13.3″ ASUS Zenbook UX305FA-ASM1 for $700 [SSD]

If you like SSD-only laptops, and the $600 price range, the 13.3-inch ASUS Zenbook UX305FA-ASM1 is currently on sale for $700 with free shipping, with a limit of three per customer at Amazon.com by Amazon.

This has a 1920×1080 resolution with a 170-degree viewing angle, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD storage (no spinning hard disk), Intel HD Graphics 5300, eight hour battery life estimate, three USB 3.0 ports, 2.6 lbs weight, and such. To achieve lightness and slimless, it uses the fanless Intel Core M 5Y10 processor. It averages 4.2 out of 5 based on 57 customer reviews and if you are curious abut it, it has over 100 questions answered by your internet peers.

April 4, 2015 Filed Under: 13-inch laptops Tagged With:

April 10-13: Free HBO and Cinemax Preview

Just in time for Episode #1 of season five of the Game Of Thrones blockbuster TV series, Uverse and select other cable systems will be offering a free 4-day weekend preview of HBO and Cinemax. The free preview runs April 10 (Friday morning) through April 13 (Monday night). You don’t have to do anything, the various HBO and Skinemax channels will get automatically unblocked (and then reblocked) by your cable box.

The time of this is perfect because many will try to sign up for HBO Now, and in case there are issues and problems, you can always fall back to the free preview on cable (assuming you have a cable system that is running this promotion).

April 4, 2015 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: , ,

11.6″ Acer Chromebook for $130

The Best Buy has a two-day sale ending Saturday night (April 5) that includes the 11.6″ Acer Chromebook for $130 with free shipping. This is available in the Moonstone white color scheme. Its official name is CB3-111-C8UB.

It has the basic budget specs of Chromies, 1366 x 768 resolution, no touchscreen, 2GB RAM, 16GB on-board storage, 2.4 lbs, one USB 3.0 port and one 2.0, HDMI output, card reader, and such.

April 3, 2015 Filed Under: 11-inch laptops Tagged With: ,

April 5-11: Buy $50 iTunes Gift Cards, get $10 Walgreens Gift Card

Per the Walgreens Weekly Ad, for the shopping week running April 5 until the close of business on Saturday April 11 in 2015, if you purchase two $25 iTunes Gift Cards at Walgreens B&M stores, you will receive a $10 plastic Walgreens Gift Card. Limit two offers per customer, except for the lovely state of New Mexico where there are no limits!

April 3, 2015 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: , ,

April 5-11: Buy $200 Nordstrom Gift Cards, Get $15 VISA Prepaid by mail

For the week of April 5-11 in 2015, at Staples brick and mortar stores, if you purchase $200 or more in Nordstrom Gift Card, you can receive a $15 prepaid VISA gift card by mail after submitting an Easy Rebate. The Easy Rebates are submitted online, so you don’t have to mail anything or cut bar codes and such. Since store gift cards don’t have activate fees, it’s essentially a $15 profit for you.

PS: the prepaid VISA, Mastercard and American Express gift cards do have activation fees.

April 2, 2015 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: , , ,

Buy Nexus 6, get 6 months of Google Play Music

The Google Store has a new limited time offer. If you purchase the Nexus 6 smartphone, you can receive a free six month subscription to the Google Play Music All Access subscription service. After the six months, the service is $10 per month. You must buy the Nexus 6 by 4/30/15 and redeem the offer by 5/31/15. The offer is not good if during the last 12 months you had a paid or free trial subscription. These are the Terms and Conditions per Google.

April 1, 2015 Filed Under: android, music Tagged With: ,

New $150 Chromebook from Haier with 11.6″ screen

Chromebooks are striking back in the laptop price wars! Available right now for pre-order at Amazon.com for $150 is a new 11.6-inch Chromebook from Haier, model HR-116R.

The specs are familiar, 2GB RAM, 16GB on-board, microSD slot, two USB ports, HDMI, headphone jack, 2.4 lbs weight, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 2×2 (MIMO) a/b/g/n/ac, etc. The battery life estimate is up to ten hours. The processor is the Rockchip RK3288 1.8 GHz (Cortex A17).

It looks like this does not have a touch-screen, which is not a surprise considering the price. I could not find the actual screen resolution other than “HD” mentioned in the description. As usual, it comes with two years of 100GB Google Drive cloud storage.

April 1, 2015 Filed Under: 11-inch laptops Tagged With: , ,

Kindle First titles for April 2015 are up: Pick One

The last couple of months the Kindle First program spoiled us by offering two free ebooks instead of the usual one, but for the April 2015 offerings, we are back to picking one of the four available options. As usual, these are pre-release books that will be e-published the following month (May 1st), but Prime members can get one of the four for free, and start reading it immediately. The offers are running April 1-30 in 2015, and will be replaced on the first of every month.

Without further ado, this month’s Kindle First choices are:

  • “Boundary Crossed (Boundary Magic Book 1)” by Melissa F. Olson in Urban Fantasy
  • “Trail of Broken Wings” by Sejal Badani in Contemporary Fiction
  • “The Altar Girl” by Orest Stelmach in Mystery
  • “This Thing Called Love (A Mirror Lake Novel)” by Miranda Liasson in Romance

If more than one of them sounds appealing, wait until May 1st to purchase them or if they are part of Kindle Unlimited or Prime, borrow them for free.

April 1, 2015 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: , ,

Targeted: Get 10c for every purchase with AMEX Serve

This is a targeted offer, for some members of the American Express Prepaid cards. If you upgrade to their new Serve reloadable card, you will earn 10c for each transaction you make until 5/31/15. Check your emails to see if you have received this offer if you are a Prepaid user. A lot of people joined in a couple of years ago when AMEX was giving people $10 bonuses with a $50+ account. Do note however that the new Serve card has a $1 monthly fee unless you set up monthly direct deposit or load $500+ per month on the card. So keep that in mind!

Here is the promotion from the email:

amex_prepaid_to_serve_promotion

March 31, 2015 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: ,

More Starbucks Bonus Stars promotions

If you are part of the Starbucks Rewards program, there’s a number of Bonus Stars promotion running in the next few days. You can use the Starbucks app or a registered plastic gift card linked to your account. You don’t have to manually opt-in for any of these offers, they happen automatically.

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March 31, 2015 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: ,

March 26-29: Free Epix and Starz Previews on Uverse

Not exciting about March Madness? Have Uverse service? You have an extra channel to watch during the March 26-29 (2015) weekend. There is a free preview of the EPIX and Starz movie channels. This happens automatically, there’s nothing you need to do – just locate the EPIX and Starz channels on your line-up. Starz includes various Encore movie channels as well. Just browse the on-screen Guide and see which channels have a live feed (versus the usual subscription blue-screen). If you have a DVR, you can fill it up with movies to watch later on 🙂

Starz is also celebrating the return of Outlander next week, the second half of the first season.

March 26, 2015 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: , , , ,

Get Apple TV for around $60 effectively with two step process

If you are tempted by Apple TV or you want to be among the first to try the new HBO Now service that looks like it may need an Apple device to sign-up for during the first three months, the $70 Apple TV is the lowest entry point, since iPhones, iPads and iPods are more expensive. I believe the apps will need at least iOS 7, because HBO Now uses the technology from the MLB (yes, baseball) streaming service, and their apps are at least iOS 7. So if you have older iPods/iPhones/etc, they may not be good enough.

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March 24, 2015 Filed Under: tech Tagged With: , ,

$20 Target Gift Card with Target Baby purchases of $125+

The Target Weekly Circular Ad, expiring at the end of day on 3/28/15, has a coupon promotion. Using the coupon, when you make a purchase of $125 or more on eligible Baby products (babies not included!), you will receive a $20 Target gift card. You can also use this offer online by using promo code SAVE20. Only one offer per customer during this promotion.

March 24, 2015 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: , ,

12pk Black BIC Round Stic Xtra Life Ball Pens for 88c (Add-On Program)

If you are planning to make an Amazon purchase of $25 or more, you can purchase a 12pk BIC Round Stic Xtra Life Ball Pens, medium point (1.0mm), black ink, for just 88 cents (that’s $0.88 per 12 pens). You can buy as many 12pks as you like at this price!

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March 18, 2015 Filed Under: shopping Tagged With: , ,

LG 450 Black (T-Mobile) for $22.50 [Pay As You Go]

For the shopping week of March 15-21 in 2014, at Walgreens brick and mortar stores (their website does not offer it), you can get the prepaid no-contract LG 450 Black Flip Phone for $22.50. This is because of a 25% off sale on select prepaid pay as you go phones. The phone includes a SIM but no airtime. This is no contract, no commitment, you just pay for it at checkout. It typically goes for $30. No coupon is needed. There should be a discount sign in the store. Availability may vary by store and region, and obviously I have no way to checking every store in the country.

This is a fairly simple phone, with a camera and front status display, you can see details and customer reviews at amazon.com.

The lowest price Pay As You Go plan at the Uncarrier is $3 per month, which includes 30 minutes of talk. They have $10 refill airtime cards that last 90 days, so technically, you pay $10 for 3 months. Every month, it will deduct a $3 minimum from your balance.

Note that this phone is locked to T-Mobile.

March 17, 2015 Filed Under: tech Tagged With: , , ,