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If you remember, I did a post a few days back about digital cameras, but somehow I felt that it was kind of incomplete without doing a roundup of all the camcorders, or movie cameras or digital video recorders or handycams, call them what you will. Fact is I don’t have one, and what holiday is complete without holiday movies for heaven’s sake! How can I show my face at a tourist spot without a handycam in tow duly forming extension of arm!

Time was it was the Japanese who were seen in every nook and cranny of a tourist spot, sporting the latest, the tiniest, the most sophisticated cameras ever, wide smile unwaveringly fixed in place, but now pretty much everyone seems to have one, so why not me, I say! Let’s explore the possibilities shall we?

I don’t want anything too fancy (or complicated), just something that will help me capture when the kids do or say something really funny or something to shoot the animals at the zoo with; you know the kind of thing? OK now I looked for ‘Handycam’ and all I came up with is Sony models; how perplexing I thought! Then the penny dropped, Handycam is a trade mark name, much like ‘Walkman’ both of which are now pretty much generic. Duh!

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I am desirous of new camera. I do not really need one; I have a perfectly adequate Canon 5 megapixel camera which takes very competent photos and even small video clips, but like I said I desire a new one. I covet all of the fancier newer models out there.

Now this Olympus 7.1 MP camera is supposed to be “Shockproof. Waterproof. Freezeproof. Crushproof.’ and is touted as “world’s most durable digital camera”! It is listed on Amazon for a mere $199 at a whopping 47% discount and I really have my beady eye on that one!

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Tags: Best Deals, Electronics, Kids by Nicole Price
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I wanted to get my nephew his own music player for his 11^th birthday. While I am a firm iPod fan (gift from my significant other) which is my absolute favorite toy in the world, I did not want to spend so much on the gift. Nor would an expensive gift be appropriate for a boy who is essentially at a rather irresponsible age. So I thought an MP3 player would be ideal, less expensive but funky enough to please an 11 year old.

Now how much memory is enough, I found a lot of players for under $10 but those were all less than 1 GB. And I thought a 1 GB player is a minimum! Give the fellow a few hundred songs to play around with! What do young kids want in their MP3 players I thought to myself, and decided to explore all the possibilities. I think ideally it should be a style statement as well as a music player.

I have talked about a watch with a built in music player before and I think that is a cool gift for an 11 year old. This 1 GB MP3 watch I thought was very smart at $27.06.

Another novelty MP3 player that I think an 11 year old would love to flaunt in front his friends is this one: ultra cool shades with 2 GB MP3 player for just $20.48! I was almost tempted to search no further, I thought these so fit the bill for what I was looking for!

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Tags: Electronics, Gifts, Kids by Nicole Price
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In my last post I talked about desktop computers and laptops. Today let’s look at all the things that go with a PC, such as printers, scanners, external storage devices, flash memory cards etc.

Most people now want to go in for an all in one device that will serve as a printer, scanner and copier, negating the need for separate appliances to perform these functions.

I have quite a bit of brand loyalty for Hewlett Packard products, so I would recommend this Printer/Scanner/Copier at Amazon which comes for the discounted price of $112.33. For just over a dollar more, you can combine this purchase with a Startech 6ft Premium USB 2.0 Ab High Speed Certified Device Cable . You can add a 2 year replacement plan for $21.99 ($11.99 for a one year replacement plan) when buying this product. You may not require a printer with so many functions, in which case you can buy a printer that only prints. This HP Printer will cost you $69.00 plus shipping.

For people who store a lot of data on their computer, it is always advisable to back up your hard drive by storing all your data on an external or removable hard drive in case your computer crashes, a virus corrupts data etc. This Samsung 200 GB hard drive will cost you $54.99 and comes with a three year warranty.

A small portable storage device like a pen drive that you can carry everywhere you go can be a very convenient item especially for those people who carry work home. This 16 GB USB Flash Drive costs $61.49 and comes with free ground shipping.

If, like me, you listen to a lot of music on your computer, good speakers are a must have. I invested in some good speakers earlier on. Whenever I am doing other stuff around the house, the music is always on (with the monitor off - don’t forget this energy saving tip). The speakers are good ones, so I can hear the music in every corner of the house. Logitech makes a lot of computer accessories and their speakers produce good quality sound. This three piece speaker set from Logitech costs only $32.99.

I found pricewatch to be a very good one stop site for all your computer related needs. It finds you the best prices on any of many well segmented items and also points you in the direction of the best sellers.

Do let me know what your favorite brands for computer accessories and peripherals are. Any brands that you have had a bad experience with? Do leave me a comment.

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Tags: Accessories, Best Deals, Electronics by Nicole Price
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Or perhaps you want to buy a laptop in addition to your PC? In the past few posts I have been talking about other things connected to money, such as advertising (good and bad), currency etc. because it is after all, all about the money, honey! Hope you have enjoyed them, I shall keep them coming interspersed with my usual bargain hunting quests. So this one is about bargains again, because I (and my significant other) have been toying with the idea of either upgrading our computer or buying a new laptop. So I thought let me do a survey before we take a decision.

A one stop shop for all your computing needs is discount PC. This offers an IBM NetVista 8305 - Pentium 4 2.4 GHz - 256MB - 40GB Hdd - CD - Windows XP Pro Installed - Desktop Case for $155. Good deal I thought, but if you do want to go in for a new computer I would go for a bigger hard drive. So this Acer Aspire T180 Athlon 64 3800+ 1GB 160GB DVD±RW preloaded with Windows Vista Home sounded better to me at $299.

Yes these are all very nice, and I found more PCs (discounted and otherwise) at directron.com, cheap stingy bargains, etc, but I kind of have my heart set on a nice compact sleek laptop, notebook, thinkpad whatever it is that they call it.

Look how pretty this Lenovo Think Pad is, which, after a coupon discount is just $596.70!

Talking of pretty, ever since I saw Oprah generously gifting everyone in the audience a Sony Vaio, I have thought it a very good looking laptop. I thought this deal for a Vaio was fabulous at $679 until I saw the ‘refurbished’ sign below the picture. Ah well, searched some more to find this deal for the Vaio at $862, also great!

Then this Toshiba Laptop from Newegg costs you just $499 which is after a $100 rebate. Discount Laptops has a wide selection as well and a discussion area, which may be useful for you to check out too.

Now I am thinking refurbished may not be a bad idea, simply because these items are not really used and have then been double checked and sanitized (don’t know why a computer would need to be sanitized, but whatever) before being placed in a buyer’s hands. Hmmm now I am reasonably confused so we shall leave accessories, peripherals etc for my next post. Meanwhile my significant other and I shall confer.

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Tags: Best Deals, Electronics, Money Saving by Nicole Price
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I take up where I left off in my last post, and continue talking TVs.

Fact is, even the cheapest of these very nice TV sets aren’t really cheap, so we should take a long look at the common or garden variety of tube TVs (or analog or standard), the ones that have served us so faithfully over the past many decades. Their fancier cousins notwithstanding, these TVs are not going away any time soon. But deals on this variety of TVs were not so easy to find!

The chief drawbacks for this kind of TV are their bulky size, considerable weight and obviously the limiting factor of the screen size. The screen size cannot match its Plasma and LCD counterparts and the bigger screen sizes can make this kind of TV take up a lot of space and can weigh 200 pounds! In spite of the drawbacks however, the good old tube TVs are still very popular and people who go to a TV showroom come away with a tube TV simply because of the cost factor.

So you can get this Philips set for the very reasonable price of $169

or this 27” Toshiba for $300

Since a lot of manufactures such as Samsung are continuing to better the technology of the analog TV, there is the slim fit tube technology available that is less bulky and most space effective. You can get this very good looking Samsung set for $349.

Another really little bargain that I came across was this really cute pink 13” TV for a mere $70 which I thought was a great gift for a little girl!

Oh! And what of HDTV (high definition TV), a term that is so often bandied about? Is that one more kind of television to confuse me? It isn’t so much a kind of TV; it is what goes along with your TV. To put it quite simply, it is the sort of service you opt for where you watch TV, so your TV is either compatible with the high definition technology or is not. There are some good deals out there which combine the TV and HD service package, so happy viewing.

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Tags: Best Deals, Electronics, Entertainment, Gifts by Nicole Price
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Let’s take a look today at televisions, only TVs are no longer just TVs. Time was you wanted to buy a TV, you decided which brand you liked best, perhaps the color and screen size and your budget; it wasn’t difficult. These days it can be positively nerve racking! They’re flat, they’re LCD, they’re Plasma, they’re High Definition, enough to befuddle my not-very-tech-savvy self! Poor us, spoilt for choice! If you thought settling on a DVD player was complicated, here’s some more complication for you:

It wasn’t enough to give us flat screen TVs, they had to improve technology to the extent that you can put your TV up on the wall so that it takes up only as much space as a painting or something! So the question I asked myself is which is better to buy, a Plasma TV or an LCD TV. On the face of it I couldn’t see any difference but research revealed that they are both based on completely different technologies. After reading a lot of different articles here and here, (just in case you are interested), I came to the conclusion that it has to be the consumer’s personal choice: both have their own pros and cons, and if you cut out the mumbo jumbo, it is twelve of one and a dozen of another!

I put them side by side (that is an LCD on the left and a Plasma TV on the right) but for the life of me I cannot tell the difference, they are both really pretty, I grant you that!

So here are some good offers for LCD TVs that I came across, all of them under $1000. These are for recognized and well known brands that consumers have rated and given a ‘thumbs up’ to. The JVC 37” mentioned here and available at Vanns.com costs exactly one grand and includes free shipping. The 32” Samsung is highly recommended here and costs upward of $679.95. The 37” Sharp mentioned here and available at Office Depot costs $800.

Among the Plasma TV range, the 42”LG plasma costs $889 if you don’t want it shipped + a hundred more if you do.

The 42” Philips plasma TV costs $900 + $100 shipping.

To be sure there are cheaper sets available, in the smaller screen segment which you may also want to check out. The offers I have told you about may vary from day to day.

Now we come to the good old standard or analog TV, which I am afraid will have to wait till my next post, because I have already rambled on long enough in this one, and your poor head is probably spinning as much as mine!

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As promised, this is one more in our Valentine day series. If we got some good deals on DVDs, we now need a player on which to play them, don’t we? So today let’s take a look at all the permutations and combinations available in the DVD player segment. Later we can do HD and LCD TVs and also take a look at Home Theatre systems.

Without revealing my age, I must tell you that I am of the generation that is rather conversant with the VCR (the Video Cassette Recorder, duh!). So when I looked to replacing the almost obsolete VCR, I thought to myself I still want to be able to tape TV programs so I don’t miss anything and be able to play DVDs as well. Apparently a lot of people thought like me and there is a plethora of DVD players available in the market, there are even DVD/VCR combination players available! Then there are DVD recorders with which you can copy DVDs and DVD recorders with hard drives, which you can use for ‘taping’ TV programs. Confused? I was too, still am a little confused, truth be told! It took me a lot of time to sift through all the ‘DVD deals’ on the internet, and here is what I came up with:

Let us first take a look at the simple DVD player: connect to TV, insert DVD, press play, watch movie. You can get a Philips DVD player here for as little as $36.99!

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