laptop posts

The dust of Black Friday has settled and with limited quantities now sold out, shoppers have a second chance to score savings on Cyber Monday sales. Rather than promoting specific deals this year we are seeing broad savings across entire categories such as books, jewelry, luxury goods, laptops, HDTVs, eyewear and more.

Here are a collection of Cyber Monday deals to help you finish up your holiday shopping.

Borders Cyber Monday specials:

• Buy-one-get-one 60% off (Online and in store)
• 50% off priority shipping
• Free standard shipping on orders over $10.

The Walmart Black Friday ad leaked out to many deal collecting sites earlier this week, but until yesterday they kept it offline under threat of legal action by the mega retailer. After the OK was finally given, the entire Walmart Black Friday ad has been posted and it contains a lot of deals. Best of all, you won't have to wait outside for any of the savings since Walmart will be open all night over Thanksgiving -- although you will have to wait until 5 a.m. to make your purchases.

Walmart's biggest Black Friday deals:

If you are spending less on shopping this Black Friday you're not alone. A recent survey performed by Dealnews.com found that a quarter of shoppers are planning to spend less on Black Friday.

The survey further found that fewer people will be shopping on Black Friday as a whole and that women shop for other people on Black Friday, whereas men shop for themselves.

It's no shocker that men do more shopping on themselves on Black Friday, since I know few fellows who would brave a Black Friday crowded for anyone other than themselves.

More good news leaked out today for anyone looking for a Black Friday laptop deal. Both the Office Depot Black Friday ad and the Dell Black Friday ad have appeared online and show a selection of cheap laptops, digital cameras, monitors and other electronics.

If you are looking to stay warm and toasty on Black Friday you can hit up Dell where there are deals to be found on netbooks, notebooks and desktops as well as a few decently priced accessories.

More Black Friday ads have surfaced, this time for Kohl's and Staples, showing additional deals to be had on clothing and technology.

The Kohl's Black Friday ad weighs in at more than 60 pages of deals and Staples' doorbuster deals include some good computer deals and plenty of digital cameras.

Kohl's kicks off its Black Friday with a collection of bargains on toys and clothing to lure in shoppers when the stores open at 4 a.m. on Black Friday. Many of these deals will also be available online, possibly starting on Thanksgiving.

The laptop price wars continue and retailers aren't waiting for Thanksgiving to offer great Black Friday laptop deals! After Walmart fired the first shot with a pre-Black Friday Laptop deal last weekend, Best Buy is responding with its own Black Friday computer deal -- priced at just $250.

Starting on Wednesday November 11, Best Buy will be selling an Acer laptop for $249.99. This low priced laptop is, according to an email from BlackFriday.info, "their lowest-advertised-price laptop ever."

Best Buy just confirmed that the $250 laptop will be the Acer Extensa EX5230E-2177 which comes with a 2.2 GHz Intel Celeron 900 processor, 2 GB of RAM and a 160 GB hard drive complete with Windows 7 (Full specs).

A laptop like this won't see you through many gaming sessions but will work fine for browsing the web, managing your digital pictures, watching YouTube and doing schoolwork.

As an added bonus, Best Buy is also including six months of antivirus protection with every computer sold through the end of December and will throw in a year's subscription to Napster with any Dell laptop purchased at Best Buy.

To take advantage of the deal, visit your local Best Buy on Wednesday November 11, or go to BestBuy.com.

If you were one of the thousands of shoppers who purchased a new computer since June 26 and are expecting a free upgrade to Windows 7 you may find yourself paying to get that "free" upgrade.

Mouseprint.org dug through the fine print of the free Windows 7 upgrade offers and found out that while the actual Windows 7 license is free you could pay $11-$17 in shipping, handling and other fees.

During their investigation, Mouseprint found that the following manufacturers are charging at least some of their customers for a free Windows 7 upgrade.

• Compaq - $12.99 for the first kit.
• HP - $12.99 for the first kit.
• Lenovo - $17.03
• Sony - $14.99
• Toshiba - $11.25/$12.99

When an electronic gadget such as a digital camera cellphone suddenly dies, it's usually a no-brainer on whether to get it repaired -- don't bother. In this disposable world, repairs can cost almost as much as buying a new gadget, if not more, so recycling it and buying a new one makes sense.

But with laptop computers, a repair can make sense, and small upgrades can extend the life of laptops.

Gazelle.com, a Web site familiar to WalletPop readers, buys used computers, cameras and other gadgets for 10% to 30% of their original value even after a few years of use.

Knowing when to buy a new computer is a lot like knowing when to hit or when to stand in Blackjack; buy today and you risk a newer or cheaper system coming out next week, but pass on a truly good deal and you'll still be wasting money.

Without a little help you may find yourself constantly waiting for the next big thing, while you try and make do with technology as old as the Golden Girls. Now, thanks to Dealnews.com, most of the guesswork has been taken out of when to buy a new computer.

Dealnews, one of the web's best deal-hunting websites, tracked the price of an average -- but capable -- midsize laptop for the last 10 months and found out that the next two months, otherwise known as Back to School Season, is one of the best times to buy a new computer; even beating out Black Friday! Check out the chart after the jump.

Computer manufacturers in India are claiming to be on the verge of a mass release of laptop computers which will carry a sticker price of just $10. According to the UK website, DailyRecord, R. P. Aggarwal, secretary of higher education at India's Ministry of Human Resources, said: "This is a great breakthrough for India". Indian officials are keeping a tight wrap on most other details of the project.

According to the report, development costs of the bargain laptop have been kept to a minimum by utilizing the brain power of India's science student population. This technology advance is being touted as a significant step forward in efforts to show students that the world is continuing to invest in them and their futures.

Indian officials claim that the manufacturing costs of the laptop will be kept low by producing huge volumes of the devices. At this point, the plan is to make one of these $10 laptop computers available for every student in India. Having come from a manufacturing background myself, I can easily see how such a tremendous production volume would indeed keep manufacturing costs low. The official launch of the devices is expected to be in the southern Indian town of Tirupati next week.

This news comes on the heels of the announcement that America's own One Laptop Per Child program is reducing its staff numbers and their salaries.To date, the best U.S. entry into the bargain computer contest has been a $100 laptop developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Of course, we should all be mindful of the old truism which dictates that we all tend to get what we pay for.

After Circuit City announced that it's closing this week, I heard more than one person contemplate stopping by to see if there are any bargains to be had. The Sunday ad circulars came out in the newspapers today and my husband I noticed they had some already pretty good prices on laptops. (We also noticed they were still seemingly offering no interest payments for three years, but figured that deal was probably over.) So we brought the ad along on errands.

I live in Portland, Oregon, where open source is not just the favored software methodology but a way of life. Yet despite my buddies sporting their Linux user group laptop stickers, I was desperately afraid. It sounded hard. It sounded geeky.

Then I needed a new laptop. I was going freelance and sending my corporate laptop back to the mothership. The refurbished Dell Latitude I bought was only $245 but came without an operating system. My geeky friends suggested Ubuntu -- the free operating system Linux users consider a beginner's option. I'd save a few hundred dollars on Microsoft Vista and the Office suite; and I didn't have the extra money so it was really my only option. That or spend a lot of time at the public library.

I received my new laptop a few weeks before I would have to send back my old ones, so I had time to burn a copy of the Ubuntu operating system onto a disk (note: use the slowest possible burn speed for best results). After a few mis-starts due to badly copied images (see note), I had my computer running Ubuntu and Open Office and had entered the ranks of true geekdom. While occasionally I have to peek nervously into Ubuntu help forums to figure out how to install something, and still can't figure out how to watch videos on ABC.com, I can do all the work I could do with my bloated Microsoft system. It feels good supporting something that's community-based; Bill Gates has enough money. What's more, the laptop doesn't come packed with 100 different icons cluttering the desktop (Try NetZero!). When my husband told me he wanted to get his great uncle a computer (so he can get church emails), I told him unequivocally: go Ubuntu!

I still haven't been to a Linux user's group. Baby steps...

After doing a round of holiday cleaning at our apartment, I discovered a treasure trove of gadgets which still worked, but no longer met my needs. Thankfully I also found Gazelle.com, a company that buys old electronics for resale or recycle.

I tested out Gazelle.com with three items I had on hand; an old camera without a power adapter, a Dell PDA with all original wires and manuals, and a digital video camera with power cord. For my collection of slightly used gadgets I am being paid $124, more than I could likely get on eBay due to the lack of accessories.

Selling your stuff to Gazelle is simple:

1. Look up your item on the Gazelle site.
2. Answer a few questions about the quality and accessories.
3. Click "calculate" and see what Gazelle will offer you.
4. Send your items back to Gazelle with free shipping label.
   
5. Get paid via check, Paypal or Amazon gift card.
   

Currently Gazelle buys goods from 11 categories including; video games and consoles, GPS units, phones, movies, digital cameras, laptops and more. If the item you want to sell isn't already in the catalog you can request a customized quote, which is calculated within 24 hours.

Picking up something used isn't just good for your wallet, it's good for the environment too (since you've likely kept another gadget out of landfills). While the decision to purchase used electronics is laudable from an environmental standpoint, there are many factors to consider before you head out to get a used laptop from someone you found on Craigslist.

Sustainablog.org took a hard look at what's important when buying a used laptop and came up with a, "10 Step Guide to Buying a Used Laptop That Works".

This is a really handy resource that covers many details that you likely wouldn't think about if you are used to buying your laptops new. A few highlights include:

• Where to buy it.
• Is the screen in good condition?
• Check all the ports.
• Test the hard drive for errors.
• Check the battery life.

I'm a bit of a geek but if I would have purchased a used laptop last week I can guarantee I wouldn't have taken all of these precautions and I'm sure at least one of them would have come back to haunt me. If you're looking to pick up a used laptop you'd be a fool not to use these steps as a checklist.

The only thing the list left off was to make sure you check the price of a new machine before you buy since in my experience many sellers overestimate the value of their old computers. When you couple this tendency with the sinking price of laptops these days it may make more sense to buy new, especially if you pick up one of the super cheap laptops on Black Friday.

Black Friday, for those of you who have yet to be initiated, is the day after Thanksgiving here in the U.S. and it is marked by huge sales at retailers and lines that stretch around the store. During these sales prices often hit rock bottom and this year, thanks to many of the major retailers eschewing rebates for instant savings, retailers will be setting records for low prices. Dan de Grandpre, CEO of dealnews, is an admitted techie who with his team of experienced bargain hunters has compiled their predictions for Black Friday 2008!

There are too many categories and deals to list here but here are a few that tempt me to do something I detest: wait in line!

• Small portable laptops starting at $199.
• 42" and up plasma and LCD TVs starting at $499!
• Blu-ray players from $149.
  
• Flash drives, routers and more free after rebate.
  

These are just a few of the deals the dealnews team is predicting. If you are in the market for any kind of electronics this year you should definitely check out the full breakdown of Black Friday items that made the list.

Normally you won't find WalletPop bloggers pushing a large purchase but it's evident to me that those of us who are frugalists still need to purchase big ticket items from time to time and the thing we love most about it is getting the best price. If a good deal isn't enough to convince you to head out on Black Friday then maybe you should check out Buy Nothing Day which takes place the same day and advocates 24 hours of consumer abstinence!