Marketplace Blog

There's the TV you put in your living room, the one you splurge on to get a mammoth screen, built-in apps, a top-rated picture, and the like.

Then there's the TV you buy for the basement, the game room, the den, the kids. The one that can get dinged up a little bit and who cares?

This is that TV. While supplies last, TigerDirect has the TCL LE39FHDF3300 39-inch LED HDTV for $249.99, plus around $13 for shipping. The good news: it's new, not refurbished. The "bad" news: you'll have to sit tight … Read more

Have you been eyeing one of those $249 Samsung Chromebooks, thinking it could meet your fairly basic computing needs?

Maybe it could, but for just a few dollars more, you can get a bigger, more powerful, and more versatile PC.

To wit: For a limited time, and while supplies last, Staples has the HP Pavilion G6-2235us 15.6-inch laptop for $274.99 shipped (plus sales tax where applicable). That's after applying coupon code 70847 at checkout and redeeming a $50 mail-in rebate.

The Pavilion sports a 2.7GHz AMD A6-4400M dual-core processor, 4GB of RAM, an impressive 750GB hard … Read more

When it comes to free stuff for your tablet or e-reader, Amazon rules the roost.

The Amazon Appstore is home to a kajillion freebies for Kindle Fires, while the Kindle Store offers literally thousands of free Kindle e-books.

Barnes & Noble, on the other hand, offers a comparatively limited selection of free apps in its curated store, and I couldn't even find a "free books" section in the Nook Book Store.

At least there's Free Fridays, which gives you a free e-book every week. Today, for example, you can get the Nook edition of David Rhodes' "Driftless," … Read more

It's an awesome time to own an iDevice. You can get unlimited movie and TV streaming from Netflix, unlimited music from the likes of Rdio and Spotify, and even unlimited magazines from Next Issue (for iPads, anyway).

Great news for comic-book fans: Now you can get unlimited comics as well. Marvel Unlimited, previously a Web-only service, just debuted for iOS. (It's coming soon for Android.) Less-great news: The app needs work.

True to its name, Marvel Unlimited provides full access to the publisher's extensive library of comics, which currently numbers over 13,000 titles. You'll find … Read more

Call me old-school, but I still like magazines. Reading them, writing for them -- heck, I even started one many moons ago.

If you feel the same way, but prefer digital editions to their paper counterparts, check out Next Issue. A kind of "Netflix for magazines," the service offers unlimited access to over 80 titles, all for a flat monthly rate.

The rate: $14.99 for Next Issue Premium, or $9.99 for Basic (more on all that in a minute). For a limited time, however, CNET is offering a three-month Next Issue Premium trial absolutely free. (You'… Read more

Quick update regarding yesterday's post, the one about three free months of Next Issue. There was a technical glitch, one that couldn't be quickly resolved, so CNET decided to pull the deal (and my post) to avoid further confusion/consternation. The good news is that everything appears to be hunky-dory now, and the deal is live as of now. (After you click through, be sure to scroll down a bit to read "the fine print" section for a couple important details.) Sorry for the inconvenience!

CNET gave it five stars and named it one of the … Read more

Game bundles are kind of a dime a dozen these days, but that doesn't mean they're not worth checking out.

Indeed, as evidenced by the three new bundles I've rounded up today, there's a lot of good gaming to be had for cheap. Really, really cheap.

1. Bundle Stars 'Fire and Ice'

Bundle Stars' latest gives you two games for $1.26, or eight games if you pay at least $4.97. The latter option includes two additional mystery titles that will unlock in the future.

They're all Windows titles, with the exception of Tiny … Read more

Can't make it to this year's South by Southwest (aka SXSW) conference in Austin? At least you don't have to miss out on the music.

As part of its SXSW: Live from Austin series, NPR is offering The Austin 100 -- a collection of 100 songs by 100 artists, all in MP3 format, all absolutely free.

And I mean really and truly free: There's nothing to register for, no form to complete, and not a single Facebook or Twitter sharing requirement.

Just scroll down a bit until you see the Download the Music box on the … Read more

There are two kinds of TVs in the world: smart and dumb. The smart ones have Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming-service apps built right in. The dumb ones, well, they need a little help.

Arguably the best help you can get comes in the form of a Roku box, which brings pretty much every streaming service known to man (except, annoyingly, YouTube) to your TV.

Today only, and while supplies last, 1SaleADay has the refurbished Roku 2 XS for $64.99 shipped. The same model sells new for $99.99.

This is the premium Roku model, the one with every … Read more