November 14th, 2009
Best Buy Black Friday ad leaks online. Here are the HDTV and Blu-ray deals.
For electronics fans, the Holy Grail of Black Friday ads is the one from Best Buy, which can list more deals on laptops and home theater stuff than general retailers like Wal-mart and Target can squeeze into their circulars. Unfortunately, those deals are never as good as you hope—is this year an exception?
The 2009 Best Buy Black Friday ad has just emerged on the Internet, and, as usual, it lists a number of HDTV deals, though they may not be anything to warrant jumping in line as soon as the last piece of turkey has been eaten. On the low end of the cost spectrum, amid brands like Dynex, are a couple of decent prices on top-tier-brand 32-inch 720p LCD sets: Sony’s KDL32L504 will sell for $379.99 and Samsung’s LN32B360C5D is priced at $399.99. Neither is priced as enticingly as Target’s 32-inch Westinghouse for $246, but the Sony is priced a full $100 lower than it’s currently offered at Best Buy.
In the plasma department, a Samsung 50-inch 720p model, the PN50B430P2D, is $697.99, while you can take your pick of a deal for a 50-inch 1080p plasma: either the Samsung PN50B530S2F for $897.99 or the Panasonic TC-P50U1—with a Blu-ray player included in the bargain—for $999.98. The highest-priced “special” is a 46-inch LED-backlit Samsung set (the UN4686000VF) for $1,599.99, which will be $250 off its current price.
Best Buy is hitting the magic price point with its house brand Blu-ray player. The Insignia NS-BRDVD3 will be just $99.99, while the company, like many competitors, is offering a Sony Blu-ray unit for $149.99. If you want a stylish model that offers streaming online services like Netflix’s on-demand video, the Samsung BD-P4600 will be $279.99. Alternatively, the Samsung HT-BD1250 5.1 home theater system (with a similarly “connected” Blu-ray player) is $399.99.
Just how good are these deals? While many items are $75 or $100 less than their current Best Buy price, the Samsung 720p plasma is a mere $13 less than it is currently priced. On the other hand, the Panasonic TC-P50U1 is normally $1,300 and roughly the same price via many online retailers. In addition, Samsung sets offered during Black Friday tend to be exclusive models for Best Buy that make it difficult to comparison shop. And the same Sony 32-inch LCD set is available at Kmart for the same price on Black Friday.
Ultimately, it will be up to consumers to decide whether these prices are good enough to queue up all night after a big Thanksgiving feast. What do you think of these Black Friday HDTV deals? Let us know in the TalkBack section.
Sean Portnoy spent several years as an editor at Computer Shopper magazine, most recently serving as online executive editor. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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