There are a lot of fake and misleading deals out there, so what are some of the legitimate deals that are worth getting?
For example:
- Things for which the advice through the year was ‘wait for Black Friday’.
- Good brands that you recommend (ethical, good quality, or some other reason)
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Almost the whole of black Friday is a nonsense. The only things worth buying are things you would have bought anyway but know are on discount.
Many items prices go up for a period before black Friday so they can then be discounted, and manufacturers even have cheaper versions of models of their products that they supply to discount chains and companies like Amazon for black Friday.
The only things I’d buy on sale are items I’m watching via camelcamelcamel which have hit discount, or software on discount. There are a few specific items I need to buy that I might buy if they’re genuinely on discount but most of the stuff thrust in your face during the sales is cheap tat or lies.
To add to the point of cheaper versions. Best buy does this and those items will have a different SKU. They also don’t bother to take the regular version off their website, so you can check it against that. From what I remember when my ex worked there, it was a combination of removing features/ports, and lower quality control.
Yep, I heard that some items on Amazon now play with the coupon to do the same thing without it showing up on price trackers
I was hoping for this post to help surface the few legitimate deals that might come up
Keepa can detect coupons. I had price alerts triggered due to a coupon
I don’t now about camel, I switched to keepa a whole ago
Most deals aren’t up yet so I think you’re a bit early.
However my number 1 recommendation would be the Serif Affinity products. They will probably be on sale for something like half price. 35 euros for a lifetime purchase of something that really gives Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign a run for its money.
My number two would be ProtonMail. Though you shouldn’t buy this before using a free account for a while.
Huh, I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of Affinity before. I explored some FOSS photoshop alternatives, but they didn’t really do what I was used to. I’d love to pay for something once instead of the subscription bs.
Did you move from the Adobe products and how did you find the learning curve (how different was it)? I’m ok with putting in the time, just curious
I’ll try to remember to check them out closer to the day :)
Like the other commenter said, you can always check out the free trial first.
Unlike certain other products, you don’t need to provide any payment information, and you start the trial period whenever you want, for each product individually.
And to add to that, once your product is activated with the license bound to your account, you can use it without having to be online or logged in.
I personally wasn’t doing any content creation beforehand so I only started with the Affinity products.
For me, I find it easy enough to use, even as a beginner. If I can’t find out how to do something even after googling for “How to do x in Affinity” I can just Google for how to do it in the Adobe version and usually it’s really easy to find the corresponding tool in Affinity.
If you’re a pro you probably have very specific demands for your creation programs which may mean that you need to stick with Adobe. But if you aren’t aware of any demands you have, Affinity fits the bill easily.
I’ll try to remember to check them out closer to the day
You could also get the trial version for a month for testing it out
I switched from Adobe to Affinity a few years back. The interfaces of the Affinity apps are way better and the apps work much smoother and even have fully fledged iPad versions. There was not really a learning curve for me other than googling very specific stuff every now and then.
The biggest issue is probably that there’s no feature parity between the Affinity and Adobe apps yet. So every once in a while a feature might just be missing.
I’d suggest to just check out the trial versions or even buy the apps right away if your financial situation allows it.
Affinity is pretty good. It is different than Adobe, so workflows are slightly different. Some things are harder but some things are easier. Adobes real advantage is AI and Lightroom. Affinity is getting popular enough that there are plenty of instructional videos on YouTube.
I’ve been using the free version of protonmail for years, and I’ve thought about paying but it’s just so expensive! Even with the current deal it’s still €40 a year for the lowest tier, budget email subscription. The next step up is €104. Then after 12 months it goes back to full price.
Convincing myself to pay that for something I’ve never paid for before is a huge ladder to climb for me
What country are you in? That’s like more than an 100 freedom units.
Australia
Don’t you get proton Vpn, drive, calendar and others with that €104?
I think so, I only really looked at the cheapest one
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Even then I’d feel robbed
Fuck Adobe, fuck anyone who makes decisions at Adobe. Fuck Pantone too, while we’re at it
Fuck pantone twice.
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Don’t get me wrong here, I fully support pirating Adobe products.
It’s just that their software is incredibly annoying and bloated on top of being grotesquely expensive
ProtonVPN. Got a long cheap deal around last black Friday year after testing a month or two. It’s refundable too IIRC.
My favorite is the one where I stay home and eat leftovers.
A lot of inexpensive direct-to-consumer (as opposed to local-bike-shop or no-name-Ebay-garbage) e-bikes are legitimately on sale. These sale prices aren’t necessarily much better than other sales throughout the year, but they are a little bit better.
The best deals in my opinion are from Lectric. Lectric typically puts bikes “on sale” by bundling free accessories but without actually discounting the price of the bike itself, but right now they’re doing both for most of their models. (Note that the real normal prices aren’t what the website claims: for example, the XP Lite is really discounted from $799 to $749, not $999 to $749, the XP 3.0 long range is discounted from $1199 to $1139, not $1505 to $1139, and the regular XP isn’t actually discounted. I like this brand and think its generally a good company – I bought an XPedition from them in February and preordered an XPeak two days ago – but I admit it’s not immune to fake MSRPs.)
Aventon also stood out in my recent shopping. In particular, their cargo bike is a pretty screaming deal with all the free accessories they’re giving you at the moment. (In fact, I’d recommend it as the better value even vs. the Lectric XPedition, which is normally not the case).
Rad Power Bikes also deserve a mention since they’re one of the biggest brands in this category (especially for the RadWagon cargo bike, which is definitely the most common ebike at the school drop-off in my neck of the woods, although the XPedition is gaining on it). Their bikes are on real discounts, and they stand out for advertising a “low price promise” guaranteeing that if you buy a bike now and it gets discounted even further before New Year’s Day, they’ll refund the difference. IMO they’re not quite as price-competitive as they used to be (as I mentioned in a comment elsewhere), but if the bike you want is a Rad bike, now’s the best time of the year to get it.
There are a bunch of other brands that I’m less familiar with on sale, too. I found this Youtube video useful (no affiliation, by the way): “The very BEST Electric Bike Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals for 2023” by Ebike Escape
Saving this, thank you!
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
“The very BEST Electric Bike Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals for 2023” by Ebike Escape
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Olight is a
US (and made in usa) companythat sales flashlights.These aren’t the bullshit flashlights you get on amazon for $15 that claim 5,000 lumens and runs on two AAA batteries and the button breaks on them a month down the line. They’re awesome flashlights that have lifetime guarantees, including the batteries in them, if they’re a rechargeable one.
All that to say that I have an every day carry Olight Arkfeld Pro that is magnificent and will surely be on sale for black Friday. Normal price is like $100. If I were to guess you could get it black Friday for like $70 and you’d get a free one or two other cheaper flashlights along with it. It’s weird to think of paying like $100 for a pocket flashlight, but once you have one, you’ll never go back.
https://www.olightstore.com/arkfeld-pro-flat-edc-flashlight
*edit. I did some digging and it’s actually a Chinese company that makes their flashlights in China. They just have an operations office of some sorts in Georgia (the state).
I have the regular arkfeld and it’s been a solid ass flashlight. I mean it is always ready, takes a beating, shrugs off water (even underwater) worth every penny. I kinda want to get the one with a UV light instead of the laser I currently have.
I’ve had the regular, and now the pro. I was torn when getting the regular one (before pro was released) about if I wanted the UV or the laser. Decided on UV because I use UV for things like finding AC leaks and curing glues for phones. But was still sad about the laser for funsies, mostly.
The pro has BOTH. So the battery is bigger, the light is 1300 lumen instead of 1000, the green laser is 5mw, the blacklight is 50% brighter, and you can use the laser and the white light at the same time, if you’d like.
Overall it is a little bit bigger, but no longer do I have regrets about UV vs Laser.
Do they still have non-replaceable batteries? Better opt for something with standard Li-Ion cells
The arkeld flashlight isn’t round. It’s flatter so it fits nicer in a pocket, so standard round lithium batteries would be either small capacity to fit in the form factor, or too big to fit in it. An 18650 for instance would be way too wide.
So no. The non flat battery is not a generic battery. But as stated above, the lifetime guarantee includes the battery itself, so in five years time if the light doesn’t hold much juice anymore, send it in and they’ll replace it.
Electric scooter deals are fairly good during Black Friday. Steam holiday deals are typically 50% off and it is good advice to wait for holidays.
What are some decent scooter brands and models to look out for? There’s so much shovelware crap out there to sort through.
I think Splach is a good scooter brand. I stay away from the entry $200 specials and get something with some legs: 25-40 mph with 30-50 mile range. Vsett makes an overall good line of products.
If you are a smoker particularly of pot arizer will most likely have some great deals for their dry herb vaporizers. I LOVE my portable air max and desktop extremeq. Practically no smell, makes the smoke session last 10x longer, exact temp controls, and its much cleaner smoke than traditional combustion your lungs really feel the difference.
There’s nothing quite like a hard fat combustion bowl hit, but dry herb capes are the way to go.
Staying at home and valuing your time/self worth over the deals at physical stores. We can shit talk amazon all we like, online shipping is a godsend for anyone who remembers what black Fridays at walmart supercenters is like. People pitching tents and forming mile long lines just to snag A on-sale game console or TV or whatever. Being nearly flattened by a supershopper on some crack for the fifth time. is just not worth it.
Check slickdeals.net they have a section with scanned black Friday ads and they also have a forum/discussions for deals
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I assume these deals will stick around till the actual date, so it might be nice to have another one of theses threads around then
Check lowendtalk offers for some deals on VPS for self hosting. However be sure to check the sellers standing in the community from past offers. You’ll also need to beware of resource limits as sellers will be trying to oversell like crazy and you might end up on some crowded nodes. So make sure you understand what youre getting yourself into.
