len_mullen

Where do these deals come from? Are there details?

Wasn't this pinned yesterday? 29 posts on HDTVs this year. How times have changed. No more debates about plasma vs LED. No more 1080p vs 720p. No more Kuro vs...the world. No more discussion of 3D or 4k or OLED. No more size matters jokes. I guess flatscreen televisions are officially a commodity. It may surprise you to learn that LCDs have been around since 1988, plasma was introduced in 1997, and even LED screens have been in the market for five years! Here is a good primer for anyone actually shopping for a tv. It was updated in April... http://www.rtings.com/info/lcd-vs-led-vs-plasma Some really bad news for the industry: plasmas and LCDs/LEDs are holding up much better than predicted. Panasonic, Samsung, LG, and Sharp all claim 100,000 hours for their panels. Let's do some math: 100,000 / 24 = 4,167 days of continuous operation -- that's 11.5 years! Even if you only turn the set off for eight hours of sleep, your screen will not reach it's 'half brightness' state for seventeen years. Happy shopping!

from Consumer Reports... Top-notch tablet. Amazon Kindle Fire HDX, ($230). The latest Kindle has one of the highest-resolution 7-inch displays available, great for watching videos and reading books and magazines. New X-Ray features let you dig deeper into the videos you watch and the books you read. For example, you can find all of the songs that play during a movie and jump to the spots in the flick to listen to them. Songs you buy from Amazon come with all of the lyrics. CR hasn't fully tested the Kindle Fire HDX yet, but prior versions were top-rated, and this one looks promising.

Nostalgia! I actually own a Red Rider BB gun -- the one with the wooden stock...and I almost DID shoot my eye out! The Christmas season has always been special to me -- and a lot of that specialness was commercial. It began with the arrival of the Wish Book which was quickly followed by the arrival of ads for the season's most amazing toys on Saturday morning. Thanksgiving was the warm-up for Christmas vacation. Everyone came over for dinner. I was the kid who never got sick of turkey and pies. That weekend (we never had homework over Thanksgiving), my mother would head out to the stores to begin her shopping. I was pretty young when she started bring me along -- as much to push the carts as to serve as a consultant. It started Friday morning, but it was light out and we didn't call it Black Friday. By lunch, we headed home with a station wagon that resembled Santa's sleigh. My first memory of Black Friday is a news story about a brawl over cabbage patch dolls. That would be the 80s. For me, BF went mainstream with the arrival of Big TVs. Those were the amazing deals that people lined up for. Most of my BF wins were lesser items -- a lot of Staples free stuff. Cyber Monday then online BF sales did not diminish the enthusiasm for BF. Shipping, taxes, and crappy web sites could not compete with the B&M extravaganzas. Now a lot of the best deals are available before and after Black Friday. That hasn't diminished the crowds on the weekend after Thanksgiving. I may not be doing as much buying, but I still love to roam the stores enjoying the decorations and music. Black Friday may be losing its meaning for retailers, but it's still fun for me.

I think they will be disappointed. It's been a while since a discount was worth waiting on line for. To wait, haul, and resell is a losing proposition.

if it's for classes, best to check to see what the school might be using for hardware and/or software.

I guess I'm fortunate to be shopping in New Hampshire, because I have never experienced anything like what was in the clips. I have only ever been on queue at Staples and Kohls, but I have seen an orderly Wal-mart queue from that vantage point. The only problems I have seen is with line place holders.

Once the shirts are shipped, offer a prize for people photographing themselves in BF stores BEFORE BF. Scavenger hunt: have people find deals in posted flyers.

I don't care for the gel options. They smell of alcohol and create a lot of moisture inside the fireplace. I really like the Dimplex systems. Mine does not crackle, but otherwise is almost indistinguishable from the real thing inside my fire screen. Still haven't decided if I need the cracking.

Not Staples related, but a few years back k-mart opened on thanksgiving. We were heading to Massachusetts anyway, so I stopped by the Salem, New Hampshire store. The line was not terrible and I just walked in as they opened the doors. The place had been ransacked. They opened Wednesday because the Massachusetts stores opened Wednesday and all the door busters were sold out. There were no rain checks. Some people had been outside for hours and were very upset. I haven't stepped in the store since.

http://www.colorforms.com/

It's time to start buying. Do the homework -- speculate about BF prices and set your price. If you get 'your' price, just make the buy. We are close enough to a deluge of flyers that you should be able to return/rebuy/price-adjust.

Great memory. I had these. I also had a car that had a paper 'program' that directed its movements. You notched this cardboard strip then inserted it into the car and let the car run. The notches would steer the car. Lots of fun.

LED is the biggest scam on the market. You are correct that LED is the light source. There are back lit and edge lit LEDs. Back lit are better because they light small sets of pixels and can be turned off to deliver 'blacker blacks' to the viewer. Allegedly, LEDs deliver a more appealing palette of colors as well. Of course, blacker blacks and truer colors are only the most easily solved LCD problems. Motion blur, poor viewing angles, and jagged edges are persistent. Motion blur and jagged edges are due to the perfectness of the pixels. Because LCDs are uniformly lit from edge to edge. The lack of softness bothers the brain. You can fix that in a brochure, but, in real life, you need much smaller pixels. 4k anyone? The poor viewing angles are due to the fact that the CFL or LED shines through a honeycomb of LCD cells that filter the light to create colors. The only fix is really thin LCDs or really bright LEDs. That's why I always make people LOOK at televisions. A 720p plasma will look better to most than a 1080p LED.

Talk to her about it. See my post above. If her friends or school are using iPads, she may feel alienated. Is this a good time for her to upgrade? Can you re-purpose the Kindle? Take her to the Apple store and see if she loves the iPad as much as she thinks.

Tablets are great toys. You can enjoy entertainment from movies and music to games to books. None of them have enough memory and memory cards are no more fun to use than floppies were. Get as much memory as you can afford and leverage cloud services (Amazon, Netflix, iTunes) for video files (games, books, music are not big at all). I kind of love the Kingston wi-drive wireless storage solution. These include memory, a battery, and server software. You can access one from three devices concurrently and they support iToys, Android, and Kindle Fires. http://www.kingston.com/us/support/technical/products?model=WID I would say that Amazon and Google offer a lot more free and inexpensive software than Apple, but that Apple still has an edge in must have apps (for some). The Windows 8 app store is not bad either. As with any computer purchase, start with a list of the stuff you want to do, find all apps that do what you want to do satisfactorily, and buy the hardware that will run that software satisfactorily. I like the Amazon ecosystem. They offer free apps and you can 'buy' them without actually installing. I check in every morning and have accumulated nearly 3,000 books, videos, apps, games, and magazines. http://www.amazon.com/mobile-apps/b/ref=sa_menu_adr_app4?ie=UTF8&node=2350149011 I have only paid for a small percentage and will never use most, but it's pretty cool to see something, think it might be interesting, and have it available forever for free. I remember waking up to a PBS show on the War of 1812, thinking I did not know much about that, visiting amazon, searching for War of 1812, sorting by price, and grabbing a couple highly rated freebies -- which I have not yet read ;-) This morning, I was asked to do some stuff with MySQL. I had already 'purchased' a couple very useful ebooks. I have disabled purchases on my Fires. All purchases require a visit to the web page. This is good if you have curious kids. Of course, you can still buy something on the device via the web browser. They are very good at browsing the internet and not bad for shopping. If this is your primary use, you can take a chance on any tablet -- including the unbranded tabs washing in from China. Tablets are not as good for work. If you are going to write a term paper, make sure you get one with a very good keyboard. The best keyboard/tab combo is the Surface. It's unobtrusive and easy to install/uninstall (magnets) and the clickable one is actually pleasant to type on. If you are going to work on a tab, address that first. Again, start with the software, If you are going to run Microsoft Access, you need a Surface Pro. If you have a Chromecast and are hoping to control it with a tab, you probably ought to get a Nexus, though I think you might consider dedicating a generic android tab with a current build. As for kids, I would recommend checking in with the local schools. You might as well get them started with something that will give them a leg up going forward. You may find that you can purchase discounted hardware/software or even have access to some for free. Absent that, I would go the same route as I would with an adult -- choose functions, select software, purchase compatible hardware. My sister has a brood of spoiled kids who have iPads, android tabs, Fires, laptops iPods, and iPhones. Most of the time, the kids are looking at youtube on the iPods. On price, Amazon and Google are racing to the bottom. Apple and Microsoft are not competing. Some of the retailers are competing -- gift card bundles and trade in offers plus rewards. If you have a Discover card, check for quarterly and retailer specific promotions (mostly cash back). This quarter, for instance, Discover is giving 5% back on online purchases which stacks with shopdiscover. Staples also gives 5% back in rewards, so you may be able to get a 15% (or more) discount. If you have cash back accumulated, buy discounted gift cards. You can buy a staples $25 gift card from shopdiscover for $20 -- that is a 20% discount off your best deal. They are like cash, so you still get 5% in rewards. When is the last time you saw an ipad discounted 25%? Some deal sites do cash back as well. Finally, if someone wants an iPad or a Nexus, do not get them something else. While they should appreciate the thought, they will not be happy. iFolks want iStuff -- that is the way it is. Back during that 2011 travel spree, I say across the aisle from a college age kid. When he sat down, he pulled ear buds out of his ears and put them in a crushed velvet pouch. He turned off his iPhone and stored that. He pulled out an iPad then a large case that housed Bose headphones. He plugged those in and put them on his head then played missile command for two hours. He was very happy to be playing a 1980 game on his 2011 tablet listening to 1980 sound effects on Bose headphones. Happy shopping!

Gottadeal's a hit, Shoppers chomping at the bit, This is my obit!

We were the LUCKIEST kids ever. Edit your post and add your age.

At work today, we were talking about BF and what the Friday after Thanksgiving was like when we were kids. We started remembering favorite toys. What toys from your youth would you love to see in a 2013 BF flyer? I'll start... - Johnny Lightning Race Track - Rockem Sockem Robots (the good ones, not the knockoffs) - Colorforms - Silly Sand - Creepy Crawlers - Model trains Age: 51

I prefer Samsung screens. LG is coming on strong in the value space, but I think the reality of the rise of the Chinese brands is what prompted this. Prices will continue to drop, but it won't be because there is one less supplier. That's not how things work.

#1 Is this layaway? #2 Ring-a-round the rosie, a pocket full of posies, ashes! ashes! We all fall down. #3 Here I am On the road again There I am Up on the stage Here I go Playin' star again There I go Turn the page

in42

cost includes shipping?

I'll second your enthusiasm for plasma with the caveat that the glass screens are heavier and tend to be more reflective than LCDs or LEDs. Rereading this, I don't think much has changed in five years. 720p is still available. 3D never caught on. Plasma looks best. Judder and motion blur are still problems. My sage advice to people looking to buy a hidef TV is to document your viewing positions (distance and angle) noting windows, capture some typical programming onto a tablet or device with hdmi out, and go watch some tv. Pull a chair in front of a television, plug in your device, and see what you think. If you have a chair off to the side of your television, sit at that angle -- LCDs do not look as good from an angle. Once you have a list of great looking sets, check deal sites for best recent prices and review sites for comments on reliability and performance. Set up price watches for sets you are interested. When the right price pops up, buy the tv. You can price adjust or return/rebuy if a better deal comes along. Also, my plasma came bundled with a HTIB. The plasma in my bedroom has a soundbar. The rest of our sets use integrated speakers. I recommend a soundbar. They sound very good and have a small footprint and price tag. Finally, pay attention to the number and variety of connections. If you are going to plug in a VCR, a BD player, a video console, and a streamer, make sure you have the right connections. The chromecast can be powered by a usb connector on the back of the set. Happy shopping!

I use a wi-drive for this. It's 64g (I have two) and can be shared among three users (great in the car).