation in quality between the economy sets and the mortgage-your-house sets. Best bang for your buck continues to be the plasmas. I don't think they get to 70" and 60" is much more common than 65", but they look great.

i got my HDX today. Got it at staples. They only had the 16g and 32g versions, but 32g was fine for me. It came with a $25 amazon gift card, so $404. i had $40 in rewards, so $364. I wanted to use gift cards to effect a 20% discount, but the manager was not particularly cooperative. I ended up using four $50 gift certificates and a $25 gift card. All of that cost me $180. Plus $164 on my discover card for $344 out of pocket. I get 5% staples rewards on everything except the rewards, so $19.45 back. All considered, $325 for a 32g 8.9" Kindle Fire HDX. I'm OK with that, but concerned about my relationship with staples going forward... The newly enforced rule is five gift cards per order. I usually take all my discover cash back as staples gift cards to enjoy a 20% discount on their best prices. I'm premier member, so I have six months to spend rewards and I alwarys recycle 20 carts, so my rewards is always at least $240. Add five gift cards to this and I can spend $365 at the maximum discount. I can increase that to $490 if I leverage the online gift card purchases, I can go $240 + $250 or $590. I have $318 in cash back, which would be worth $380 in staples gift cards, but I need to look at other options since I already have $325 in staples gift cards. Another change that has impacted my behavior is their ink promotions. I used to buy ink when they offered the recycling bonuses. This resulted in the accumulation of ink. Now, the promotions are less attractive and I have to spend $30 every 180 days, so I only buy what I need when I need it and wait as long as possible to make the purchase. Last time I bought ink was $33.99 on 8/26/13. Six months from that would be 2/26/14, but I will recycle on 2/25 and delay my ink purchase until march. I'm not sure these changes are good for Staples. I know they are not good for me. Potential suitors for cash back... LL Bean: 20/25, 40/50 Old Navy: 20/25, 40/50 Crutchfield: 20/25, 40/50Bed Bath & Beyond: 20/25, 40/50 Or I may switch to a different rewards card. Recommendations welcome. We're planning to fly to Orlando in two years for some Disney.

One of the gifts I'm going to pay retail for is the 8.9" Kindle Fire HDX. I really a Gold Box Deal.

November sales were modest, December predictions are dismal, it's ten days to Christmas, and I'm not being enticed! I am going to have to pay retail for one large gift and close to retail for another. Are others disappointed in the sales as the holiday approaches?

How can that be? I have a storage box (also free after rewards) full of free batteries from deals past. Last year, Duracell gave me a $25 visa gift card for accepting those free batteries.

free after rewards batteries from staples

Let's hope the best deals are ahead. I'd like to steal a really nice 60" tv set for my pool room. Since BF, I have a couple small purchases. Yesterday I wooted three new Roku 2 XS streamers @ $60 each. They threw in an extra controller as well. Very nice deal -- don't really want to gift a refurb. I also grabbed three Simple DVRs @ $90 each. I am really falling in love with these. Last night I grabbed a Philips OTA DVR (Model: HDR5750/F7). This wasn't a great deal and it is not what I wanted, so it may go back. I really want a couple K77s, but it doesn't look like Santa is going to get any this year.

http://i657.photobucket.com/albums/uu300/24hrdejavu/psychedelic_trip_spin-animated.gif Brad, I think they call this spin. The media is simply reprinting press releases from those who want to create an illusion that stuff is selling well and consumers had better get busy before everything is gone. My email says there is lots still available for me to choose from and I will get BF prices until they fall further. It's going to be a disappointing season for retailers. Lower margins and excess inventory will impact their bottom lines. Yeah for consumers! I'm not sure this is an entirely economic issue. I know a lot of people who ventured out. They came home with the most steeply discounted bargains -- and nothing else. I usually swing through Staples to stock up on consumables, but I don't need anything. Most of my Christmas shopping was done last month. I'm shopping for a deal on an 8.9" Fire HDX and a 5" or 7" GPS. I'd take a 60"+ LED for my pool room, but it can wait -- until prices drop even more. I propose we continue with Black December deals and discussions. Open fresh topics and compile lists of BTBF (better than Black Friday) deals.

I didn't go out at all this year. I didn't purchase anything online either. We drove past Wal-Mart on our way home Thursday and I was awake Friday at 3:00 am, but it was cold and the deals were only warm -- or at least there were no great deals on stuff I wanted. Considering the emails I am still receiving and what I read in the news, better deals are in our future. I really liked that the merchants have embraced the BF season. It was nice to see so many ads so early. It made planning easier. Even though I did not ultimately execute on my plan, I had one and I had a list. I like what Wal-mart did with the door buster guarantees. I know a lot of people who got everything they wanted at Wal-mart. Finally, as always, I was very happy to participate in these forums. Thanks to everyone for good company and lots of great information.

With Best Buy, you can often call and get an adjustment. I bought a pair of 32" Vizio TVs one year. Best Buy offered a much lower price on a Dynex 32" set, so I bought two of those. I set both up in a room, tweaked the controls, and asked my wife to pick. She preferred the Dynex. Best Buy had the sets on sale for a lower price twice before Christmas and I simply called for an adjustment. For smaller margins, you have to decide if the refund is worth the effort.

I stopped buying DVDs when the LoC decreed that ripping them was no longer Fair Use.

No pictures?

I'm not surprised. First, the deals are not that amazing compared to last week or the week before. Second, a lot of the deals are available online. Third, a lot of people believe there will be better deals after BF. That said, I went to Massachusetts for dinner today. New Hampshire stores were open today while Massachusetts stores were closed. The traffic coming in to New Hampshire was bumper to bumper. So, someone is shopping.