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Ya ya , I know what you’re thinking. I must be out of my freaking
mind!! And you might be right. Why would I subject myself to the boxing day sale insanity?

Ok
let me start by saying I’m not one of those idiots that camped outside
the store waiting for them to open so I could do the mad rush to what
ever product aisle to grab my booty like a pirate. Did you know that
some people actually started lining up outside of Future shop at 4:30
a.m.? YES you just read that right. People were lining up outside of
future shop at 4:30 a.m, apparently by 6:30 am the line was wrapping
back around the backside of the store. Now thats boxing day sale
madness if I ever heard or (didn’t) see it.

I didn’t ask what they
were lining up for but I imagine it would be big ticket sale items,
like appliances, HDTV’s ,gaming systems, camera’s and the likes.

So
you’re probably wondering why I went then huh. I’m a masochist,
seriously…. I hate being in crowded stores, malls etc etc. I don’t
shop, I decide what it is I want I know where it is I am going to find
it and then I go BUY it, I don’t wonder endlessly trying to make up my
mind, or trying things on, or looking at this one or that one or the
other one. I’m pretty decisive and focused when I want something.

I originally went to Future shop because I wanted a 2Gb memory stick for our digital camera. We got an 2gb disk for my gills sister for x-mas and after seeing her go nuts on the video recording I just had to go get a memory upgrade. 

I don’t buy based on hype or advertising or most other forms of outside motivations that are fed to me daily. But man their are some outladish scamming things happening in the stores this time of year, so I can help you avoid getting ripped on boxing day then my job is done.

Some boxing day Shopping tips from me to you:

We bought an Mp3 player on the 24 th of december. I’ll
give you a sort of case study here so you can see what I mean and how
it pays off. There’ll be future posts on these products and how I made
up my mind to buy these products. You can also read about how I went
about buying an mp 3 player that a 7 year old kid can’t destroy.

How to buy an MP3 Player on boxing day

How to buy an Mp3 Player the right way. Gill wanted to get me an mp3 player for x-mas so I would stop using her Apple Ipod.

1. I decide what it is I want. in this case it was an mp3 player.
2. I do my research online. ie, product review sites. The major players in this market are:

• Apple
• Creative labs
• Sansa Sandisk
• Microsoft’s Zune
• I read the reviews, get the product specs and the price’s
• One
  I have the product spec’s and Ive settle on what type of Mp3 player ,
  in this case it was an 8 g mp3 player with video capability. I then
  look at the price ranges and compare them against each each other. At
  this point int he research I am not concerned with brand model or make,
  just what it is I want. And I’m very objective about it, believe me,
  and so should you be.
• I do all this away from the stores so I’m
  not feeling pressured or hassled while standing in the aisle getting
  bounced about by other blind consumers, bashing about trying to satisfy
  little johnnies whims.

So lets look at the product specs for an 8 gb mp3 player with video capability:

I’m going to compare the 8 Gig Apple Ipod Nano against the 8 Gig Sansa View mp3 player

Apple’s 8GB Ipod Nano review

8GB flash drive
Holds up to 1,000 or 2,000 songs in 128-Kbps AAC format
Holds up to 3,500 or 7,000 iPod-viewable photos
Holds up to 4 hours (4GB) or up to 8 hours (8GB) of video
Stores data via USB flash drive.
Up to 24 hours of music playback; up to 5 hours of video playback.
2-inch (diagonal) color LCD with LED backlight

And its small,Very small.

Not
a big feature for me because I mostly use it in the home at night
before I go to bed, to listen to audio books or podcasts I subscribe to.

besides
that an inch or two either way isnt going to kill me, I have big
pockets and I have a backback with an ipod mp3 player pouch.

What I dont like is the size of the screen though, very small. So that put me off almost immediately.

Gill
has the last years version of this in the 2 gb format. 2 GB is still
plenty of space for me. So the 8 Gb feature wasnt really a deciding
factor. I dont have a need to store or listen to 2,000 songs , I don’t
even have that many songs I have 4 or 5 albums and artists that I
listen to frequently, that will be on permanently and My audio books.
My podcasts? once uploaded and listened too will be deleted afterwards
unless its really good and I want to listen to them frequently.

I
dont really plan on watching movies on a small screen but I have family
vids that I can upload and show to others along with family photos and
the likes. Great feature and a selling point for sure.

Sandisk’s 8GB Sansa View Mp 3player review 

Plays videos, T.V shows music, photos,

radio!!,
Bonus feature, I love listening to radio and this is an excellent
feature for me. It has an fm tuner built in. So now I can bop about
listening to live 88-5
I can listen to audio books (like the ipod nano)
Large bright 2.4” screen Larger than the ipod (ok its larger by .4 inches) But its larger
Built-in FM radio
Built
in microphone for recording. Bonus feature. When Im out places I can
record myself and leave myself notes about what ever it is I want to.
Or record someonelse being stupid or funny or what ever, do an
interview for a future podcast etc etc (cant do this with an Ipod nano)
Expandable
MicroSD/SDHC™ card slot for additional storage. Bonus feature I can
even more storage if thats what I want. (cant do this with an Ipod nano
either).

Plus look at the display it’s graphical, not drop down menu like, as it is with the ipod nano.

Now
how does your media get onto the sansa view, you can use Windows media
player or drag and drop it directly from your computer into folders on
your sansa view.

When
you plug it into your usb port on your computer it finds the player in
the my computer folder on your computer, you dbl click the drive image
(cool little icon that says (your-name sansa player).

All
you have to do is open your music folder and drag your music or video
or audio books, or photos or what ever into the appropriate folders and
away you go.

Save the hassle of using I-tunes or media player for
that matter plus you can potentially avoid the whole DRM thingy when
and if it comes to canada. I dont know if it is written anywhere or
even talked about but I’m pretty sure that i-tunes and windows media
player store and report music sharing and illegal copies of music and
videos and the likes. So having this feature is a real piece of mind
for me. Maybe you have an opinion about this or some information
regarding this you would like to share. Leave a comment I would be
interested to find this out.

My geek friend says that win media
reports this and if it find there’s no license to the music you have it
disables it or something like that I should have him clarify that. I
was drinking martini’s when he was telling me about that so it didnt
really sink in.

Ok you can see what I chose as far as an Mp3
player goes but how did I decide on this other than the listed features
and benefits.

The price was a deciding factor.

At this point you’re looking for the price break.

You
find the features you want, in the price range you want, look to the
next level up and compare the two against each other. The price breaks
between these to at basically a 50 $ margin.

So I get all that I want in an Ipod Nano on the Sansa View plus more added feature for 50 bux cheaper. Love the price break 

The apple 8 GB Ipod nano was listed on their website at 199$

 Future shop has them listed at 194$

The 8 GB Sandisk Sansa View mp3 player was listed on their website at 149$

Future
Shop has a boxing day sale of this product for 119 $, we got ours the
day before x-mas at 149$ so if you were to go this week you could get
it at 119$ 

You’d be saving yourself 80 bux (compared to the Ipod nano) and get more features. 

I
got all the above feature of an Ipod plus a few more bonus feature,
more player time, added storage capacity, Fm tuner, voice recorder, and
better user interface. For 50 bux cheaper. SOLD!!!

The Sandisk 8 Gb Sansa View is the better value for your money.

Now here is how you avoid getting ripped off

So we know that the sansa view is the better value for the money but go look at future shop’s website. They’re going to convince you that the Sansa e-280 is going for a 130 dollar discount to bring it down to 119$. B.S sales hype and they’re trying to sham you.

Now go have a look at the Sandisk website for the sansa e-280 it’s listed at 149$ I wonder if you went to future shop and demanded that discount off of the Sansa e-280 listed price what they would tell you. The only major difference between the Sansa View and Sansa e-280 is that the Sansa View lets you upload tv shows.

Sansa View Video Services: Amazon Unboxed, TiVoToGo, Wal-Mart Video Service

Now for the Sansa View. The Sandisk website has it at 149$

Future shop is trying to sell it to you under the guise of a 40 dollar discount

Take this info with you to future shop and ask for that discount and get it for 119$, want to know what they’ll tell you. They don’t price match during boxing day. We tried, not hard mind you (we bought before boxing day) and we were told we would have to return it and then buy it again to get the discount, at this point I already had stuff on the Sansa View and didn’t want to bother with it, BUT I’m sure you asked for the operations manager or the manager of that section you’d get the discount.

We did that for our HDTV

Wait
till you see how we bought or 40 inch Sony Bravia LCD HDTV with home
entertainment system. We put the screws to future shop. Bamboozled them
with product knowledge demanded what we wanted and got them to match a
competitor. If you’re looking for HDTV buying tips here’s a post.

Thats another post though, maybe later on today, who knows we haven’t figure out how to connect the damned thingy yet!!

So that was how to buy an MP3 and some boxing day madness tales.

Whats coming up in the posting over the next few days maybe a week.

How to buy an HDTV

How to set up your HDTV, once we have it figured out 

how to buy a digital camera.

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See you then!!

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Tags: boxing day, futureshp, ipod, mp3 players, sansa