Black Friday Not So Great Deals

[Chuckanut]

I found what I consider a not so great deal offered on Black Friday.

The ad offers an Echo dot for $20! Wow! But, it is the the older second generation Dot not the new one. Not such a great deal, IMHO.

 

[Rustic23]

I have two 2nd gen dots. I ordered this for the guest quarters. Can't go wrong for $20. However, I also ordered the 3rd gen for $24. As far as I can tell from reviews, there is better base in the 3rd gen.

 

[omni550]

I have two 2nd gen dots. I ordered this for the guest quarters. Can't go wrong for $20. However, I also ordered the 3rd gen for $24. As far as I can tell from reviews, there is better base in the 3rd gen.

Thanks for this^. I just ordered a 3rd gen Dot. Will 'retire' the 2nd gen Dot to the guest quarters.

omni

 

[jetpack]

Lol, Amazon just had the 3rd gen Dot on sale for $1. (just needed to sign up for a free month of music)

 

[imoldernu]

2n gen Echo Dot and Fire Stick $39.95

 

[Major Tom]

I flirted with the idea of getting one of their tablets on sale but apparently (and understandably) they tend to drive you towards Amazon products. I do my best to steer clear of Amazon, so decided against it.

 

[Another Reader]

Still looking for a laptop. Deals seem ok, not great. Concerned about obsolescence of the current generation of HDD's as SSD's become standard. The best compromise of price and quality I can find seems to be this one at Staples.

https://www.staples.com/hp-pavilion-laptop-15-cs0064st/product_24327021

Price is $500, more than the mid three's I was looking to spend, but a much nicer display. Wondering if the Optane memory is a long term trend or if the SSD is more critical. Any thoughts from knowledgeable computer consumers?

 

[Ready]

Still looking for a laptop. Deals seem ok, not great. Concerned about obsolescence of the current generation of HDD's as SSD's become standard. The best compromise of price and quality I can find seems to be this one at Staples.

https://www.staples.com/hp-pavilion-laptop-15-cs0064st/product_24327021

Price is $500, more than the mid three's I was looking to spend, but a much nicer display. Wondering if the Optane memory is a long term trend or if the SSD is more critical. Any thoughts from knowledgeable computer consumers?

I haven’t seen a 5400 RPM hard drive in a long time. I think that’s going to be painfully slow. I didn’t think they made those any more.

 

[Beldar]

I'm trying to figure out where and what are the "Black Friday/Cyber Monday" sales for the iMacs. We are in the market for a new desktop & if I can save a few hundred $$s this might be the time.

Otherwise, I haven't noticed any great bargains otherwise.


_B

 

[Ready]

I'm trying to figure out where and what are the "Black Friday/Cyber Monday" sales for the iMacs. We are in the market for a new desktop & if I can save a few hundred $$s this might be the time.

Otherwise, I haven't noticed any great bargains otherwise.


_B

The IMac is essentially the only Mac that didn’t get refreshed this year so I don’t think there is much demand for them right now. It is anticipated that new models will be announced shortly after the new year. You can get a small discount at B&H Photo/Video in NY, but nothing to get excited about.

 

[chilkoot]

A few weeks ago I bought a printer as a Fry’s deal of the day. I’ve since seen the same model offered as a Black Friday deal from a couple of sellers at a higher price.

 

[jetpack]

Dell refurb is a good place to get a decent computer w/out spending much
$99 desktop $200 laptop after 60% off coupon today
https://www.dellrefurbished.com/

 

[justlikebike]

I purchased a laptop about a month ago, also purchased an 500gb SSD drive at the same time, they replaced the hard drive and installed a "Clean" version of windows for free at the time of purchase. My laptop went from taking 2 minutes to start up to 7 seconds. Best decision I have made.

 

[jollystomper]

I am also looking for a laptop deal, but my main requirement is that it have at least 16GB of memory to support my programming/open source hobbies. I have not found at good deals at that level yet. Many of the laptops that sell with less memory cannot be expanded beyond 6 or 8 GB.

 

[VanWinkle]

I purchased a laptop about a month ago, also purchased an 500gb SSD drive at the same time, they replaced the hard drive and installed a "Clean" version of windows for free at the time of purchase. My laptop went from taking 2 minutes to start up to 7 seconds. Best decision I have made.

+1 for the SSD! Fast boot up will spoil you....

 

[Another Reader]

Marshmallow left on the plate! Next year for the laptop....

 

[steelyman]

+1 for the SSD! Fast boot up will spoil you....

It will indeed spoil you! I’m looking forward to having SSD external drives (currently using two MyBooks with standard disk). Not only do you get fast boot but there’s that quiet aspect of operation..

 

[Chuckanut]

My old 2011 iMac now boots from an SSD attached via a Thunderbolt 2 port. Despite T2 being slower than T3, it still boots up in about 1/5 the time of the HD in the computer. Photo shop starts up in less than 20 seconds versus 3 minutes on the HD.

 

[FreeBear]

Still looking for a laptop. Deals seem ok, not great. Concerned about obsolescence of the current generation of HDD's as SSD's become standard. The best compromise of price and quality I can find seems to be this one at Staples.

https://www.staples.com/hp-pavilion-laptop-15-cs0064st/product_24327021

Price is $500, more than the mid three's I was looking to spend, but a much nicer display. Wondering if the Optane memory is a long term trend or if the SSD is more critical. Any thoughts from knowledgeable computer consumers?

Agree with the crowd here, MUST get something with a SSD. The only downside is that big SSD's can get expensive. If you do lots of photo and, esp. video, get an external usb 3 hard drive to archive stuff. The external drive makes a nice backup (clone) of your entire internal drive in case you drop your laptop or have a serious system problem.

Modern computers "should" come with SSD's at least for the operating system. Seems like vendors are just trying to depress the price point, but you'll pay later in frustration. Typical Windows and Mac OS and software are just too big (bloated?) to run in a responsive, non-annoying fashion, off of a conventional HD.

SSD's have been very reliable for me too. Never lost one in nearly a decade. Can say the same for hard drives; our Macs eat them for lunch!

 

[deserat]

Yes, SSD is the way to go - have had that for over 8 years now

 

[Beldar]

The IMac is essentially the only Mac that didn’t get refreshed this year so I don’t think there is much demand for them right now. It is anticipated that new models will be announced shortly after the new year. You can get a small discount at B&H Photo/Video in NY, but nothing to get excited about.

Yep, only $100 off, although no shipping or sales tax. Unless an incredible bargain shows up I'll wait for the new lineup. Thanks.

_B

 

[Ready]

We ventured out to Costco today because we needed a few items they had on sale. I expected the worst but when we got there the parking lot was half empty. There really weren't that many people in the store, and the checkout line was not even five minutes.

We also stopped by the local Kohl's store because they have all of the Amazon Echo products on display there. Again, not much traffic, no problem parking (and this shopping center is normally packed). It was definitely not typical Black Friday crowds. It might be because we went late in the day, but in general it just didn't seem very busy today.

Maybe Black Friday isn't as popular as it used to be before online shopping took off.

 

[CardsFan]

+1 for the SSD! Fast boot up will spoil you....

Bought a new laptop a few weeks ago with a 512GB SSD. I had to build it on line to get the 17" display and the SSD.

The old Laptop (9 years old) took about 2 minutes to boot (seemed like an hour). The new one takes about 20 seconds (probably less). I never turned the old one off, because of the boot time. Now, no problem.

FWIW, I was iffy on the SSD until I posted here for comments.

 

[broadway]

Went to Kohl's first, because I had a $10 off $10 coupon that had to be used by 1 pm. The line was long with about 10 people ahead me, but they had 8 cash registers open. They had an employee holding up a sign at the end of the line. Hadn't seen that before.



Next stop was Walmart.
A few more cars in the parking lot compared to a typical weekday, but no lines at checkout. I was actually able to try using Walmart Pay linked to Chase Pay for 5% rewards. Bought two nice-ish backpacks that will be donated August 2019 for back to school.


The third stop was Staples.
Used both Chase credit cards to get 10% off gift cards.
The "Happy" gift cards were already 10% off, so it was 20% off.
No line.


Lunch at TGIFridays.



Then $20 off next week's groceries if I bought $100 VISA gift card at ShopRite.
Because they accept Chase Pay for 5% rewards, the $5.95 was essentially negated.



Then home.


Did not buy anything online.



Pretty good day.


.

 

[Sunset]

^^^^^^^^ You are a Great Bargain Hunter.

I missed the Chase CC offer.