cheap

CheapMF (iPhone App)

Sometimes when you're out shopping, you'll see something you like, but you're not sure if it's a good price. CheapMF (we'll give them the benefit of the doubt for the name) lets you quickly find a product on your iPhone and check available prices, so you'll know if you're getting a good deal. Using the slick, animated interface, you can find out if Amazon.com has a better price for the product and buy it there with only a few finger swipes on your iPhone.

iPhone link: http://cheapmf.com/cheapmf.php

Web … Read more

Farecast Deals site launches

Farecast, an airline ticket prediction and purchasing service, has launched a new Deals section that helps people find the best prices on tickets within a 90-day window. Unlike the recently launched Fare Guard, the Deals section is completely free and competes with other discount travel sites like TravelZoo and CheapTickets to aggregate flights that sell for a fraction of their typical cost. The service is currently limited to 38 major airports in the United States.

The search results are separated by the best deals, last-minute flights, weekend and weeklong flights, and flights for families. There's also a section for … Read more

Kodak set to unveil revolutionary inkjet printer?

Kodak's PR folks have been working hard to get the press to turn out in force for an event tomorrow at the NBC studio where Saturday Night Live is filmed. We know SNL-vet Molly Shannon will be there, but in a nod to Apple and Steve Jobs, Kodak's PR folks aren't revealing what the product is that they're hyping.

If you read the Kodak tea leaves (and The Wall Street Journal), there's a good chance what we'll be seeing tomorrow is a new inkjet printer--or even a couple of new inkjet models. That in … Read more

5 bux

If you are recovering from the holiday overspending and want a little something cheap but fun for yourself, Gamefly is offering preplayed games as low as $5 through tomorrow. Here are some of the games worth browsing through, all at $4.99. Xbox games - NBA Live 06 (Xbox) - X-Men: The Official Game (Xbox) - Peter Jackson's King Kong (Xbox) PS2 games - Da Vinci Code (PS 2) - MVP 06 NCAA Baseball (PS 2) - EA Sports Arena Football (PS 2)

Another drop: 42-inch plasma for $799

You may have already seen this if you have cable TV (and don't automatically skip over infomercials), but Big Lots is offering a 42-inch plasma TV from Sylvania for $799. That's $400 off the regular price and down $200 from the 42-inch plasma that Vizio cranked out for Black Friday.

Granted, it's always possible that you might find a better deal out there, but this one is pretty good. The store chain has 4,000 in stock, with a minimum of three per store and a limit of one per family. Look at the excitement of the … Read more

Apple files for patent on zirconia iPhone

Ah, cubic zirconia. How would underpaid journalists get married without it?

In August, Apple filed for a patent that would protect the use of zirconia as a casing material for a number of wireless handhelds, including a certain still-unannounced-but-geez-where-is-it product: the iPhone.

Apparently, zirconia is a good material for any small device that needs to transmit radio frequency signals--like cell phones--in that it is strong enough to protect the internal components but wireless signals can still easily pass through, according to Apple's patent filing, disclosed Thursday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark office and spotted by numerous Apple … Read more

$30 video cell phone in the works

A video cell phone for $30 or even less? Texas Instruments says it can and will be true with a chip it plans to introduce for emerging markets.

The chip, called "eCosto," combines the multimedia functions found in phones sold in Europe, Asia and North America into the same piece of silicon that handles the essential communications and processing functions for the phone. TI already produces a chip called "LoCosto" for emerging markets. It lets phone makers produce so-called single-chip cell phones, but the LoCosto phones don't include cameras or other extras.

The eCosto phones … Read more

Gateway drops a $699 laptop

Looks like the holidays have come early for cheap-laptop hunters: Today Gateway announced a 15.4-inch notebook that will cost just $699 through December 28. At that price, the NX570X comes stocked with a 1.6GHz Intel Core Duo T2050 processor; 512MB of swift 667MHz RAM; an 80GB, 5,400rpm hard drive; integrated Intel GMA 950 graphics; and a CD burner. That's not exactly a mind-blowing configuration, but it is quite respectable, considering most laptops in the sub-$800 range cheap out with generations-old components and missing features.

All the models in the NX570 series will include a 15.… Read more