Black Friday
Nov. 27th, 2009 07:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tagrynYes, I did the get-up-early-and-stand-in-line-in-the-dark thing this morning. This was my first time trying this experience.
Back story: Donna's computer was over 5 years old, and with the extremely positive reviews Windows 7 has been getting (i.e. "Vista with all the problems worked out"), I wanted to get her a replacement for Christmas. There was no way her old Dell could run Windows 7, and my laptop was also too old to run Win7, so I was hoping to get a replacement for that as well. I seriously was considering the Best Buy quad-core bundle with monitor and printer included: it would have been an extremely fast computer, but we didn't need the monitor and printer so that wasn't the consideration it otherwise would have been. That sold out early Thursday morning online, which took it off my consideration list. I looked for other options, and settled on trying for a couple of offers at Office Depot instead.
After seeing news reports Thanksgiving evening about people camped out in long lines at places like Target and Best Buy, as well as local reports of the same on bulletin boards, I was rethinking whether trying for it in the morning (and getting up at 5 AM) was such a good idea. As it happens, I did wake up a little before 5, and decided to take my chances. I got dressed, washed my face off, ate a quick breakfast, and bundled up.
I got to OD around 5:30 AM, and there was a line of about 20 people in front of me, but not nearly as bad as I expected. There was a manager handing out "tickets" which authorize each shopper to purchase the item on it, and I got one for the laptop I was targeting. Very good sign, I expected them to be sold out. The store was supposed to open at 6 AM, but the doors actually opened around 5:45, so I was only standing around outside for about 20 minutes, not bad at all considering. I was glad I decided to layer, though, as the wind the whole day has been cold and whipping around.
Once inside, in the rush I did manage to locate the other item, the desktop for Donna, in relatively short order. Everyone was fairly calm, I think the ticket system was a big contributor to that. The particular line I was in was at a standstill for a while because the man who was first in line was asking questions about whether the system he was getting was compatible with this or that software. He could tell that the line wasn't at all pleased with him, so he cut it out eventually and paid. I did get to the front, and got both items I was there for. Yay!
I did stop by Kohls after that, and the lines there were just out of this world. Best Buy looked the same way. Something to remember for the future.
Overall, not an unpleasant experience, and we're both now running Win7 on machines that are much faster and smoother than what we had yesterday. Not top-end systems by any means, but we're not hotrod gamers, so I think what we have now will last us for a while. Black Friday shopping saved us hundreds of dollars over getting the same systems a couple of weeks ago, which I'm quite pleased about as well.
Back story: Donna's computer was over 5 years old, and with the extremely positive reviews Windows 7 has been getting (i.e. "Vista with all the problems worked out"), I wanted to get her a replacement for Christmas. There was no way her old Dell could run Windows 7, and my laptop was also too old to run Win7, so I was hoping to get a replacement for that as well. I seriously was considering the Best Buy quad-core bundle with monitor and printer included: it would have been an extremely fast computer, but we didn't need the monitor and printer so that wasn't the consideration it otherwise would have been. That sold out early Thursday morning online, which took it off my consideration list. I looked for other options, and settled on trying for a couple of offers at Office Depot instead.
After seeing news reports Thanksgiving evening about people camped out in long lines at places like Target and Best Buy, as well as local reports of the same on bulletin boards, I was rethinking whether trying for it in the morning (and getting up at 5 AM) was such a good idea. As it happens, I did wake up a little before 5, and decided to take my chances. I got dressed, washed my face off, ate a quick breakfast, and bundled up.
I got to OD around 5:30 AM, and there was a line of about 20 people in front of me, but not nearly as bad as I expected. There was a manager handing out "tickets" which authorize each shopper to purchase the item on it, and I got one for the laptop I was targeting. Very good sign, I expected them to be sold out. The store was supposed to open at 6 AM, but the doors actually opened around 5:45, so I was only standing around outside for about 20 minutes, not bad at all considering. I was glad I decided to layer, though, as the wind the whole day has been cold and whipping around.
Once inside, in the rush I did manage to locate the other item, the desktop for Donna, in relatively short order. Everyone was fairly calm, I think the ticket system was a big contributor to that. The particular line I was in was at a standstill for a while because the man who was first in line was asking questions about whether the system he was getting was compatible with this or that software. He could tell that the line wasn't at all pleased with him, so he cut it out eventually and paid. I did get to the front, and got both items I was there for. Yay!
I did stop by Kohls after that, and the lines there were just out of this world. Best Buy looked the same way. Something to remember for the future.
Overall, not an unpleasant experience, and we're both now running Win7 on machines that are much faster and smoother than what we had yesterday. Not top-end systems by any means, but we're not hotrod gamers, so I think what we have now will last us for a while. Black Friday shopping saved us hundreds of dollars over getting the same systems a couple of weeks ago, which I'm quite pleased about as well.
