Toshiba A2 $98.87 at Wal-Mart this Friday! (1 Viewer)

http://www.walmart.com/ On their main page click on the link that says Friday specials.

Its an incredible deal!

If I read the site right, you can order it online on Friday, and they'll ship it to your store for no charge. This is probably very important, because if your nearest Wal-Mart is anything like mine, they never seem to have any stock of the "specials."

Since I was going crazy trying to find any link on the page:
http://holiday.ri-walmart.com/?section=secret

I'm not sure about that. Everything I see on the site says "in-store specials." I don't see anything about ordering that stuff online.

I'm curious if you could buy one tonight (locally) and then walk in tomorrow morning and get a price correction? That way you could ensure that they don't short stock or run out of them too quickly.

I don't think their systems will allow you to even buy an A2 before Friday.

Anyone have any opinions on that Acer laptop they're selling for $348? It looks like the one they normally sell for $568.

People, answer Aaron's question expeditiously. I, too, am interested in this laptop if it is any good.

According to the articles in USA Today and the NY Times on Wednesday, they are in-store deals ONLY, not available online.

Its been a long morning, but I ended up with 6 players. I played Santa Claus at my office as just about everyone I passed the deal on to yesterday asked me to pick one up for them. My store only allowed one per person :frowning:, but they let me go through the line multiple times. I ended up getting the first and last of the 29 they had.

Got an HD-A2 at the Forest Hill location in Richmond, Virginia. 8 more left when I got mine at 10:45 a.m., stacked next to an aisle display of $14.96 HD DVD titles.

I'm having trouble identifying whether the A2 will output 1080i over component. Anybody here know for sure?

Yes it will, but it won't upconvert SD DVD to 1080i over component.

I arrived at Walmart at 6:45AM and was #10 in line. Last night the manager back in electronics said they had received 50 HD-DVD players in. This morning, they said there were only 19. Hmmmmm...either the manager last night was making it all up...or the employees raided and purchased their stash ahead of the public.

Anyway...I got my HD-DVD player for $107 after tax and there were 8 left after me. With a line after me of about 60 people. Oh well for them.

***Don't forget everyone. You can get a mail-in coupon for 5 free HD-DVD discs (select titles from a list) from Toshiba with the purchase of any HD-DVD player. The Wal-Mart player qualifies.

U.S. Resident Coupon Link: http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/pdf/rebates/13780.pdf

CANADA Resident Coupon Link: http://web1.toshiba.ca/toshibahddvd/...l_in_Offer.pdf
(Are there Wal-Marts in Canada??? I will put this here anyway just in case)


Also...there is a firmware update for this player as recent as late September. So...go here to download the .iso file for the HD-2A firmware update, burn it to a disc and use it to upgrade the firmware on the player. Might as well as long as the player is new.

http://209.167.114.38/support/ceg/downloads/index.asp#

This is a little off topic, but relevent here. I will be using the HDMI cable for this new HD-DVD player, but my Sony HDTV TV only has one HDMI input and it is already being used by my other Oppo SD-upscaling DVD player (which is better at upscaling than the Toshiba I just bought). There are great deals on HDMI switching boxes at Monoprice.com. These normally retail in the hundreds for the automated switches. The 4x1 box is probably the best deal for $43.50. Now I can have the DirecTV box, the upconvert Oppo digital DVD player and the HD-DVD player all share the one HDMI TV input.


Monoprice.com is very reputable and the quality of their stuff (and cables) is top notch. Really, there is no where else to buy stuff like this online.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/su...01&cp_id=10110

Well, I snagged the laptop, but I'm having a HECK of a time trying to find information on it. Even Acer's website tells me the serial number is invalid (and I tried every combination of '0's and 'o's ). A couple of people posted specs at Slickdeals though. It's not the one they sell normally for $568; it's an Aspire AS5315 with 1 GB of RAM, a Celeron M530, 80GB HD, built-in wireless, and a CD burner/ DVD player (it doesn't burn DVDs). I think it's got the basic version of Vista. (I'll probably replace it with XP if I keep it though.)

Apparently, Walmart lets you return laptops within 15 days even if they're open, so I guess I can just open it up and try it out.

I caved and took one of the HD-DVD decks on a whim. . .not sure whether I'll keep it or not though. Next year when they're selling the A35 for $98 I'll regret it. (EDIT: Checked out the selections in the 5 free discs deal. Yuck -- the only ones that really interest me I already have on BD!)

FYI, Best Buy just dropped the price of the HD-A3 to $199.99, can be ordered online for shipping or in-store pickup along with 2 free movies up to $34.99 in addition to the 2 free in the A3 box and the 5 free by mail....

Did we ever figure out exactly what the non-cosmetic differences are between the A2 and A3?

Thanks for the info Patrick...I managed to get one.

[boring details]My boss has had an A2 for a few months so even though he's bumming about the price he paid, he insisted that I take an early lunch to try to find one. The first location near my home was sold out. Called the 2nd location en route and they were wishy washy..."not sure...have to check with a manager, etc." Continued toward 2nd location and called 3rd location. Definitely out at #3. Made it to 2nd location. One left for which people were handed out tickets this morning. Ticket says claim by 9:00 am. Layaway people tell me that since people weren't told verbally, they're extending it until 11:00. I could have thrown a fit I suppose. Current time was 10:30. 30 minutes later carried one out of the store.[/boring details] Didn't have the cash to take home any disks...actually didn't even have my wallet at all, but that's between the lines of the boring details. I'll pick something up this evening after my wife-car-wallet get off of work.

Now, off to research firmware updates, etc.

The A2 is actually better (imo). The only real difference is the audio output over the optical connection. The A2 sends the bitstream optical output as 1.5mbs DTS. The A3 outputs DD at 640kbs. Supposedly they scaled it back on the A3 to save money.