1. Doorbusters are stripped-down crap

What we call doorbusters, stores call loss leaders. These items are heavily advertised and retailers will lose money on them. Because of this, the doorbuster items are generally older products repackaged as something new or current models stripped down to the bare essentials.

Take a look the advertised doorbusters this year. Best Buy has a notebook for $197, but it’s built around a Celeron CPU. Walmart has a $78 Magnavox Blu-ray player, but is only Profile 1.1 compatible. These are older items with a new model number. They will probably work, but you’re not getting a gadget worth your time.

The goal of these doorbusters is to draw in people that will hopefully buy other merchandise and extended warranties.

2. Don’t buy non-advertised items

Just because it’s Black Friday, it doesn’t mean everything is on sale. In fact, a lot of retail stores mark up items from their standard price hoping to squeeze a little extra out of unknowing shoppers brought in by the doorbuster items. Other retailers like jewelery or specialty stores will not offer any additional discounts at all.

Black Friday isn’t a day for impulse shopping. It’s a day that needs to be carefully planned. Know what you are buying and avoid everything else.

3. Shop now or on Cyber Monday instead

Half the fun of Black Friday is the experience of waking up at 3 a.m. and standing in line at Target for a mini fridge that’s $15 off. Fine, but if you’re sane, you’ll shop the deals available now or wait until Cyber Monday instead when online retailers put up their best sales.

BlackFriday.info has all of the Black Friday deals listed. Spend some time there and ensure that you’re not wasting your time on Friday morning. For instance, West Marine has the same deal right now on the Garmin nuvi 265WT GPS that Radio Shack will make you wait in line for on Black Friday. Staples is also advertising the Sony Reader Pocket Edition for $199 for Black Friday; it can be had for less online now. Shop around.

4. Partner up for maximum efficiency

Shop in groups of three. Two people rush around the store while one person stands in the long line. This works especially well if you’re not the first person in the store. Generally Black Friday involves 5 minutes of crazy shopping and 5 hours of waiting to check out. With this strategy you can get in and out of the store quickly.

5. People are crazy, but you should be nice

Black Friday can be scary. Children and small men often get trampled by large women rushing to score special deals. Parking lots are filled with NASCAR drivers and everyone is hopped up on coffee and Red Bull. The best thing to do is sleep right through it, but if you must shop, please be nice.

Smile at the cashier. He doesn’t want to be there and hates you for perpetuating the tradition. Smile at other shoppers too because you are all in this together. If you must shove someone out of the way to grab the last $79 GPS at Radio shack, do it gently.

This year 25 winners not only gets the $1000 gift card, limo ride, early store admittance, but also an Insigna 2.3MP digital camcorder to record the experience. All you have to do is submit a 250 word or less essay that describes what you are most excited about this Black Friday. Chances are that writing about sleeping in and not standing in line for three hours at a Best Buy probably won’t win, but that’s what I’m most excited about after working retail for so long.

There’s no doubt that modern smartphones are challenging to engineer and produce. Form factor, battery life, durability, and processing power all work against one another. Bugs and shortcomings are to be expected during the design and development phases. But is it really the “new reality” that complex smartphones are going to ship with more and more bugs? This is not news. I complained about id Software’s “release buggy software, and then issue patch after patch” way back in 2003. I’m no historian, but I’d wager that as long as there have been companies producing goods there have been companies taking shortcuts to get their goods to market first.

I think we, the consuming public, have some culpability in this issue. We’re all too eager to buy into the marketing hype of things like Black Friday and Cyber Monday — so eager to get a good deal that we all but force companies to hurry up their development cycles to make sure they have a product to deliver to us on these holy shopping days. And then we have the gall to wonder why things aren’t better, or why our new smartphone locks up.

Wall Street deserves some blame, too, for the trigger-happy buying and selling of stock based on forecasts and predictions. Companies are rewarded for being first, not being the best. A company that takes its time to develop and release a stable, high-quality product is penalized. A company that rushes to market with a mostly-functional product gets rewarded even as customers are made to suffer through patches and product updates.

Are you willing to wait a little longer to get a smartphone — or any other gadget or piece of software — that is robust and reliable out the gate? Or is the “Oooh, shiny!” factor so strong that you’ll happily suffer through upgrades just to get your grubby mitts on that new piece of tech?

Via Register Hardware

Despite the ongoing economic woes, comScore is reporting online sales figures totaling $534 million for Black Friday – up 1% from last year. Spending on Thanksgiving also rose 6% over 2007’s figures. The increase showed a better-than-expected economic performance in the online sector.

Not surprisingly, analysts are pointing to deep discounts and aggressive promotions as part of the reason why online sales did so well. ComScore chairman Gian Fulgoni noted that Cyber Monday may be just as important a test as Friday:

“Cyber Monday may well prove to be an important indicator of whether the decline in spending that we’ve seen during the first few weeks of the online holiday season will continue for the balance of the year.”

However, the numbers leading up to the biggest shopping day of the year tell a different story. This year’s numbers show a 4% decrease , nearly $400 million in total, in spending from November 1 to November 28, and analysts are forecasting no change in the amount spent on Cyber Monday compared to 2007.

Also included in the report is an interesting breakdown of shopping trends in terms of time. Unlike their retail store-going brethren, online shoppers were more likely to buy between the hours of 12 and 4 p.m. than any other time period.

No story has ever annoyed me as much as the Black Friday death that occurred at a Long Island Wal-Mart last week. What’s worse is that, right now, it doesn’t look like the police will be able to identify the perpetrators. They’ll walk away scot-free, content with having bought some piece of garbage widget for $5 less than they would have paid on any other day. That, and having killed a man.

The New York Times has a profile of the victim, one Jdimytai Damour, who was 34 years old. His friends called him Jimbo. By all accounts, he was simply a nice guy looking to make a few extra dollars.

For its part, Wal-Mart is pleading ignorance. Since on-site security is the responsibility of a subcontractor, and since each store is responsible for its own security arrangements, Wal-Mart doesn’t really know what to say to allegations that security was lax. A spokesman called it an “unfortunate incident.”

Gee, thanks.

I don’t know, it’s pretty much the worst story ever, made worse by the fact that, you know, it was caused by people trying to save a few dollars on junk they don’t need.

Here is a prime example of America’s incessant spending habits. They were fighting over Wal-Mart’s Xbox 360 Arcade Guitar Hero 3 bundle for $199, BTW. Insane. No wonder there was fatalities yesterday.

As promised, Newegg.com has pulled out many of the stops to deliver unto you several Black Friday deals. No, I take that back. They’re not just deals, but ULTRA-SECRET deals. So ultra-secret, in fact, that I’m posting them here for y’all to see.

Highlights include:

• 4GB (2×2GB) of Corsair DDR 2 800 RAM for $49.9919.99 with rebate! That’s hot.

• 19-inch Asus widescreen LCD for $129.99

• 1TB Western Digital 1TB hard drive for $94.99

• Some professional gaming keyboard for $39.99

Also, and completely unrelated to anything tech, Allposters.com has 20 percent off everything (with free shipping, too) this weekend. I’m thinking of getting this British Empire map because, well, For England.

Black Friday gets all the press but Cyber Monday might have just as good deals this year. The Monday after Thanksgiving was dubbed Cyber Monday a few years ago retailers started offering Black Friday-ish deals following the big shopping weekend. According to Shopzila 84 percent of online retailers plan on having a promotion this year so expect some good deals from retailers like Newegg, Buy, and Amazon. So, if you can deal with shopping without huge crowds and rabid moms, just wait ’till Monday. I am.

Turns out you actually DON’T really have to sit in the cold hoping to get a magic ticket so you can buy Best Buy’s Friday doorbusters because a bunch of stuff that’s available in the stores is also available on Best Buy’s website. Most notably, you can get a 52-inch Samsung 1080p LCD TV with professional installation for $1,499, a 50-inch Panasonic 720p plasma TV for $899, and the Magellan Roadmate 1212 GPS for $79.

Actually showing up at your local store will still get you some good exclusives, though, like an HP notebook with free printer for $349, a Toshiba Satellite notebook for $379, a Dynex 32-inch LCD HDTV for $399, and, most importantly, Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey on Wii for $9.99. The stores open at 5 AM, the online stuff is available now.

Best Buy Friday Doorbuster Specials [BestBuy.com]

Starting at 3 AM Eastern, Amazon.com will be showing just about every retailer how it’s done when it comes to Black Friday sales.

Here’s a list of what’ll be available:

From 3AM Friday to 3AM Saturday:

PC

• Fallout 3 for $29.95
• Left 4 Dead for $19.95

Xbox 360

• Bioshock for $19.95
• Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway for $17.95
• Call of Duty: World at War for $49.95
• Dead Space for $29.95
• Fallout 3 for $39.95
• Far Cry 2 for $37.95
• Left 4 Dead for $39.95
• Madden NFL 09 for $29.95 (please leave one copy for me)
• NASCAR 09 for $29.95
• NBA Live 09 for $29.95
• NCAA Football 09 for $29.95
• Saints Row for $9.95
• Shaun White Snowboarding for $39.95
• The Orange Box for $19.95
• Warriors Orochi 2 for $29.95

PlayStation 3

• Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway for $17.95
• Call of Duty: World at War for $49.95
• Fallout 3 for $39.95
• Madden NFL 09 for $29.95
• NASCAR 09 for $29.95
• NBA Live 09 for $29.95
• NCAA Football 09 for $29.95
• Soul Caliber IV

Wii

• Okami for $19.95 (deal starts at noon Eastern)
• Boom Blox for $19.95
• Cooking Mama: Cook Off for $14.95
• Guitar Hero: Aerosmith for $25.95
• Namco Museum Remix for $15.95
• Resident Evil 4 for $9.95
• Shaun White Snowboarding Road Trip for $29.95
• Wii Fit Energy Pack for $7.95

Amazon will also have a bunch of other stuff on sale all weekend, so we’ll be sure to highlight any other outstanding deals. This is a great start, though.

Amazon.com Black Friday [via Joystiq]

Black Friday can be a tiring, stressful, and overwhelming ordeal. Here’s a list of which stores have the best deals on some of the top items for the holiday shopping season, along with our picks for Best All-Around Store, Biggest Disappointment, Biggest No-Show Product, Most Ubiquitous Bundle, and Most Confusing Ad.

If you see anything that you think should be changed or added to this list, drop a note in the comments section. Let’s try to keep things to nationwide brick and mortar stores, please. The true Black Friday experience entails actually leaving the house.

Blu-ray Player

• Magnavox NB500MG9 at Walmart for $128

Camcorders

• Flash Memory: Panasonic SDR-7K at Best Buy for $199
• Hard Drive: JVC Everio GZ-MG230 30GB at Walmart for $249

Computers

• eMachines desktop with 18.5-inch LCD at Best Buy for $299.96
• HP notebook with free Canon 3-in-1 printer at Best Buy for $349.98

Consoles

• Sony PS3 80GB with Ratchet & Clank + Casino Royale Blu-ray at Best Buy for $399
• Xbox 360 Arcade with Guitar Hero III and Wireless Guitar at Walmart for $199
• Xbox 360 Pro with LEGO Indy/Kung Fu Panda + $60 Gift Card at Target for $299

Digital Camera Bundle

• Kodak EasyShare C813 plus 7-inch Kodak digital frame at OfficeMax for $129.98

Digital Photo Frames (by size)

• Pandigital 3.5-inch digital frame at Sears for $29.99
• Nextar 7-inch digital frame at Sears for $37.99
• Sungale 8.5-inch digital frame at OfficeMax for $59.99
• Memorex 10-inch digital frame at OfficeMax for $89.99

DVD Player

• Memorex compact player at Target for $24.99

External Hard Drives (by size)

• 500GB Seagate FreeAgent at Walmart for $69
• 750GB Western Digital at Target for $88.88
• 1TB Maxtor OneTouch at Staples for $139.98

GPS

• Garmin nuvi 200 at Walmart for $97

LCD TVs (by size)

• Sansui 19-inch 720p LCD HDTV at Walmart for $178
• Westinghouse 26-inch 720p LCD HDTV at Target for $299
• Emerson 32-inch 720p LCD HDTV at Walmart for $388
• Polaroid 42-inch 1080p LCD HDTV at Walmart for $598
• Samsung 50-inch 720p Plasma HDTV at Walmart for $798

Monitor

• Acer 19-inch at Best Buy for $99, Soyo 19-inch at Office Max for $99

Best All-Around Store: Walmart

Walmart’s got the best all-around deals if you can stomach the 5am start time and the ravenous crowds. If you can only make it to one store, you’ll get the best bang for your buck here. The prices on Walmart’s TVs are especially nice.

Biggest Disappointment: Best Buy

What happened to Big Blue this year? It didn’t bring its A or B game. That’s what happens when all of your competition goes out of business, apparently. There are some okay desktop and notebook deals, but you’ll have to get there early and snag a special coupon-type ticket to get your mitts on the best deals. Aside from a few gems, most of Best Buy’s Black Friday ad was pretty nonchalant about doling out deals.

Biggest No-Show Product: PlayStation 3

With aggressively-priced Xbox 360 bundles and Nintendo Wii consoles finally in stock, Sony’s best showing this year is a $399 bundle with Ratchet & Clank and Casino Royale on Blu-ray at Best Buy? What’s that all about? When you can get an Xbox 360 with Guitar Hero III + guitar bundle for half the price at Walmart, it’s gonna be a slow holiday season for Sony. Yes, it has a built-in Blu-ray player. We know.

Most Ubiquitous Bundle: Digital Cameras

Look just about anywhere this year and you’ll find digital cameras either bundled with digital frames, printers, memory cards, cases, or a combination of those things. If you buy JUST a digital camera this year, you’re not looking hard enough.

Most Confusing Ad: Kmart

Four circulars? Really Kmart? There’s the Thursday ad (yes, Kmart is open from 8AM to 10PM on Thanksgiving – sheesh), the Friday ad, the Friday and Saturday ad, and the Saturday ad, each with specific deals during specific times on specific days.

Most agree that this years Black Friday so-called deals kind of.. well.. suck. Sure, there are a few Blu-ray players around the $150 mark and Wal-Mart has an old Magnavox for $128. Every retailer has a $99 GPS along with a wide selection of cheap flash memory, but those are not worth sleep deprivation alone. Best Buy is trying to pawn off a 50-inch 720p plasma and Circuit City’s 1080p model is just an entry level Samsung. It just seems that none of these deals are worth parking lot camping. Except for the Sam’s Club Wii deal that turned out to be fake and $200 off.

Best Buy had some sort of Black Friday VIP contest going on where the chain invited people to send in their best Black Friday essay. I know. The winners get a $1,000 Best Buy gift card, a trip to a store in a limo, the opportunity to buy up to four “doorbusters,” and so on.

I’ve picked out a few excerpts that may interest you.

From Eric in Boston:

Dark, raw, open air. I stand, blurry-eyed, trying vainly to focus on anything but the steam rising from the coffee mug inches under my nose. I breathe deeply, inhaling the bitter, robust coffee scent, and feel my body awakening. How did I get here? And where exactly is here? …

From Nick in Portland, OR:

Rain poured. God himself was weeding out the weak, testing devotion. Darkness engulfed everything, fighting the streetlights, the will of the determined. 3am and only the ads were keeping the hearts of the few from despair. Hours ago you could count the people in line on your hands, now the line was longer. Disappointment fell on the hearts of those just arriving, jealousy, possibly a little animosity towards us …

From Christina in Tampa, FL

Our family gathers around the table for a hot meal. I pass the mashed potatoes to my sister as my brother devours his food. Chills run down my spine as a cold breeze sweeps by me. Those surrounding us watch as we warm our body and soul through a loving family’s Thanksgiving dinner. Like a child waiting to open presents on Christmas morning, we anticipate the opening doors of our Black Friday destination …

And on and on these essays go.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned here, other than that some people love spending their money at the crack of dawn the day after Thanksgiving, it’s that Americans overuse adjectives.

Apple is gearing up for its own Black Friday event and teasing fanboys with the above image. Curiously enough though, nowhere does it say “sale, savings, or deals” which begs the question on whether ’ol Jobsy is going to attempt to fool soccer moms and gadget feigns Black Friday morning. Apple sales are rare ’cause generally the products do not have any problem moving themselves, but maybe Best Buy’s MacBook special pricing signals more discounts are forthcoming. Chances are that Apple stores will be packed Friday morning with or without sales.

As you might expect, Newegg.com is having itself one of those Black Friday sales later this week, on Friday, but they’re also having a bit of a pre-sale that might interest you. It’s sorta like pre-gaming. There’s a whole bunch of stuff on sale, but the following items caught my eye.

• Intel Core 2 Quad processor for $179

• 100 Verbatim 4.7GB DVD-Rs for $18.99

• Creative Zen Mozaic 8GB PMP for $67 (you should see the junky PMP I use)

This is going to be one of the most interesting Black Fridays in years, if not ever.

Oh goody, more Black Friday “deals,” this time from Amazon. They’ve got an Xbox 360 Elite (with 120GB HDD and Kung Fu Panda and Lego Indiana Jones), The Last Remnant and a card for 4,000 Microsoft Points. Grand total: something. I don’t know, you have to actually be prepared to check out the final price. Let’s just say it’s probably cheaper than it normally would be.

Amazon’s gonna be running these types of deals till the big day, Black Friday, ensuring four days of non-stop excitement.

Big bad Wal-Mart, which supplies Main Street with the cheap goods it needs to survive, today officially released its Black Friday ad. Whoop-dee-do.

Wal-Mart wants you to input your zip code in order to view your local Black Friday ad, so your mileage may vary. My zip code popped up a Magnavox Blu-ray player (the NB500MG9) for $128; a $798 50-inch 1080i/720p Samsung LCD TV; $15 Blu-ray movies including Iron Man and Kung Fu Panda; $2 regular DVD movies including Spider-Man; and $30 EA Sports games including Madden NFL 09.

Wal-Mart even has a few of these deals available online, you know, in case waiting in line all day the day after Thanksgiving isn’t your idea of a good time.

Amazon’s Black Friday site is up and running with 37 gadgets that are mostly portable hard drives, but if you’re in the market for a Blu-ray player, GPS, SDHC card or digital camera then strike while the iron is hot, folks.

Black Friday at Amazon

Lady and gentlemen (get it, one lady?) I give you Walmart’s Black Friday ad, home of the $128 Blu-ray player and the $798 50-inch plasma TV. Notable deals include:

• Samsung 50-inch plasma TV for $798
• Polaroid 42-inch LCD TV for $598
• Emerson 32-inch LCD TV for $388
• Magnavox Blu-ray player for $128
• Madden 09, NASCAR 09, NBA Live 09 and NCAA 09 (Xbox 360/PS3) for $30
• NFL Head Coach 09 (Xbox 360/PS3) for $10
• Guitar Hero 3 + Guitar Hero Aerosmith for $50 (Wii)
• Guitar Hero 2 + Guitar Hero Aerosmith for $50 (Xbox 360)
• Guitar Hero + Guitar Hero 2 + Guitar Hero 80s for $50 (PS2)
• Samsung 19-inch LCD TV for $178
• Track Suits for $8! Not gadget-y, but… come on, full track suits!
• 15.4-inch Toshiba notebook with 4GB of RAM for $548
• 15.6-inch HP notebook with 3GB of RAM for $448
• Seagate 500GB external hard drive for $69
• A promise from Walmart that “We’ve stocked our largest inventory of Wii consoles ever – don’t miss out!” and a $249.24 price tag

Full list of items here, full ad scan here.

Apparently there will be at least two Staples ads for Black Friday this year – each being specific to a certain region or regions of the country. You’ll probably know which ad circular you’re dealing with by this upcoming Sunday but until then, here are some good deals from both of the available leaked Staples circulars so far. Keep in mind that some of these deals might not apply to you depending upon where you live.

Items marked with “Easy Rebate” are basically Staples’ version of mail-in rebates that can be submitted online. More info here.

Staples Ad #1

• TomTom One 125 GPS for $99
• eMachines 19-inch LCD monitor for $119
• Western Digital MyBook 640GB external hard drive for $79
• 7-inch digital photo frame for $49 after $10 Easy Rebate
• 8.5-inch digital photo frame for $79
• Maxtor One Touch 4 Mini 250GB portable hard drive for $69
• Verbatim 320GB portable hard drive for $99
• Samsung ML-2510 laser printer for $49 after $50 Easy Rebate
• Samsung CLP-315 color laser printer for $99 after $100 Easy Rebate
• Microsoft 6000 wireless mouse and keyboard for $39
• Garmin nuvi 205W portable GPS for $149
• Navigon 2100 max GPS for $199
• TomTom GO 730 GPS for $349
• Free Canon photo printer with the purchase of any advertised digital camera after $10 instant savings, plus $20 and $50 mail-in rebates
• Canon Rebel XS for $549, add 300mm zoom lens for $99
• Omnitech 7-inch digital collage frame (four photos at once) for $69
• Netgear Wireless-N router for $49
• PNY 2GB DDR2 PC5300 RAM kit for $39
• Maxtor OneTouch 4 external 1TB hard drive for $139
• Western Digital My Passport 320GB portable hard drive for $99
• Brother HL-2170W wireless network laser printer for $79 after $70 Easy Rebate
• Omnitech 4.3-inch GPS for $119

Staples Ad #2

• eMachines 19-inch LCD monitor for $99
• HP 15.4-inch notebook (2GB RAM) for $399 plus free printer after $70 Easy Rebate
• TomTom One 125 GPS for $99
• Western Digital MyBook 640GB external hard drive for $69
• 7-inch digital photo frame for $39 after $10 Easy Rebate
• 8.5-inch digital photo frame for $69
• Maxtor One Touch 4 Mini 250GB portable hard drive for $59
• Verbatim 320GB portable hard drive for $99
• Samsung ML-2510 laser printer for $49 after $50 Easy Rebate
• Samsung CLP-315 color laser printer for $99 after $100 Easy Rebate
• Microsoft 6000 wireless mouse and keyboard for $29
• Garmin nuvi 205W portable GPS for $149
• Navigon 2100 max GPS for $199
• TomTom GO 730 GPS for $349
• Omnitech 7-inch digital collage frame (four photos at once) for $69
• Netgear Wireless-N router for $49
• PNY 2GB DDR2 PC5300 RAM kit for $39
• Brother HL-2170W wireless network laser printer for $79 after $70 Easy Rebate
• Acer Aspire One netbook with XP and 120GB hard drive for $349
• Omnitech 4.3-inch GPS for $119

Full list of items here, full ad scans here.