Nick's Black Friday Adventure

Some of you may have gathered in my other thread, http://www.adminaddict.net/forum/miscellaneous-discussion/thoughts-laptop-5102/, that I was considering snagging a nice deal of a laptop. The one I originally picked out was just too basic and not up my alley and it was quickly pushed to the side.

So I decided I'd wait until I saw Thursday morning's sale ads (Thanksgiving day). In the Best Buy ad I found two nice laptops: a Toshiba Satellite and a Sony Vaio, both for $399. Basically, they were both new models and the Sony was a Best Buy exclusive. The Toshiba was better in some aspects (such as its Intel Core 2 Duo processor) while the Sony was more appealing in other aspects. I ran to the computer to see if they were available online, but they were sold out (not surprisingly).
I spent all of Thanksgiving day eating and musing over whether I should just wait another year and acquire a Macbook of some sort, or get something that is cheaper (such as the Toshiba or Sony laptop) that'll last me a good few years.

After the wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with 13+ relatives, at about 8pm I decided to throw a folding chair into the car and drive by Best Buy to see what kind of chaos was going on down there. To me, it was either be one of the first people there, or don't bother even trying. So I wasn't really expecting to be camping out because I figured that people have been camping out since Tuesday (which, in some cities, is the case).

I got there and to my bittersweet surprise, there were only about 30 people in line so far. So I plopped my chair down and took a seat. People all around were very friendly, so I conversed through the night which helped pass the time by.

Speaking of time... We sat there for a long time. At about 4:15am (7 hours after arriving) they handed out vouchers for whatever item you are there for. It's basically your guarantee for the item you came for. There was only a minimum of 4 of the Toshibas and minimum of 10 of the Sonys. It goes without saying, the Toshiba was gone before I even had a chance, so I got the last Sony. That means at least half of the 30 people in front of me were there for laptops as well. I'm lucky I got anything!

The doors opened at 5am, and I was in the second group of people to be let inside. The line to pick up my loot and check out was about another hour of waiting; checking out itself took a good 30 minutes (). $430 later, I was out of the store by about 6:30am (10+ hours after arriving at Best Buy the night before) and arrived home after the sun had risen. Phew.


I had never camped out at any store on Black Friday, and I never imagined myself doing so. But it happened, it was a fun experience, though I'll never do it again!

It was worth it though because now I have a nice Sony laptop to replace my ancient Toshiba Satellite which is less than crappy. :unhunh:


Any other Black Friday campers here?

 

Unless there is something I REALLY wanted, there's no way I'd do that. You're a brave man, Nick.

Congrats on your new Sony! I had a Vaio desktop a LONG time ago, and I loved it.

 

Sounds like you had fun and got a bargain too We dont have Black Friday here in the UK but we do have sales after Christmas which I am looking forwards to although I dont really have anything in mind to buy, at least not for myself

 

I would love to do something like that, altho I can't think of anything I want that would warrant it, lol.

Glad you had fun Nick!

 

Congrats on the new purchase! Though in Feb of next year you'll probably be able to pick up the Toshiba for about the same price. Of course for a netbook they had I would've traded my Satellite off.

 

Great story there Nick. Better when you get to fulfill the fruits for your labor.

If i were to do it, then it'd have to be for a Blu-Ray player, and TV.

 

So how much did you save vs newegg, amazon, etc?

More importantly how cold was it? ; )

 

The Sony is a Best Buy exclusive, so it's not available anywhere else. There is a variation of my model available at Amazon for $699, but it's not the same as mine.

As far as temperature, it got as low as 45+ degrees during the night. It was cold, even with two pairs of socks on, a thermal shirt, sweater, and a jacket.

 

Sounds like you made out Nick! Congrats!

 

I've heard that the best time to buy a new computer is after Christmas. I don't know if the deals would be as good as the one you got though.

 

I've never really paid attention, but I will this year. We'll see what kind of deals they whip up.


Anyways, the saga continues in an unfortunate way. Let's just say "out with the old and in with the new". The new is in, and now the old is out -- Windows on my desktop is not loading; I get the beautiful BSoD over and over again. I'm going to decide if I should just run the recovery console and just start from scratch. The good portion of my data is backed up on my external drive, so I shouldn't lose too much.

Sh** never fails.

 

sorry to hear your deal isn't as good as you thought :|

my wife and her sister went out at 4am friday morning, came back to the house at 2pm
I'm told they got some good deals, I've only seen a small portion of the goods

 

<snip..>

TV, laptop, GPS system, comforter, another tv, and an iTouch is what we got at the end of it all!

 

New computer models with some appliances are shipped out in Jan. and early Feb.

 

Remember "Cyber Monday."

People were talking about that while in line. .

Anyone else hear of that?

 

I thought Wal-Marts were staying open for 24 hours? Consuming Interests: Black Friday: Walmart to open 24 hours on Thanksgiving to prepare for crowds - News and tips for consumers on shopping, saving money, deals and credit - baltimoresun.com

 

They were open for 24 hours but you could not check out until a certain time. Therefore, there were lines. Lines out the door, literally. At 10.

 

Doesn't that defeat the entire purpose of being open for 24 hours?

 

No.

What that does is allow people to trickle in over the night and place whatever they want in their cart so that when it's time for the sale to start, there isn't a mob trying to get into the doors and trampling WalMart employees.

 

Agreed with Chani.

Some really small town WallyWorlds (the ones' that aren't super stores) are not open 24 hours until 2 days before Christmas. It's like that in the town in Florida that I moved from. But on black Friday, they do open the doors as people arrive, let them get what they want, then checkout starts at 5am.

Odd, but their employees are alive and kickin'.