A complete guide to Black Friday deals, advice, and Ratings

We’ve been busy here getting ready for the holiday shopping season, which—despite its early start this year—traditionally starts on Black Friday. In addition to following deals and offering shopping tips here on the Electronics Blog, our reporters and testers have been updating the buying advice for a host of products at ConsumerReports.org. They’ve also been hard at work in our labs, as the flood of new product Ratings within the last week and a half can attest.

If you’re among the brave ones venturing out in search of deals this Black Friday weekend, we hope this buying guide will help prepare you. For buying tips and deals throughout this holiday season, be sure to check back with the Electronics Blog periodically. Check in also with Tightwad Tod, who is following deals for a number of products and offering useful shopping advice.

BLACK FRIDAY DEALS
Our reporters have combed through a number of Black Friday deal sites and retailer circulars. Below are the fruits of their labor. Many deals carry through the weekend. Even if they’re only valid on Black Friday itself, you might be surprised at what a little haggling can accomplish. And be careful of tempting bundled or package deals—sometimes they aren’t as great a value as they appear.

• LCD TV deals
• Plasma TV deals

Kindle is holiday e-book king after Sony and Nook hit snags

The Amazon Kindle

This is turning into the season of the new e-book readers that never were—and, by default, the season of the Amazon Kindle, the sales leader that no-shows like the Barnes and Noble Nook and Sony Daily Edition were supposed to challenge.

To be fair, the Nook did appear briefly, but has now sold out for the holiday season, before the first orders have even shipped. If ordered now, according to Barnes and Noble's Web site, a Nook would reach you or your gift recipient early in the new year—on January 4, to be precise.

The Daily Edition, Sony's first e-book reader with wireless access to content, remains available. But it will ship "on or about December 18," according to Sony's online store today. ChannelWeb quotes a Sony spokesman as saying there's "no guarantee" that orders will arrive by December 25.

Two other would-be Kindle killers—wireless e-book readers priced at below $400—are also no-shows, at least so far. The iRex DR800SG, originally promised for late October or early November, has yet to appear. And there's no sign, either, of the Alex, which will boast a second, color LCD screen like the Nook. The Web site for its manufacturer says the device is "coming and the latest news about it is the October 19 release announcing the device would be sold through "selected strategic partners" by "the end of this year."

E-books: Reading on a computer vs. reading on a reader

Amazon Kindle's new computer app

Amazon this week unveiled its Kindle app for PCs, available free for Windows 7, Vista, and XP machines; a Mac version is also promised "soon." Since similar apps are offered at the Barnes and Noble E-Bookstore and Sony's EBook Store, you can now read books from the three leading digital bookstores on a computer or an e-book reader. (These devices include Amazon's Kindle 2, Barnes and Noble's upcoming Nook, the upcoming Irex DR800SG, and Sony's line of Readers, including the upcoming Daily Edition.)

There are also apps for the iPhone and, sometimes, other smart phones, from Amazon and Barnes and Noble, though not from Sony. So this face-off focuses on the respective advantages of dedicated readers and computers:

Advantage e-book readers:

• Compactness. Compared with portable computers, readers are smaller--and especially thinner--than even a netbook; most measure about 5 by 8 inches and are about as thick as many smart phones.

• Better ergonomics. Readers are "sit-back" devices that fairly closely duplicate the experience of holding a book. Computers are "lean-forward" devices on which extended reading isn't that natural or comfortable, even on a laptop or netbook. Tablet computers, another flavor of portables, are more booklike in shape, but they cost upwards of $1,200; see this guide at tabletpc2.com.

• Superior battery life. Where laptops and netbooks run for hours on a charge, e-book readers run for days, thanks to e-ink technology that sips rather than drinks power.

• More comfortable ergonomics. For extended reading, e-ink screens are easier on the eyes than the backlit screens of computers. And e-book type is easier to read in bright sunlight.

Intel Reader: A device that turns any book into an e-book

The Intel Reader (Click to enlarge.)
[PHOTO: Intel]

Today, Intel launches a mobile reading device that converts printed text to digital text and then reads it aloud. The device weighs a little more than one pound, has a 4.3 inch screen and a 5 mega-pixel camera with a flash. Similar to netbook computers, the Intel Reader is powered by an Atom processor and promises long battery life: more than 4 hours of book "reading" or the ability to remain in standby mode for up to 5 days.

This small, portable device will allow blind or dyslexic users to gain freedom and independence by being able to read everything from menus to tax forms without waiting for assistance.

Last week, I got a chance to try out the device and was impressed by its ease of use and versatility. For starters, it is significantly smaller than previous reading assistance devices that were often confined to a desk at a local library. Capturing text from a book or magazine with the Intel Reader was made easy by the fact that the camera faces downward, perpendicular to the screen, allowing the user to hold the device comfortably in front of them. This innovation may spread to cell phones and shopping devices as it is currently very awkward to photograph text or bar codes with the rear facing camera on most cell phones.

Nook, meet Alex: Yet another e-book reader announced

The Alex e-book reader by Spring Design (Click to enlarge.)

Apparently it's The Week of the Wireless-Connected, Android-Powered, Twin-Screen E-Book Reader.

Obviously eager to capitalize—or tread on—publicity for Barnes & Noble's Nook, Spring Design has rolled out its own new e-reader, Alex. And it seems a heckuva lot like the Nook, albeit with a few twists.

Like the Barnes & Noble device, Alex, planned for release by the end of the year at an unspecified price, has a second, 3.5-inch LCD screen below its main e-ink screen; runs on the Android operating system; and connects wirelessly to a mobile network to download content (no carrier has been announced).

It also shares with Nook a feature I didn't highlight in my first impressions of the B&N e-reader: WiFi connectivity. For now, Barnes and Noble only plans to activate that capability when people are using the Nook at Barnes and Noble stores, where they'll be able to browse any title in the B&N e-book library for free and receive special in-store offers and the like.

Alex promises to use WiFi and have access to 3G networks everywhere, and for "full Internet browsing." Spring Design even says that you can browse pages on the color LCD, then transfer them to the black-and-white main screen if you wish. It'll be interesting to see how well that works, and how much the frequent use of the color screen—and of the browser—reduces Alex's battery life.

A browser was vetoed for the Nook, according to BarnesandNoble.com president William Lynch, because "Web browsing on an e-ink device is a clumsy experience." (Based on my own experience with the Kindle's rudimentary Web browser, I concur.) Lynch also said that the Nook's LCD screen won't compromise its battery life, which "is very competitive" with that of other e-book readers, which tend to run for days on a charge. —Paul Reynolds

First impressions: Barnes & Noble’s innovative Nook e-reader

The Barnes & Noble Nook (Click to enlarge.)

It's too early to endorse boasts by Barnes & Noble that its new Nook is "the world's most advanced e-book reader" and will be "the must-have gift of this holiday season." But the $259 Nook does look very promising, based on seeing it up close in a demo by a B&N executive at yesterday’s launch for the device.

In many respects, the Nook, which ships from online orders (and goes on sale at B&N stores) in late November, resembles many existing or upcoming e-readers. It uses e-ink display technology, downloads content wirelessly at no extra cost (in its case, using the AT&T network), and has a 6-inch screen (the same size as Amazon’s Amazon's Kindle 2, also $259, and Sony’s Touch, $299).

Yet the Nook also offers some true distinctions. Three notable ones:

• A second, color screen. Adding either color or touch capability to an e-ink screen can compromise the crispness of black and white text, according to manufacturers I've talked with.The Nook offers an ingenious workaround: An additional color touchscreen for navigation, located beneath the main, reading screen. 

Barnes and Noble unveils Nook e-book reader

Yet another e-book reader is seeking to knock out—or at least win a few rounds from—Amazon’s Kindle, in what’s promising to become a very crowded holiday market for the electronic reading devices.

Bookseller Barnes and Noble is unveiling its own Nook e-book reader later today at an event in New York. Though the company has not confirmed details on the device, leaked reports from the New York Times, among others, describe it using the e-ink technology employed by the Kindle and other readers, including those from Sony.

Reports also describe it as having color capability, images leaked to Gizmodo though that appears to be confined to a smaller LCD screen that lies below the main screen that displays books and other content.

The new global Kindle will work in 100 countries, but not in Canada

Since one benefit to the new Kindle with U.S. and International Wireless, $279, is to allow Americans to buy a Kindle that works when they leave the country, it seems natural that Canada would be among the 100 countries in which the upcoming device will work. After all, the northern neighbor to the U.S. is the second most-visited country by Americans, after Mexico—where the new device will work. Further, many Canadians are eager to buy Amazon's e-book reader, having heard a lot about it from news sources south of the border, including Consumer Reports.

Alas, Canada remains out in the Kindle cold, at least for now. While Amazon is "excited to now ship the Kindle" to most European and Asian nations and the likes of Kiribati, Rwanda, and the Seychelles, Canada joins Afghanistan and Niger as among the select places in which you can't yet buy or use the device.

Amazon does say it's "working to make Kindle available to our Canadian customers as soon as possible." Likely translation: They're continuing to negotiate with potential Canadian wireless carriers on terms for allowing Kindles to connect to their network. (All Kindles come with a lifetime connection to a wireless service included in the price, in order to download books and other content. In the U.S., Kindles connect to the Sprint network.)

Amazon cuts Kindle 2 price to $259, launches a global Kindle

In a nod to both the price resistance of consumers in this economy and growing competition in e-book readers, Amazon today dropped the price of the Kindle 2, its flagship e-book reader, by $50. It also launched a version of the device that will work outside the U.S. 

At its new price of $259, the regular Kindle 2 is now priced below the Sony Touch, $299, which shares its 6-inch screen size. It costs more than the Sony Pocket, $199, the least expensive reader on the market, but the Pocket has a smaller (5-inch) screen and, like the Touch, lacks the Kindle 2's wireless access to content.

The cut is the second for the Kindle 2 within the last three months: In July, Amazon dropped the price by $60 from the original $359. For now, the price for Amazon's supersized Kindle DX remains at $489. One wonders how long Amazon will maintain that stratospheric price, though, especially with two wireless connected competitors, albeit with smaller screens than the DX, set to launch in the coming months at $399: the Sony Daily Edition and iRex DR800SG. 

The elaborately-named "Kindle with U.S. and International Wireless," $279, is available now for pre-order, for shipping beginning on October 19. Seemingly all but identical in design to the regular Kindle 2, it's the first Kindle designed to work outside the U.S. That's a potential boon for American travelers who want to be able to download books and other content, such as their daily newspaper, when they're abroad. It also allows consumers in up to 100 countries to to buy and use a Kindle for the first time. —Paul Reynolds

First impressions: The iRex e-book reader

The iRex DR800SG (Click to enlarge.)
[PHOTO: Courtesy of iRex]

Though not without its flaws, the upcoming iRex e-book reader promises to be a viable alternative to Amazon's Kindle 2, based on my preliminary use of the device at a press event today.

As expected from previous announcements, the iRex DR800SG will cost $399, be able to download books wirelessly from the Barnes and Noble eBookstore, and have an 8.1-inch touchscreen. Today's news included confirmation that the 3G data network to which the iRex will connect to buy content is that of Verizon.

The iRex will fall midway in screen size and price between the two Amazon e-book readers that dominate the market. The Kindle 2, $299, has a 6-inch screen and the whopping (even oversized) Kindle DX costs $489 and has a 10.2-inch screen. The iRex's screen, like that of all other e-book readers now on the market is black-and-white only.

When I tried the iRex out at today's press event in New York, the clarity and contrast of text on its screen appeared comparable in quality to Sony's newest generation of e-book readers--specifically, to that of the Sony Pocket, which I placed next to it, displaying text of comparable size.

Text clarity seemed to me to fall a little short of the standard of the Kindles. However, the iRex appeared to match the Kindles for reproducing photos and graphics; like the Amazon devices, it boasts 16 levels of gray scale. And page turns were significantly faster than on the Sony, and appeared to be in the same league as the Kindles--and possibly even faster, as iRex claims.

The screen responds to touch only from a stylus; a pen-like one is provided. You can, however, also navigate using a "flip bar" that runs along the left-hand side of the iRex. I found page turns using the bar--the only practical way to initiate them--to be crisp and effortless.