Marketplace Blog

Regular Cheapskate readers know that I'm a big fan of media-center PCs, which is why I frequently spotlight TV tuners.

Now let's round out the movie side of the equation: Buy.com has the Sony BDU-X10S internal Blu-ray drive for $89.99 shipped.

This is a refurbished drive, meaning it has just a 90-day warranty. If you'd rather go new and can scrape up a few extra bucks, Newegg has the Lite-On DH-401S-58 Blu-ray drive for $99.99 (plus shipping).

Either way, you're looking at a serial drive, meaning you'll need a system with a … Read more

Here's a smokin' deal for PC gamers: Valve Software's Left 4 Dead is on sale for $24.99, down from the usual price of $49.99. The catch: It's a weekend-only deal, so you gotta jump on it today.

Update: As of 8:55 a.m. ET Monday, the deal was still active.

Actually, there's another small catch: You must use Valve's Steam software to purchase and download the game. (No box for you! This is an all-digital deal.) No complaints here; I use Steam all the time.

I haven't played Left 4 Dead (… Read more

Good news, game fans! Dell just knocked another $20 off the Xbox 360 Pro Holiday Bundle, bringing the total price down to $239.20 shipped. (Use coupon code PLDWH47D$6BT2J at checkout to get the discounted price.)

This bundle includes two kid-friendly games: LEGO Indiana Jones (awesome, awesome game) and Kung Fu Panda (haven't played it).

As for the Xbox itself, it's the 60GB model with the highly desirable HDMI output--though you'll have to provide your own HDMI cable.

This is the lowest price I've seen yet on a new Xbox 360 Pro, and you get … Read more

Holy giant monitors, Batman! Buy.com has a Westinghouse L2610NW-SP 26-inch LCD monitor for $249.99 shipped.

The specifications here are pretty solid: 1,920x1,200-pixel maximum resolution (that's 1080p to you TV fans out there), VGA and HDMI inputs (plus an HDMI-to-DVI cable), HDCP support (in case you want to pair it with, say, a Blu-ray player), and a one-year warranty.

Reviews of the L2610NW-SP are few and far between, but the Buy.com crowd was quite enthused by it (4.5 stars out of 5 on average), and Newegg buyers had mostly good things to say as … Read more

The words "free" and "Microsoft" don't often appear in the same sentence, so imagine my surprise at discovering this deal: a free custom domain name, free Web hosting, free e-mail accounts, and more.

As you might expect from the name, Microsoft Office Live Small Business has a decidedly business focus--but that doesn't mean you can't use it for a personal site.

The freebie account includes not only the domain (any available .com, .net, .org, or .info address), but also site-building tools, reporting tools, project and document managers, 100 e-mail addresses, and collaboration-minded online … Read more

You missed your chance to nab a big ol' TV in time for the Super Bowl, but March Madness is just around the corner (go Spartans!).

Here's a pretty sweet deal to satisfy your hoop dreams, Lost lust, and more: CompUSA has a 52-inch Vizio VX52LF LCD HDTV for $999.99.

That's a mighty big screen, folks. It's a refurbished model, meaning that its warranty expires after just 90 days. But given that new 52-inchers routinely sell in the neighborhood of $2,000, I'd say it's a risk worth taking.

The VX52LF is a 1080P … Read more

It's not quite as compelling as the $178 Dell Mini 9 from last week, but it's definitely a better deal overall: Newegg has the Acer Aspire One Netbook for $239.99 shipped. It's new, not a refurb, and there are no rebates.

The Aspire One is widely regarded as one of the best Netbooks on the market. My experience with it bears this out; check out my Netbook Diaries, if you haven't already.

This particular model comes with the 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, 1GB of RAM, a 16GB solid-state drive, a Webcam, 802.11b/… Read more

Hello, and welcome to another edition of How Not to Get Ripped Off When You Buy Cables. See, fancy electronics like Blu-ray Disc players, game consoles, and high-definition camcorders need HDMI cables to connect to your HDTV. But do you really need to pay $30, $50, or even $80 for a single 6-footer?

Those are the going rates at your average big-box store (as well as places like Radio Shack), but SuperMediaStore has three 6-foot HDMI cables for $9.97 shipped.

If you're concerned that these ubercheap cables won't be as good as their heavily packaged retail counterparts, … Read more

The Peek is like a BlackBerry without the phone. It's built for one function only: e-mail. And right now, Amazon is offering a pretty sweet two-for-one deal: Buy one Peek for $79.99 and get a second one free.

Keep in mind that you'll have to pay $19.95 per month, per unit, for service, but at least there's no contract; you can cancel anytime you want. Doing so would leave you with a fairly useless chunk of hardware--two chunks, actually--but there you go.

Actually, that's a big part of the Peek's appeal. Another is … Read more