friday

We're pretty sure that was you we saw in line Friday at Best Buy and then the Apple store and then that little kiosk in the middle of the mall, loaded down with an armful of gadgets and accessories that you'll be doling out as holiday gifts. You are planning to give them away, right?

Well, whoever you were, there were a lot of you, and you were buying a lot of stuff. That's the way it goes on Black Friday, the annual harmonic convergence of consumer electronics bargains and bargain hunters. Those who couldn't be … Read more

Black Friday showdown: Best Buy vs. Circuit City

My partner and I decided to brave the Black Friday crowds and got up at 6 a.m. to do some bargain hunting.

We planned to head to Circuit City first, given that its day-after-Thanksgiving sale had the most things we wanted. When we arrived at the suburban Los Angeles store--nearly two hours after the store had opened--there was a long line of people just waiting to get in the store.

Figuring that the most-sought-after items were likely gone anyway and that the line might be shorter in a few hours, we headed to the nearby Best Buy in Sherman … Read more

One day only: Apple's Black Friday sale

Apple's Black Friday sale is underway, but if you're dispensing Apple gifts this year, you had better act fast--the sale is of the one-day variety. Highlights include $51 or $101 off MacBooks and iMacs. (Sadly, you're out of luck if you're trying to justify a MacBook Pro purchase), $21 off the AirPort Extreme Base Station, and $21 off the iPhone Bluetooth Headset.

Three iPods are on sale: you'll save $31 on an iPod Classic and $11 on either the Nano or the Shuffle.

Lots of other products and accessories are on sale. See them all … Read more

Black Friday will be 'average' for retailers this year, says economist

The economy's not as bad as you might think, and this Black Friday is going to prove it, says one researcher.

"Retailers will come out OK" on one of the biggest shopping days of the year, said Joseph Haslag, economist at the University of Missouri-Columbia. "The numbers may not be great; they won't be horrible. There won't be any reason to walk away from Friday's numbers thinking the economy is in dire straits."

Predictions like that ought to make retailers sleep a little easier. On Tuesday, one of them, the nation's … Read more

Beware Black Friday laptop deals

Editor's Note: If you've stumbled across this page looking for the latest on Black Friday laptop deals, we've rated many of the 2009 Black Friday bargains here.

Like opening weekend box office numbers to Hollywood bean-counters, the weekend shopping extravaganza known as Black Friday is read as tea leaves for the rest of the holiday shopping season (even though these initial impressions are not as accurate as they used to be).

Besides door-busting deals on big-screen TVs and digital cameras, one of the most-watched categories is laptops, where eager bargain hunters are looking for a sub-$500 … Read more

Wal-Mart now giving away Blu-ray movies--with an 80GB PS3

If you thought you could escape this Blu-ray and HD DVD format back-and-forth nonsense, well, you were wrong. It's actually just beginning! This holiday season, both sides in the next-generation DVD battle are continuing to ratchet up the pressure on you lucky consumers.

Exhibit A: The folks over at Wal-Mart have followed up their boffo $98 Toshiba A2 HD DVD player with a pretty impressive overture for Blu-ray. Buying an 80GB Sony PlayStation 3 this Saturday will also get you 10 Blu-ray movies for free, as long as all the titles are below $30. (Go to the Wal-Mart holiday shopping site … Read more

Black Friday Watch: Maxtor OneTouch 4 500GB, $79.98

I may be cheap, but I'm not crazy enough to line up at 5 a.m. in the freezing cold on that glorious day known as Black Friday. Well, at least, not at the big-box stores. But I might just take a drive to Staples (how bad could the crowds be?) for a $79.98 Maxtor OneTouch 4 500GB. That's half a terabyte of external hard-drive goodness. And with the amount of digital video I'm shooting these days, there's never enough storage space.

Head to the aptly named BlackFriday.info for the full list of Staples' Black Friday deals, … Read more

At Wal-Mart, Black Friday comes early

It's happening again.

If you thought one minute past midnight the day after Thanksgiving was too early to choke out your fellow shoppers in the name of a great deal, you were wrong.

Following last year's decision to offer a $398 laptop several weeks ahead of the traditional Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving), Wal-Mart is planning on slashing prices on five items--in its stores, not online--beginning at 8 a.m. this Friday. One of them will be a $348 Acer laptop with 1GB of RAM. The other four items and their prices will be kept secret until … Read more