Forget Black Friday: 4 Regular Friday Deals You Don’t Want to Miss

Why wait until Black Friday for great deals on tech gadgets? You know, the day after Thanksgiving when stores and websites cut prices to the bone and encourage you to act with the aplomb of intoxicated wildebeests. There are bargains to be found all year ’round, and you don’t have to put up with the Black Friday craziness. Here are some good deals I found this week. A little research goes a long way.

As I wrote last week, Apple charges an arm and a leg for mobile memory, so if you want an iPad with lots of storage be prepared to lose some limbs – unless you buy one that’s refurbished. Apple is selling a 128GB, Wi-Fi-only version of the fourth generation iPad (also called iPad with Retina display) for $679, including shipping. “That’s $120 under the lowest total price we could find for a new unit,” according to Dealnews. 

A laptop is probably still your most essential gadget. There are quite a few PC options, but if you’re one of the people (like me) who have zero interest in moving to Windows 8, the field is a lot narrower. That’s why the Dell Latitude 15 3000 Series caught my eye. It’s not the beefiest machine you can find, but with Windows 7, a fourth-generation, Intel i3 processor, 4GB of RAM and 500GB of storage it will handle any of your day-to-day chores without breaking a sweat. The machine normally sells for $841; the on-sale price is more than a third less at $549, including shipping, for a total savings of nearly 35 percent.

You can never have too much storage. And despite all the hoohah about the cloud, backing up to an external hard drive is still the most affordable and efficient way to go. Newegg is selling a 1TB Seagate expansion drive, with USB 3 connectivity, for $50, just under 30 percent below the normal price of $69. When you go to the website, you’ll see a price of $69, but note the promo code at the top. Drop that in and the price drops and shipping is free. This offer expires on Oct. 7.

If you have an Android smartphone or Tablet you can easily add storage by popping in a micro SD card. Amazon is selling a 32GB card from Transcend for $21, 40 percent off the usual price of $35. The card will also work in your digital camera.