Top 12 Black Friday/Cyber Monday Tech Deals of 2008

Why not start the list off with the behemoth HDTV of the bunch? Especially considering it is almost 50% and $1,000 off its normal price. This 50" plasma monster by Panasonic is being sold by NewEgg.com for $1,399 (originally $2,699). If that's not reason enough to fill your family room with its 1080p HD goodness, maybe the 5-star user rating from NewEgg, the 3 HDMI inputs, and the 10,000:1 contrast ratio will be.

This may be the "must buy" item on the list. Whether you're taking advantage of this Black Friday to finally upgrade to an HDTV, or you've already got one and tired of watching low resolution DVDs on your fancy HDTV, this holiday season is high time you upgrade to Blu-Ray as well. Though Blu-Ray and the now defunct HD-DVD standard have been with us for some time, the players have only recently become affordable. With Black Friday deals, they have become shockingly so. If you're going to buy a Blu-Ray player, why not buy it from the folks who created it - Sony. Kmart is knocking almost have off Sony's flagship Blu-Ray player. Believe us, they'll be flying off the shelves at $179 (originally $299).

Man, did we comb the GPS deals for this one. There are literally hundreds of deals on GPS units this holiday season, as they are becoming a must have item these days. Unfortunately, most of the "deals" on GPS units for this Black Friday either weren't much of a deal, or were on lower-end GPS units which simply don't offer enough bang for the buck. Possibly, save the Garmin Nuvi 755T deal featured here. TigerGPS is knocking a little more than half off the price of Nuvi 755T which is an award winning unit. PC Magazine gave the Nuvi 755T a near perfect score and had the following to say:

"One of the toughest challenges for a manufacturer is successfully adding features and value to an already top-notch product without sacrificing excellence along the way. The free traffic alerts that come with the new 705 series devices definitely add value. And the other new features that the 755T offers, including the Lane Assist view, 3D Landmarks, and Garmin Connect Photos, make an excellent navigation experience even better. "

The Garmin Nuvi 755T is down to $299 (originally $599) at TigerGPS and, as mentioned above, comes with free lifetime traffic data.

Remember the reaction when Steve Jobs pulled a laptop out of an everyday manilla office envelope at MacWorld 2008? One and all drooled over the idea of a laptop that was pretty much paper thin, ran Mac's Leopard OS X instead of Vista, was relatively powerful, and pretty damned sexy. Unfortunately, Apple slapped a $1799 price tag on the 1.6ghz MacBook Air.

Well, the good news is that Apple has recently updated the MacBook Air line. The reality of this upgrade is that it amounts to little more than 40GB more HD space and a nicer video card. Though the new 1.6ghz MacBook Air is $1,799 also, the "old" model is now available at a huge discount.

only $1,199. Seriously, a few months ago this thing was worth $1,799? Guess what? It still is. Get your's $600 cheaper.

Everyone wants to give or get a new digital camera this year. What's new, right? So, which to buy? Every manufacturer makes about 30 different models now and who's to tell them apart? Well, the professionals, that's who. We're going to let Ken Rockwell do the talking for this deal.

"The Canon G10 is the best compact digital camera I've ever used. I'd buy a Canon G10 and use it for landscapes, travel, nature and the weird stuff I shoot instead of dragging along an SLR. Even if I was carrying an SLR, I'd rather grab a G10 than change lenses on an SLR. The G10 is that good."

Ken's words don't stand alone, either. Canon's newly released G10 has been regularly referred to as the best compact digital camera on the market. With the healthy Black Friday discount NewEgg has on the G10, it is definitely the picture-maker to buy this holiday season. While supplies last, NewEgg is also throwing in a free 8GB SD card and a camera case with this (roughly another $60 value).

This is the "smaller" of our HDTV picks, but at a still room-filling 42", this is an amazing deal at $799 (down from a list price of $1400). With everything going digital in just a couple of months and more and more HD programming becoming available, it's about time you got yourself an HDTV. Due to fierce competition in the LCD market, prices have been steadily falling, but Sharp maintains the edge. This TV has a full 1080p resolution, boasts 3 HDMI inputs and comes from the same lineage as the highly touted AQUOS HDTVs. CNET's review noted that they .have been impressed with the black levels on Sharp LCDs. and Dell customers gave this model a 4.7 out of 5. Considering the specs and the name, and especially the whopping 42% discount, we don't think you can go wrong with this one.

Like everyone else, you're surely drowing in digital photos and MP3s. If they're not clogging up your disk, they're keeping you up nights worrying about losing them all during a harddrive failure. Enter ever-cheapening external storage.

LaCie's Rugged All Terrain external hard drive is the perfect solution for storing/backing up/transferring data. This is LaCie's top of the line unit, boasting USB 2.0 as well as FireWire400 and FireWire800 interfaces for blazing transfer rates. The drive features a scratch proof aluminum housing surrounded by a sharp looking bright orange rubber bumber that protects the device from shock. And it seems the sweet looking rubber housing isn't just a gimmick to dress the LaCie up like it's going to the X-Games -- LaCie says that it can be dropped from up to 35 inches in non-operating mode and be okay, a claim that CNET reviewers found to be true.

In fact, CNET's reviewers were very impressed with the performance of the LaCie Rugged All-Terrain Hard Drive... it was among the fastest external hard drives tested, including products with faster drives and larger caches.. They ultimately gave the device an "excellent" rating. Snatch this nicely priced ($144) LaCie drive up for all your "extreme" storage needs.

So, maybe you're like some of us and while compact notebooks are your thing, Macs and OS X aren't, and PCs and Microsoft are. Skip the Macbook Air mentioned above and run to grab one of these from Toshiba before the deal ends.

Toshiba laptops are well-known as some of the highest quality laptops on the market. The problem is, like the Sony we previously had in this slot, the prices are just too high compared to similar models from other brands. Well, we just got word that Toshiba is knocking a whopping 30% of all the models in their Satellite lineup. We're recommending the Satellite U405-ST550W, which has a 2.26Ghz Core2Duo CPU, a hefty 4GB of 800mhz RAM, and a big 320GB hard drive. On Black Friday it will be discounted $360 to $839. The preceeding links should take you to Toshiba's specials page where you should find the 30% deal come Black Friday.

Oh, and if you're not into the model we recommend, there's 14 others to choose from in the Satellite lineup. Some of which can be had, during this special, for under $400.

This is the cheapest price we've seen from a reputable retailers all year on the award winning Nikon D300. If you don't know you want this camera, you should. Abe's of Maine is discounting the D300 $160 (although by their count it is a $490 discount) and throwing in a free 8GB compact flash card.

And again, Abe's is a well known, reputable dealer. So you're not going to get a call from someone trying to sell you a the battery, manual, and cables that are supposed to be included with camera you just bought.

** IMPORTANT: You MUST enter coupon code DS160X to get the full discount.

HD this, and HD that. Your camcorder isn't HD? Get with the times, scab!

Whether recording weddings, graduations, birthday parties or just every day home movies, Canon's Vixia HF10 is hard to beat. At just 2.9 by 2.5 by 5.1 inches and slightly under a pound, this high definition recorder can fit in your coat pocket. With 16GB built in flash memory and SDHC removable flash, the HF10 can record up to 2 hours and 5 minutes at a maximum rate of 17 megabits per second or 6 hours and 5 minutes at 5 Mbps. It features a stabilized f1.8-3.0 12X zoom lens that has a longer reach than the typical 10x lens available in this class and has all the typical Canon features including aperture- and shutter-priority exposure modes, three fixed/one variable zoom speed options, a video light, Instant AF, and a wind-screen filter. You can also use the Vixia for still photos at which point metering, flash, and burst and exposure bracketing options become available.

The excellent optics and features, plus an ergonomic design and user friendly interface prompted CNET reviewers to award the Vixia HF10 and "excellent". rating. Calumet Photo has the HF10 for $649, a cool $350 off the normal $999.

It's the 2nd generation iPod Touch. If you're going to give an MP3 player as a gift this year, this is without a doubt THE MP3 player to give. Everyone has 'em, but no one has a deal on them, right? Sort of. We found this gem, which is the 2nd generation 16GB touch not only discounted, but with personal engraving thrown in also. How's that for a gift? Yours for $267 at MacMall.

(Apple also does free engraving, BTW, but you'll be paying full price for the iPod.)

Not as quick or rugged as the our LaCie pick above for external storage. That said, this Seagate unit will still give you fast USB 2.0 transfer rates and offers a half a terrabyte of storage. If you don't need blazing transfer speeds (and chances are you don't) and aren't planning on snowboarding with this thing, steal it from WalMart for an unbelievable $69 (normally $129).