Black Friday Deals Start This Weekend

Major retailers are jumping the gun on Black Friday by offering doorbuster specials this weekend, including $200 Windows laptops and 32-inch LCD HDTVs. For tech enthusiasts with a serious bout of bargainitis, now may be the time to shop.

Deal-hunting site Black Friday 2011 reports that Best Buy has several trample-thy-neighbor bargains in its Shop Early Save Big sale, which runs Friday and Saturday, Nov. 4-5.

Most noteworthy is the $200 eMachines laptop, which features a 14-inch display with 1366-by-768 resolution; 2GB of memory (expandable to 4GB); an Intel Celeron Processor 925 (1MB cache, 2.3GHz, 800MHz front side bus); a 320GB hard drive (5400 rpm); a 4-cell lithium-ion battery; a DVD±RW/CD-RW drive; and Windows 7 Home Premium Edition.

OK, so maybe it's not the fastest laptop on the block--note the measly 2 gigs of RAM--but it's a still a pretty good buy at $200. (Regular price is $350.)

Other Best Buy deals include: a Dynex 42-inch LED HDTV for $400 ($100 off); an Insignia high-definition camcorder with a 3-inch LCD screen for $40 ($60 off); and a Motorola Xoom Family Edition tablet with a scratch-resistant InvisibleSHIELD for $360 ($70 off).

Starting Sunday, Nov. 6, Target has a few doorbusters too, including a Westinghouse 32-inch LCD HDTV (720p resolution, 60Hz refresh rate) and an Acer laptop with an 11.6-inch display. Each sells for $197. That's a $102 off the laptop's regular price, and $82 off the TV.

Here's a sneak peek at Target's Nov. 6 newspaper ad, posted early by Black Friday 2011.

Walmart, meanwhile, has a few electronics specials in its Super Saturday shindig starting Nov. 5. These include:

• Sanyo 42-inch LCD TV for $400 (regularly $450).
• Nook Color eReader for $200 (regularly $250, but reportedly dropping to $200 anyway with the arrival of Barnes & Noble's new Nook Tablet).
• Xbox 360 250GB Console with Kinect, $400 plus a $50 Walmart Gift Card
• Xbox 360 4GB Console with Kinect, $300 plus a $50 Walmart Gift Card

Granted, Walmart's specials aren't so special, particularly its Xbox 360 deals. Best Buy, by comparison, is offering a $100 gift card with its Xbox 360/Kinect bundles.

Will you shop early this holiday season? Wait until Black Friday? Hand out lumps of coal?

Contact Jeff Bertolucci at Today@PCWorld, Twitter (@jbertolucci) or jbertolucci.blogspot.com.