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Black Friday: Caveat emptor
November 24, 2009 | 9:00 am
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By Chris Meadows
It is only a few more days until Black Friday, the day that strikes horror into the hearts of Christmas shoppers everywhere. And of course, gadget-lovers that e-book fans are, I have little doubt a lot of us are already poring through the on-line ad sites and contemplating setting our Friday morning alarms for 4 a.m.
But still, all that’s black is not black gold, and not everything sold on Friday morning is going to be a bargain. For example, even though Apple is slashing prices by 8% for a one-day Black Friday sale, you can still find lower prices at some authorized on-line resellers.
And Slate’s Farhad Manjoo has posted his own caveat emptor lecture, warning consumers against being taken in by bad bargains. In particular, he warns against investing in e-book readers, netbooks, overpriced HDMI cables, and “cheap” inkjet printers.
The faults Farhad finds with e-book readers are that they are currently overpriced, the multiple competing formats make it too easy to bet on the wrong horse, and nobody knows whether Apple is going to come out with another game-changing innovation that does to the other e-book readers what the iPod did to other mp3 players.
The biggest problem he sees with netbooks (which have often been touted here as possible e-book readers) is that the rush of Black Friday shopping does not provide sufficient time to research the purchase, and it is far too easy to get stuck with a device that is ergonomically unusable or runs an outdated OS.
What are the best Black Friday bargains? According to Farhad, 22” monitors for $100, and 1TB external HDs for $70. I would say that other good things to look at are the lists of sale DVDs, Blu-Rays, and games. If there’s a title you’ve been jonesing for, might as well grab it while it’s cheap.
Do you agree with Farhad about e-books and netbooks? What Black Friday bargains have got you drooling? Let us know in the comments.
(Black Friday cartoon found on http://www.ac-nancy-metz.fr/enseign/anglais/Henry/thanks.htm.)
Technorati Tags: Black Friday,e-books,netbooks,Farhad Manjoo,Slate,shopping,inkjets,HDMI,monitor,hard drive,DVD,caveat emptor,Apple
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Comments:
While I agree that dedicated e-readers are overpriced, I would still encourage people to buy them. This is fairly new technology, which is always more expensive than old tech, but if no one adopts when it’s new, it will never have a chance to become old.
So buy those e-readers, and in a couple of years from now, upgrade.
We’ll all be happier, then.
It depends. If buying now means you can’t possibly afford to buy something phenomenally better in two years, then wait. The best reason to buy an eReader is because you don’t have enough time to read and you’re hoping an eReader will help with that– and it will if you can carry it with you everywhere. If you spend $260 now, and then want the latest and greatest in two years, you will probably be able to get some of your money back by selling the current eReader on eBay or Craig’s List. And as the above commenter says, there will always be something better along later; don’t let that stop you unless cash is really tight.
Hopefully there won’t be too many people rushing out to buy electronics on Black Friday without having some idea of whether or not they’ll do the job they want. Anyone who goes out blindly buying products like that is innn–saaaaannne! (as they like to say in the bargain biz)
There aren’t any such products to tempt me, fortunately: I still read on my PDA, and I like it that way. And as nice as it might be to support your favorite device maker, I personally think it would be better to encourage the booksellers to sell more e-books for ALL devices, not just a device or two, and see the sales they’ll get that way.
Chris, you left out those who will be left behind when the Rapture comes:
“It is only a few more days until Black Friday, the day that strikes horror into the hearts of Christmas [and *Hannukah] shoppers everywhere.” [Hannukah begins on Dec. 21 this year, following ancient lunar calendar, as the great sages suggested...]