Cool Tech Reviews

The distinction between Black Friday and Cyber Monday for online retailers is blurring as evidenced by my annual email from Toshiba Direct which lists laptop bargains for both days, although they are strictly an online retailer while Black Friday was traditionally for those hardy folks who want to wait out in the cold on the day after Thanksgiving for the doors to open at a brick & mortar store.

In any case, as I have mentioned previously, I am a satisfied owner of a Toshiba laptop, so if you are looking for one you won’t go wrong if you take advantage of one of the Toshiba deals:

Black Friday (11/28/08)

Save on Black Friday with coupon code ACCESS20 - Take 20% off all Toshiba genuine accessories - 11.28.08 Only!

Black Friday Exclusive: Take an unbelievable 30% off Satellite laptops

Cyber Monday (12/01/08)

Toshiba pays your sales tax with the purchase of a Satellite or Qosmio laptop priced at $499 or more on 12.1.08 only!

Take $10 off $50+ or $20 off $100+ orders! Includes Satellite and Qosmio laptops and accessories. Use coupon code BF1020 at checkout. 11.29.08 - 12.1.08.

In particular, the 30% off a Satellite laptop on November 28 looks very good, but as always you might care to check your favorite online store in case they are doing even better on price.

Yes, you can still buy a new PC with Windows XP installed on it. Windows XP ceased to be available at retail on June 30, 2008 but there are a number of exceptions. The relevant exception for a consumer or a small business owner is that "OEMs can downgrade Vista Business or Vista Ultimate licenses to Windows XP Professional or Tablet PC versions for customers indefinitely," where OEMs are the large PC manufacturers.

However, there’s a difference between "can" and "will" or "will with no hassle" so Christopher Null at PC World tried to purchase a PC with XP from Dell, HP, Gateway, Toshiba, Acer, Fujitsu, Lenovo, and Asus and reports on the very mixed results. Hit the article for the full details on each, but the best bets for an machine with XP preinstalled are:

Consumer PC: Toshiba, Fujitsu, Lenovo

Business PC: HP, Fujitsu, Lenovo

If you are willing to pay extra or install XP from a CD, the choices are even more numerous. Also Asus has its line of Eee ultra low-cost PCs (ULPC) which come with XP under a different exemption in the rules.

I have been a pleased user of a Toshiba laptop for over 2 years and get a variety of advertising information from them. Today, I noticed that they are having a 20% off sale on selected models until May 1st.

Save 20% instantly when you customize select Satellite® laptops online.  Offer ends 5.01.08.  Shop ToshibaDirect.com today!

More precisely, it’s 20% off on all customizable Satellite laptops (which amounts to 5 models), where “customizable” means that you select the exact software and hardware options that you want. Seems like a great deal on a great product. Give it a look if you are in the market for a laptop.

Update: This offer has been extended until May 15.

Sony’s Blu-ray won the high definition DVD format fight when Toshiba threw in the towel today on its HD DVD format:

Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.
…
“We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop,” said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation.
…
Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe, yet will continue to make efforts to meet customer requirements. The company will continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives within the overall PC business relative to future market demand.

Longtime Toshiba ally Universal Studios also announced that they would become exclusively Blu-ray and you can expect everyone else to follow suit except for a few exceptions like LG Electronics who said that they will continue to ship dual format players for a while.

There’s yet another nail in the coffin of HD DVD as Netflix announced that in the future they would only stock Blu-ray high definition DVDs:

In what can only be classified as yet another crushing blow to the embattled HD DVD camp, rent-by-mail giant Netflix has just announced its intention to only stock Blu-ray titles in the future. Netflix justified its decision by pointing out the fact that most Hollywood studios seem to be converging solely around the Sony-backed format — a fact that’s all too familiar to Toshiba and friends. With both Blockbuster and now the ‘Flix having eschewed HD DVD for BD, it’s gonna get harder and harder to even find a place to rent those former discs in the first place, let alone one that has a decent selection.

(more…)

Toshiba is running a holiday sale on their laptops that runs through November 30.  First, you can save $150 when you customize a Toshiba Satellite notebook PC by using coupon code CRNBRY150 at the Toshiba online store. Then when you get to the website you will find that they are already offering the following on customizable Satellite and Qosimo notebooks:

• Free printer, carrying case, and mouse (after mail-in rebates)
• Free sales tax (i.e. they pay it)
• Free shipping
• Savings of up to 20% on the price. (All but the newest models seem to be 20% off.)

Since Toshiba makes solid laptops, these seem to be good deals and if you select your model carefully the savings is about what you would see on Cyber Monday specials elsewhere.