In an ironic twist, it’s coming to light that computers purchased from the Microsoft retail stores will not contain the ‘trialware’ that was typically included in new PC’s. This answers one of the criticisms that Apple users typically had about new PC’s.

This has been confirmed by both employees and witnesses. Microsoft has stated that the machines sold in their stores will be considered to be part of their signature line, and therefore will not include any unnecessary third party software. They will come preloaded with the optional Windows Live Essentials pack, Bing 3D Maps, Security Essentials, and the Zune client. Previously, the only PC manufacturer that has promised ‘craplet’ free systems has been Toshiba, however Sony and Dell have made such configurations available as an option.

[via electronista]

Good news, everyone! Cyber Monday 2008: Great Depression Edition was a tremendous success for online retailers, which saw a 15 percent volume increase over 2007. That’s what Comscore says, at least.

Consumers were tricked into spending $846 million on Monday, compared with $733 million last year. Year-by-year growth isn’t exactly breaking news, but considering the sorry state of the economy this year, that consumers spent anything this year is fantastic news. So we’re lead to believe. People will be feeling pretty silly come January when America Express comes a-knocking, demanding 8,000 percent interest on that iPod touch you bought.

While $846 million isn’t anything to sneeze at, insofar as you can sneeze at sales info, something called Green Monday 2007 was an ever bigger success, with consumers spending $881 million. But again, that was before the economy broke, so I wouldn’t pay too much attention to that number.

Spending your fiat money from the comfort of your iPhone is even easier, now that Amazon has released an application (“App”) for Apple’s little wonder. The mundane functions are as you’d expect: you launch the app, then you can browse and buy goods from Amazon just as you would from your computer.

What’s worth singling out is this little photo-takign feature. Using the app, you take a photo with your iPhone then send it to Amazon. Then, after a bit of voodoo, Amazon sends you an e-mail with a link to products that match the photo (or its best guess). For example, you take a photo of a a french press, then Amazon sends you links to french presses you can buy from them. Technologically neat, sure, but you wonder how well it works in practice… and me without an iPhone!

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.

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Apple retail stores will now price match any item that can be found more cheaply somewhere else. So, if Amazon is selling, say, the iPod touch for $100, you can walk into your nearest Apple store, printout in hand, and get the same price then and there.

This price matching only applies to authorized sellers of Apple products—the guy on the corner of the street selling MacBooks for $200 a pop doesn’t count.

via MacBlogz

Adios, Circuit City. You will be remembered forever as a not-good-enough version of Best Buy (even though Best Buy is pretty suspect, too.)

Yes, Circuit City has officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It did so last week, when we were busy talking about store closings and fake sales.

It is, I think, the biggest tech-realted failure (if that’s the right word to use) of the current economic downturn.

Be sure to watch its stock price this morning.

Circuit City’s awful, awful loss is our gain. The company is starting to close all those stores now, and is subsequently marking down the prices of all sorts of electronic gizmos.

You can expect to save up to 30 percent on merchandise.

My local Circuit City, which has always served me well, is staying open, so I won’t get to partake in the festivities.

This is why I don’t like extended warranties or accidental damage protection coverage for computers — the whole “we’ll replace your machine with a machine of similar specs” clause isn’t in your favor one bit when dealing with things that rapidly depreciate.

Case in point, a guy dropped his year-old $2000+ VAIO TZ laptop and sauntered into Best Buy to get everything sorted out with the accidental protection damage he purchased on the machine. Best Buy was about to give him a $2,000 gift card for his troubles, but at the last minute decided that the Asus Eee PC would be fitting instead since, spec-wise, the VAIO TZ and Eee look somewhat similar on paper.

After some hemming and hawing, Best Buy finally decided to give the customer a $1,200 gift card towards a lumpy, heavy Dell with a 15-inch screen. The fine print found in some of these service plans allow such exchanges to take place, so make sure to read over all that stuff first despite what the salespeople tell you.

If you happen to live near a Meijer store – Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and Michigan – and you’re looking for an iPod Touch, you can pick up the 8GB version for $229.99 which includes a free $50 iTunes gift card.

There’s also some loose talk (according to FatWallet) that there’s a coupon floating around Meijer’s Sunday circular for 10% off any electronics item, which would bring the price down to $206, although I wasn’t able to find that particular coupon anywhere. Your mileage may vary. Still, even the regular price plus a $50 iTunes card is nice.

Consumerist.com is reporting that Circuit City may be announcing at 8 AM tomorrow morning that it’ll be closing 155 of its stores. This is still a rumor, so take it with a grain of salt, but it wouldn’t be surprising in lieu of the company’s recent financial woes.

There was an article in the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago saying that Circuit City was “considering a plan to close at least 150 stores,” so this may just be all of that stuff coming to fruition. So that makes two retail stores that I worked for in my younger years that have either gone completely out of business (CompUSA) or look like they’re about to crumble (Circuit City). I worked at Best Buy, too, so watch out.

When I was in Japan, I of course made a point of visiting the Akihabara district of Tokyo. The sheer volume of stores was staggering, and many of them, like the monolithic Tsukomo, were seven or eight stories tall. Having a store footprint of only perhaps a Subway and catering to the tastes of the most desperate of computer otaku, the multiple levels were necessary.But the clientele is increasingly moving online, and what with economic problems over there as well, Tsukomo is going bankrupt.

An electronics store in trouble always gets me right here, but this one is particularly affecting because it’s in, perhaps, the most gadgety square mile on Earth. I’d like to think it’s an isolated case, but I’m afraid it’s probably more an indicator of things to come. Next time I’m in Japan I’m going to make a point of patronizing these fantastic shops, because apparently they’re an endangered species now.

[image credit: Akihabara News (nice picture!)]