Black Friday's Top Tech Deals!
Posted: Monday, November 30, 2009
by Doug Kirkland
http://www.top5christmasgifts.net
Today is "Black Friday" retail giants Amazon and eBay are about to burst from the blocks in search of holiday dollars. Here's how you can tremendously benefit.
Cyber Monday, the first Monday after Thanksgiving, has traditionally marked the start of the online holiday shopping period, the most important time of the year for Amazon and eBay. Amazon, which launched its Black Friday deals page earlier this week, is expected to set the pace, according to Thestreet.com
Over the last few years Amazon has earned a reputation for customer service, efficient shipping and a highly navigable Web site, factors that should help lure users from traditional retailers this holiday season. The Internet, however, will be retail's shining light.
How does this effect you? How can you benefit? Well, Black Friday bleed discounts as tough times in retailing call for sharp cuts on prices. Even a few tech gadgets that rarely go on sell are marked down. Now you can take advantage of these incredible deals. Here are top 5 Top Deals showing the pressure on retailers and how much is riding on holiday sales.
#5: Apple iPod Nano
Apple is traditionally the stingiest of tech discounters in the gadget market according to The Street, and this year will continue that grand tradition. If reports of Apple's Black Friday specials are true, Macs and iPods will get a one-day price break of about 10%. How you Benefit: Apple's "cool" gizmos have enjoyed a remarkably resilient status among consumers. That position is reflected in the company's tightfisted pricing stance. Apple's implied theme here is big discounts are for big losers. But retail partner Costco seems eager to dangle some marked-down coolness to lure its members. Costco is selling the latest Apple iPod Nano for $129, at Amazon $134.99 a 13% discount on the $149 regular price.Like its gadgets, Apple's stock attracts an eager crowd willing to pay top dollar to be part of the action. Costco, however, could use a few tricks to keep its bargain-hunting customers from finding deals in Wal-Mart's aisles. In the past month, Wal-Mart shares have doubled the rise of Costco's stock.
#4: Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard grabbed the top place in PCs from Dell two years ago by jumping on the notebook bandwagon as consumers went shopping for desktop power in portable devices. Hewlett-Packard hopes to cash in again in an emerging category of hybrid laptops called super Netbooks. How you Benefit: One of the most-watched devices in this category is the DM3, a 13-inch, thin, lightweight notebook with an eight-hour battery life, four-gigabyte memory and no DVD drive. HEWLETT-PACKARD introduced the DM3 in July priced at $599. On Friday it will sell on Amazon for $499. Hewlett-Packard branched into IT services last year and hopes to get a chunk of Cisco's networking market with the pending acquisition of 3Com. But computers are still its biggest business and if hybrid notebooks are a winning category, Hewlett-Packard could continue to punish Dell.
#3: Western Digital Western Digital drives down prices of external hard drives in its battle with rival Seagate Technology. The newest crop of hard drives offer twice the capacity at half the price of last year's models. How you Benefit: As a Black Friday special, Wal-Mart is offering the Western Digital portable 320 gigabyte external hard drive for $49, a 50% markdown from the $99 regular price. Seagate's popular FreeAgent 320-gigabyte external hard drive goes for $87 at Amazon. Storage has been a popular theme for tech investors this year. With component costs falling, manufacturers have been able to cut prices profitably as higher sales offset lower prices. Shares of Western Digital and Seagate have tripled this year.
#2: SanDisk SanDisk is flashing some astounding Black Friday prices on flash memory devices. Flash drive prices have fallen faster than those of hard drives. USB thumb drives now pack three times the memory capacity at a third of last year's prices. How you Benefit: The SanDisk 4 gigabyte flash drive is available for $8 at Wal-Mart, and $6.44 at Amazon, a 73% discount from the $30 regular price. In contrast, Target sells a Lexar 4 gigabyte flash drive for $20. Falling memory prices haven't hurt SanDisk shares according to The Street. The stock has doubled this year. A big part of that enthusiasm, however, was due to a positive resolution to a licensing dispute with Samsung in May.
#1: BlackBerry Research In Motion takes the top two spots with the BlackBerry Curve. This model, the Curve 8900, is one of the newest from the three-year-old line. Its sold by Amazon on behalf of AT & T. How you Benefit: Amazon has already opened the Web doors with its online Black Friday special on the Curve 8900. The phone costs 1 cent if you sign up for a two-year contract with AT & T. While free Razrs once sounded the game-over bell for Motorola, free Curves aren't as dismal a warning sign for RIM. Unlike Motorola, RIM has new models to keep the Smartphone momentum going. Even with a 9% drop in its share price over the past month, RIM is still up nearly 50% for the year. Reference: "The Street" (2009)
Check out this website for more Tech Deals.
Mr. Doug
http://www.top5christmasgifts.net
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Very good tips! I'm confused over all the tech these days. This was extremely helpful!
Great tips, I def. found some great deals this Black Friday, but still doing some shopping, I'll keep an eye for more articles!!
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