I’m always on the hunt for a good deal, but this time of year is especially frenzied. So I’ve got my wishlist ready as I dutifully monitor my overflowing inbox and Slickdeals app while I access sites through ebates for some additional cash back. Some early catches…
Amazon Fire TV Stick @ $25 – Cheaper than the Roku stick and still preferable to the new Chromecast given a physical remote control. Provides many of the top streaming TV apps, plus a TiVo client, and supports guest/hotel WiFi connections. Great for yourself and also a nice stocking stuffer.
Amazon Fire Tablet @ $35 – Not a good tablet by any measure other than cost. Unless you’re a small child or senior citizen, at which point this 7″ 2015 model might be an interesting gift idea for casual web surfing, video playback, or Kindle reading.
32″ Roku TV @ $125 – Budget friendly, 720p television with Roku built right in. It’s a little chunkier than you might like and not the highest quality panel. But it’s dirt cheap and great for a kitchen or guest bedroom — where I keep the two I own.
ecobee3 + 3 sensors @ $250 – I’d have preferred a lower price of entry for this smart thermostat, but two free remote sensors provides solid savings if you can put them in use. On price alone, a better deal can be had on the 3rd gen Nest ($250 plus $50 gift card), but I prefer ecobee’s approach.
Ooma with wireless adapter @ $90 – Stick this on your home network, as I do, and plug your phones in for unlimited US calling. The bonus wireless adapter lets you place the VoIP box anywhere in your home and also lets you link your cellphone over Bluetooth.
30% off one Book – Both Amazon and Barnes & Noble are offering 30% off any book via the linked coupon codes. I put the Amazon discount to work and discovered it’s limited paper books and maxes out at $10 of savings but does apply to pre-orders.
Find anything good? I know there are tons of big screen deals to be had…
Roku Bonus: Any new activation entitles you to several free trials, including three months of Hulu, one month Showtime, and one month of HBO NOW:
https://www.roku.com/offers
Dunno if this huge discount is for Black Friday only or not. But regardless, you can save a lot of money on this deal.
I’m holding out for the 2016 model…
“I’m holing out for the 2016 model…”
Are you sure that’s wise? If things go according to the normal progression, next year it’ll be more expensive, with a smaller screen, and increased bugginess / display issues. I’d strongly considering diving in now, if I were you.
Also, isn’t the Raspberry Pi Zero the best deal out there? Not sure what folks would do with it, but it’s still damn cool. At a bare minimum, you could hand them out to all the Thanksgiving trick or treaters…
Some non-tech deals. Home Depot has tons and tons of stuff, so much it’s overwhelming. But I got a nice Ryobi drill kit on sale about two weeks ago and it’s further discounted now. May swing by tomorrow for a price match. Also just ordered two pairs of shoes from DSW for 30% off and a free blanket. No idea what we’ll do with the blanket, but duplicating my work shoes with the same successful model (have a sensitive right arch) was on my list.
May not be the perfect selection of Black Friday deals, but this is certainly the best writeup of Black Friday deals…
Costco has 2 new chromecasts for $48. A $20 savings on two. Not a bad deal of you can get past the lack of remote. For me, that setup is preferred for certainly locations, such as outside on my patio TV where I don’t necessarily want a remote.
“Does Amazon have any sort of sensible desktop sync/access software yet?”
Assuming you’re talking about the $5/yr Cloud Drive ‘deal’, that’s actually more than it’s worth. I kid you not.
Last I checked, endpoint support to use it in a Dropbox-like fashion is horrendous.
And even worse from my POV, they’ve essentially removed any method to use it as a cloud backup. Neither the web client or the desktop client make it possible to actually use it for cloud backup. (The one and only remaining solution that theoretically works, using the wonderful 3rd party Arq as a front-end, no longer seems trustworthy. I checked out the Arq forums recently, and there are all kinds of complaints about the GCD API’s intermittently failing in ugly ways, and the dev seems to agree.)
So Amazon has cleverly managed to offer a sustainable Unlimited service by making it completely unusable. Brilliant!
(I’m still using the reliable Amazon S3 for some very small cloud backups, but it’s expensive, and the price hasn’t dropped in years. I’ve been investigating switching to Google Drive, as it’s both cheaper, and can be done entirely from the web without the need for a 3rd party client front-end, which reassures me in recovering from some kind of horrible disaster scenario, which is why I’m using cloud backup in the first place…)
“Assuming you’re talking about the $5/yr Cloud Drive ‘deal’, that’s actually more than it’s worth. I kid you not.”
The funny thing is that when they first introduced Cloud Drive at $60/yr, with no real restrictions on just using it as a ‘bare drive in the sky’, it was the bargain of the century. But, of course, ‘unlimited’ was too much of a bargain. So now after they ‘fixed’ it in response, it’s overpriced at $5/yr…
(I wish Amazon would create a non-restrictive service like the rollout of Cloud Drive, but with no ‘unlimited’, and rational price tiers for storage capability. With some notable reduced performance/latency compared to S3, they could avoid cannibalization of professional use-case-scenarios, and still offer ordinary consumers a helluva deal. They’ve already got all the infrastructure in the world in place. Additional revenue at positive margins. Their only profit/loss trick is to abandon the heroin habit of ‘unlimited’ and be up-front about pricing tiers for storage capability. The fact that I’m considering Google when I’d much rather be in the storage business with Amazon indicates something is off.)
Had my cart ready to check out, and decided to mow the lawn plus start winter treatment. Along the way I took my kids to their favorite fast-food dive Wendy’s, and afterwards went to the movies with my wife later on. Needless to say, by the time I got back around to my cart all of the Black Friday deals had expired…..
I got mostly Gaming deals
Xbox One 1TB with Tomb Raider Download
Plus free Controller for $349 from Best Buy
Madden 16 – XBONE $23 from BB with GCU
Forza 6 $35 from MicrosoftStore.com plus free $10 gift card.
NBA 2K16 – $29 at Best Buy
Halo Xbox one special edition controller $44
Lunar White Xbox One Controller GameStop Special Edition $44
Xbox One Military Edition Controller $39 from Walmart (exclusive)
Xbox Live 3 months for $12.50 Amazon Digital
Blu-Rays
Interstellar $4
Bad Santa $3.96
Entourage Movie $7
Star Wars Episode 4-5-6 $34.96 Best Buy price matched Amazon.
I picked up at Target an Apple iPad Air 2 on sale for $350 on Black Friday night. Actually to get around Apple’s requirement the iPad was normal price of $499.99 with a $150 Target card. And I got an additional $25 off with my Target VISA card (%5 discount). So total was $325!
Also picked up today for Cyber Monday a couple of TiVo Roamio Pro’s with All-In Service Plan for $599.98/ea! I thought the price was for factory reconditioned Pro but it’s an all new model.
Needed more turners and at this price good-bye old 2 tuner Premiere. Best of all since these are Pro’s I don’t have to touch the HDD.
Many of the things I was looking for were either not discounted or the deals not compelling enough to move on. Was briefly tempted by the 3rd Gen Nest this AM – Target had it 15% off, plus a $50 gift card, plus my credit card would have got me another 5%. But I passed. I did get the $25 Fire TV Stick for who knows why – because it’s so cheap and also I had a $5 off Best Buy coupon I had to burn before it expired.
In the non-tech realm, we did pretty well on household stuff (shoes, silverware), but not gifts per se. With Chanukah so early this year, most gifts had been purchased weeks (or more) ago.
Wish Apple still did a Black Friday sale of their own. They always had some interesting accessories at good prices.
“Also picked up today for Cyber Monday a couple of TiVo Roamio Pro’s with All-In Service Plan for $599.98/ea! … Needed more turners and at this price good-bye old 2 tuner Premiere.”
A decent deal under the New TiVonomics. Could’ve done better with 20/20 hindsight.
But since we humans don’t have hindsight, genuine kudos for moving up from that dog S4 up to the heavenly S5 at a decent price. You’ll be happy you did. (And it’s not just the tuners. Don’t forget the extra TB, the notably faster OTT performance, and overall better engineering/stability/performance. They all matter.)
“Best of all since these are Pro’s I don’t have to touch the HDD.”
But it’s so damn simple! Literally a 20 minute, zero-hassle job due to the engineering beauty of post-S4 TiVo. Unaware of the deals available, but if a similar tuner modeled S5 was available for at least $150 less, you could’ve done the job DIY and pocketed some cash…
“Wish Apple still did a Black Friday sale of their own. They always had some interesting accessories at good prices.”
I heard an urban rumor that somewhere, Pencils™ were available for $94.99. You could’ve stocked up. You never know when you’ll need an extra pencil™ or four.
“Best of all since these are Pro’s I don’t have to touch the HDD.”
”But it’s so damn simple! Literally a 20 minute, zero-hassle job due to the engineering beauty of post-S4 TiVo. Unaware of the deals available, but if a similar tuner modeled S5 was available for at least $150 less, you could’ve done the job DIY and pocketed some cash…”
@Chucky I’m giving the Pro’s as Christmas gifts. One goes to childhood friend who is also a long term FIOS DVR sufferer. On his current setup none of the FIOS $TB’s can see the FIOS DVR!
The other one goes to Mom replacing her Roamio Plus. I’ll take the Plus and swap the 1TB drive once 6TB HDD fall closer to $200. Of course by then the 8TB drives will be out. :)