Black Friday 2011

I'm normally not a participant in the festivities of Black Friday (this where you gasp....what!?!), yes, I know I know: it seems to run contrary to what a "frugal" person would do right? Wouldn't you want to stand in line for hours and freeze to death to save a few dollars in the interest of frugality? Well....really....no; and here's why. Firstly, almost all of my needs are fulfilled on the used market, not the new. Secondly, I advocate buying nice, well built products at a low price, not cheap products at the same price! Cheap is cheap, is when it's bought, will continue to be as the product ages WAY faster than a superior product and end up costing more in the long run when it breaks before the other. Enough about that; lets get on with what I did on Black Friday 2011.

Let me start by saying that I left the house at about 10am, not pm! I had seen a couple of ads from the large outfits that had some peripherals that I wanted. But, being peripherals, I sure wasn't going to stand in line hours before they opened just to get them! Besides, they are so low-priced and common-place that I figured (rightly) that there'd be plenty left.

First of all, I went up to Micro Center (did I ever say that it's my favorite "brick and mortar" retailer?) and found the Cooler Master NotePal U2, Notebook Computer Cooler. It's basically a perforated piece of aluminum with a "hook" on one end that served as the mechanism of elevation (right-side-up), and as a wrap-around device to hold your computer when turned the other way around, thus allowing it to be completely compact and able to travel with your computer without taking up very much space at all.

There are seemingly dozens of devices just like this; what's the big deal about this one? The U2 version (there are U1 and U3 as well), has the exact size of our Z61m workstation's footprint.

I had looked at and coveted them before (but it was a non-starter at $25 MSRP), with their nice heat dissipation due to the aluminum construction and moveable/detachable fans which run on a USB pass-through.These not only allow you to remove them for transport, but to move them around so that they are position where the heat is the worse on your particular notebook.

Then it turns out that the curled over part designed to hold the notebook is the exact depth needed to accommodate the "Zs" as well (ready to do the happy dance now).

....and of course the most important part.....Black Friday priced at $10. Plus I also picked up one of those generic laptop hard drive housings that lets you put in any random drive you have laying around (and I have many) and use it as a USB connected storage for $6. So, after a little bit of a wait at checkout, I'm out the door at around $17 after taxes.

I was so please with how well that went, that I decided to brave the Fry's Black Friday sale, since I had seen another Cooler Master, the X-Lite notebook cooling pad advertised at $10 with a $10 rebate......and Fry's is on the way home. This particular pad wasn't like the other in that it's not really made to be transportation friendly. It's made of molded ABS plastic shaped like a wedge.


Instead of the 2 removeable fans underneath like the other one, this pad has one BIG fan in the middle of the wedge which is definitely not designed to be accessible. Of course, it size allows it to turn at a low rpm making it virtually silent. Very nice for use in the bedroom while the wife is asleep!

Here's a collage of pictures showing all the relevant features.

I haven't even gotten to the best part yet. It's virtually (within mm) of the footprint of my X300 that I commonly use in the bedroom!

So, my Black Friday consisted of $27 spent, of which $10 is coming back and 3 non-essential, but never-the-less, nice to have peripherals bought.

Next post: my other reason for the Black Friday trip. Tablet research....