When the feast of turkey, cranberries and stuffing has been cleared from the table this Thanksgiving, the feast of laptops, televisions and digital cameras begins. Black Friday, which marks the ceremonious beginning of the holiday shopping season, falls this November 26, and as usual, retailers have pulled out all the stops to lure overstuffed shoppers from the dinner table. Sorting through the wad of Sunday circulars for deals can be half the fun for Black Friday vets, but if you’re looking for the best of the best without all the legwork and inky fingers, here’s a sneak peek at this Black Friday’s best deals on electronics. Stuff the leftover turkey in the fridge, suit up with six different layers, and warm up the car, it’s shopping time.
Tag Archive: Budget
Best Budget PCs of 2009 and 2010
We’ve scoured the Internet for the best budget laptops, desktops and tablet PCs that’ll give you the best style and substance for your dollar. These budget computers will put a smile on your face, and still leave you with some leftover greenbacks.
Retail Electronics Buying Tips: Coupons, Sales and Bargaining Tactics
Even the most Internet-savvy shoppers need to venture to retail stores once in a while. Whether for a last-minute gift, an item you just can’t bear to wait for in the mail, or a device you need to see in person, brick-and-mortar outlets continue to offer a handful of indisputable advantages over Internet buying.
Free Food, Games, Movies and More: The Internet’s Best Deals
Whoever said there’s no such thing as a free lunch just didn’t have the Internet. Besides the plethora of free articles, videos, tutorials, manuals, software and other unmentionables the Web can serve up through your monitor, you can actually find an amazing selection of absolutely free real stuff. From magazines and toothpaste to cars and hot tubs, you can find it for free via the Internet… if you know where to look, and what to avoid. With that in mind, we’ve broken down the different major types of free offerings on the Web to give you taste for what’s out there and how to get it.
The Best Laptop, Desktop and Tablet PCs Under $500
If your old computer whistles to life like a 19th century steam engine, chugs every time you load a Hulu video, and crashes when you try to run a simple virus scan, it’s time to put the junker out to pasture. Thankfully, like a farmer’s market bursting with wholesome goodness after the fall harvest, the PC market is overflowing with ideal replacements. Better yet, with a flood of next-gen hardware hitting the streets in conjunction with the launch of Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows 7, the budget end of the spectrum is suddenly ripe with value. Unless you need a high-performance machine you can push to the very extreme, you’ll find plenty of amazing systems under $500. Here are a few of our favorites.
How to Get Books, CDs, DVDs and Games for Free
Books, CDs, DVDs and video games are already some of the cheapest forms of entertainment around, but we’ve found three services that render them even more affordable – specifically, by making them yours at no cost whatsoever.
OK, there is a catch, but it’s a very small one: You’ll incur shipping fees, but this never amounts to more than a few dollars per item. And most of the services operate on a trading model, which means you’ll need to give up a book, CD, DVD or video game you own in order to get something don’t already have. Likewise, acquiring entertainment this way doesn’t deliver the instant gratification you’ll get from online shopping or visiting a brick-and-mortar store, especially because you can’t be sure that the item you’re looking for will be available, and it can take as long as 10 days to receive an item you’ve ordered. But let’s be honest: You seriously can’t beat the prices.
The Best Time to Buy Computers, HDTVs, iPods, Cell Phones and More
Timing is everything. Whether you’re trying to capture the perfect shot of a motorcycle screaming by at 113 miles an hour at Laguna Seca, or just trying to figure out when to dodge the lunch crowd at your favorite restaurant, the little arms that swirl away on your watch face have a lot more to do with getting it right than your choice of camera, or even which restaurant you end up at.
Best Online Travel Deals 2009 and 2010: How to Save Money By Booking Online
Travel expenses add up. Between airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, and three square meals out on the town a day, it’s tempting to give it up entirely when money gets tight.
But you don’t have to scratch that surf trip to Maui in favor of the Jersey shore just yet. With the near omniscience of the Web a mouse click away, finding cheap deals and ways to slash costs on your next vacation (without packing three dozen bologna sandwiches into a cooler as your sole source of sustenance) has never been easier.
Speed up your PC’s Performance for Free
Task Manager Screenshot
There are two ways of making your PC run faster: You can spend money upgrading to new components (buying a faster videocard, more memory, or maybe even a more advanced CPU), or you can follow our guidance and invest a little of your time instead of your greenbacks and tune up your computer for free.
Besides, spending money on an old machine isn’t always a good investment. Plugging a spendy new videocard into a system with an aging CPU, for instance, is akin to bolting a supercharger to the engine of an old Chevy Chevette: It won’t matter how fast the card is if the rest of an outdated system leaves it starving for data.
