Oh Woot. You always catch me with an awesome tech-related deal right when I’m about to head to sleep. Today the masters of the deal-a-day sale, Woot.com, have a refurbished original iPad 64GB WiFi + 3G for an impressive $499.

If you’re looking to jump into the iPad game, this is a pretty good deal as it beats Apple’s own refurbished iPad offering by $160 (24%). Woot’s price also shaves $120 (19%) off of a brand new original iPad from Amazon.

Data on the iPad is hassle free as you don’t need to sign up for a contract and can purchase data a-la-carte great for trips when you’re unsure whether or not you’ll have access to WiFi.

If you’re wondering if you should instead go with an iPad 2, all you need to know is that the iPad 2 is thinner, lighter, somewhat faster, has front/rear cameras, and is available with AT&T or Verizon 3G. It’s also more expensive.

The iPad is an undeniably well built tablet that still offers one of the better tablet experiences available on the market.

If this deal pertains to your interests, jump over to Woot.com to snag it before it sells out or vanishes at 12:59AM EST! (I’m calling and early sell-out on this one)

Update: As predicted, the Galaxy Tab has already sold out from Woot. Some interesting stats:

During the sale, Woot sold one Galaxy Tab every 27 seconds. The first one sold after only 1 minute and 42 seconds of the deal being available. Total number of units sold was 1755.

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Our favorite deal-a-day site, Woot.com, has a great deal on the tablet that’s been topping our popularity charts for months on end: the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

This particular version is a 16GB WiFi+3G model which doesn’t appear to be well priced on the surface until you realize that you don’t have to sign up for service with your purchase from Woot. A new Galaxy Tab from Sprint without the contract would run you $429. Woot is offering the device (refurbished) for $259 without the contract.

Just in case you aren’t familiar with the well respected tablet, here are the important bits:

• Android 2.2 (customized for a tablet experience by Samsung)
• Samsung C110 Hummingbird CPU @ 1GHz
• 512MB of RAM
• 7” capacitive touchscreen @ 1024×600
• 16GB pre-installed MicroSD card
• WiFi & Bluetooth 3.0
• CDMA 1900/800 EVDO Rev A (Sprint)

Chippy has a wickedly detailed review of the Samsung Galaxy Tab should you desire to consult an expert about a potential purchase:

https://www.umpcportal.com/2010/10/28/samsung-galaxy-tab-full-review-part-1-overview-hardware-screen-keyboard/

This is Woot we’re talking about here — they only offer one deal per day. After 12:59am EST, this deal will be gone (and will likely sellout even before), have at it!

The age of HDMI is finally upon us. Go to the store and pick up any HDTV and there’s about a 95% change that it’ll have at least one HDMI port. It’s not just TVs either. From the Motorola Atrix to the Acer Iconia Tab, HDMI is being included on a number of devices for connectivity to monitors and HDTVs.

However, as always tends to happen with new technology, people are jacking prices up tremendously (remember when DVD players used to cost $1000)?

Rule #1: Never buy first-party as an accessory.

Case-in-point. Motorola is so kind as to offer you a micro-HDMI cable that’ll go just perfectly with your new Atrix as an accessory on their site. How much do they ask for it? $40! And this is only a three foot long cable. Come on Motorola, surely you can do better.

If you are purchasing a cable (that isn’t proprietary) directly from the company that is also selling your gadgetry, they are likely buying from the same cheap source that you could find offered online and jacking up the prices to pass on to you. Cut out the middle man and go straight to the source.

Rule #2: Buy online.

Heading to your local electronics store is just asking to be ripped off. I’ve seen RadioShack asking $50 for a six-foot HDMI cable! The best you’ll find for a micro-HDMI cable from Best Buy is around $30.

Rule #3: Don’t be fooled by component-speak.

With analogue signals, the components that the cables are made out of can arguably affect the quality of the signal as it passes through the cable. Companies like Monster charge some wicked premiums for analogue cables that are described as having a patented 24k gold contact 12-cut Turbine connectors for enhanced signal transfer inch and a dual solid-core centre conductors for deep, tight bass and smooth, natural midrange inch. I could dig up a number of debates about whether or not any of those features actually impact the quality of the signal, but do not let them pull this trick on you with the digital data that runs through HDMI cables.

As a digital stream, the data coming out of the other end of an HDMI cable is all-or-nothing. We’re talking ones and zeros here, not analog signals. As the ones and zeros travel through the HDMI cable, it doesn’t matter what material is conducting them, or how many carats gold your connector is plated in; the ones and zeros will still be read as ones and zeros once received, and that’s the beauty of digital signals.

Yes, quality of the cable is important so that you don’t see breakage after a short period of use, but do not let someone talk you up about the quality of the components in the cable and make you think that you’ll be getting better quality or clarity from the signal as it passes through based on materials this is total BS. (Did I mention that Monster wants $90 for a four-foot HDMI cable?)

Finding Reasonable Prices

Fortunately, it is possible, perhaps even easy, to find a great deal on an HDMI cable. Here are the places I’d check:

Deals.Woot.com The folks at Woot run a number of sites and you’ve likely seen us calling out relevant gadget deals in the past (no affiliation, we promise). They’ve got a neat site called Deals.Woot which is a community-sourced deal site. In a nutshell, community members point out good deals around the web and everyone benefits. The easiest way to approach looking for an HDMI cable is to simply type “HDMI inch in the search box at the top of the page. This’ll show you any currently running deals involving HDMI cables.

For instance, as of this writing, I see a six-foot HDMI cable for $2.39 (likely with a few bucks for shipping). Still, even if shipping was $10, you’d save 76% ($37.61) off of RadioShack’s ridiculous offer!

Amazon.com Amazon sells name-brand products but also functions as a marketplace for more obscure companies. Competition in the Amazon marketplace keeps everyone honest about their prices and the customer benefits. Remember how Motorola wanted $40 for a three-foot HDMI-to-Micro HDMI cable? One search for “micro HDMI inch on Amazon shows a six-foot cable of the same type for $2.85 (including shipping)! That’s a 92% ($37.15) savings which is quite impressive.

I hope this simple guide will help you not get ripped off on future HDMI purchases. Enjoy your cables and your savings!

If you’ve been eyeing the latest iPod Touch, the folks at Woot.com have the 32GB model for $229. This is a refurbished unit, but presumably it’ll work like new.

If you go the Woot route, you’ll save $70 (24%) over the price that you’d be paying if you bought one new from Apple, and $45 (17%) if you bought one new from Amazon. The deal also beats out Apple’s own price on a refurbished 32GB iPod Touch by $30 (12%).

The iPod Touch on offer is indeed the latest-generation (4th) model with an impressively sharp 960×640 display, A4 CPU, rear camera (with HD recording capability), and front camera for FaceTime connectivity (or any other app that uses the front cam). It’s also quite thin.

In the box you’ll find the 32GB refurbished unit, a USB cable for charging and syncing, headphones, and a quick-start guide. As far as I can tell it’ll come in the official packaging as well.

You can’t go wrong with the iPod Touch if you’re looking for a WiFi-only companion device that can easily fit in your pocket.

If you’re interested in this deal, head over to Woot.com. Don’t forget that they offer just one deal per day, so this one will be gone after 12:59AM EST! If you’re clicking on this link any later than the day when this article was posted, you’ll be greeted with some totally random deal!

Either Woot is selling these things like hotcakes, or they bought way too much stock and need to get rid of them… this is the third time we’ve seen the deal-a-day site, Woot.com, offer this well speced tablet. It’s the same device as last time so what we wrote previously still applies:

Today’s Woot is actually quite tantalizing. You’ll be getting a brand new, impressively speced ViewSonic G-tablet for a mere $279. This thing has the powerful Nvidia Tegra 2 chipset with a dual-core 1GHz CPU packed inside, not to mention 512MB of RAM. It’s running Android 2.2 as well.

The only show stopper? No official Android market access. They’ve pre-loaded a third party store called the G-market which actually links you up to apps that Handango offers. You won’t find official versions of Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps, etc. on this device, but if you did some looking around, you may find a way to enable such functionality.

There’s also a custom interface layered over the standard Android which is reportedly somewhat sluggish. But, according to a release on ViewSonic’s site, a recent update allows the user to switch between the customer interface and the default one (hurray for choice!).

Important Specs:

• Android 2.2 (no Android Market access)
• 10.1” capacitive touchscreen @ 1024×600
• Dual-core Cortex A9 Nvidia Tegra CPU @ 1GHz
• 512MB of DDR2 RAM
• 16GB internal memory
• 1080p hardware decoding: H.264/H.263/ VC-1/MPEG-2/4/WMV9/DiVX
• Front-facing 1.3MP camera
• MicroSD slot, full-sized USB 2.0 slot, MicroUSB slot (for charging)
• 3.5mm headphone jack

LaptopMag has a solid review on the ViewSonic G-tablet if you are looking to do some pre-purchase research.

Of course the question we must ask is whether or not this really is a deal. According to Froogle (aka Google shopping), it would appear as though Woot’s offer is the best price you’ll be able to find for a brand new ViewSonic G-Tablet. Amazon is selling the tablet for $314, so going the Woot option will save you $35 or 12%.

If you are interested, head over to Woot to check it out. Don’t forget that this deal will be gone after 12:59AM EST (that’s just how Woot rolls).

So you know of Woot.com right? That great deal-a-day site that occasionally has some nice gadget deals? Well, a few weeks back Woot was offering up the ViewSonic G-Tablet on their site, but it seems as though they’ve got more to dish out.

Woot is now offering the same product on their secret site reserved for leftover stock, Moofi.com. You can only access this deal through this URL:

http://moofi.woot.com/moofi/deliciouswaffles

Once you’re there, you can login and order with your regular Woot account. Unlike Woot’s traditional model, this deal should remain indefinitely, rather than disappearing after a day. Here’s what we wrote about the ViewSonic G-tablet when Woot was offering the tablet last time:

Today’s Woot is actually quite tantalizing. You’ll be getting a brand new, impressively speced ViewSonic G-tablet for a mere $279. This thing has the powerful Nvidia Tegra 2 chipset with a dual-core 1GHz CPU packed inside, not to mention 512MB of RAM. It’s running Android 2.2 as well.

The only show stopper? No official Android market access. They’ve pre-loaded a third party store called the G-market which actually links you up to apps that Handango offers. You won’t find official versions of Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps, etc. on this device, but if you did some looking around, you may find a way to enable such functionality.

There’s also a custom interface layered over the standard Android which is reportedly somewhat sluggish. But, according to a release on ViewSonic’s site, a recent update allows the user to switch between the customer interface and the default one (hurray for choice!).

Important Specs:

• Android 2.2 (no Android Market access)
• 10.1 inch capacitive touchscreen @ 1024×600
• Dual-core Cortex A9 Nvidia Tegra CPU @ 1GHz
• 512MB of DDR2 RAM
• 16GB internal memory
• 1080p hardware decoding: H.264/H.263/ VC-1/MPEG-2/4/WMV9/DiVX
• Front-facing 1.3MP camera
• MicroSD slot, full-sized USB 2.0 slot, MicroUSB slot (for charging)
• 3.5mm headphone jack

LaptopMag has a solid review on the ViewSonic G-tablet if you are looking to do some pre-purchase research.

Now isn’t this just typical of Woot. Here I am, right about to head to sleep when Woot.com has to go and put up some awesome gadget that I have to tell you all about. If this were any other site, I would go to sleep and write about it in the morning, but this is Woot and that means that this deal good for today only! Therefor, the sooner you know about it, the better (you can thank me with a cup of coffee in the morning, if you must).

Anyway, today’s Woot is actually quite tantalizing. You’ll be getting a brand new, impressively speced ViewSonic G-tablet for a mere $279. This thing has the powerful Nvidia Tegra 2 chipset with a dual-core 1GHz CPU packed inside, not to mention 512MB of RAM. It’s running Android 2.2 as well.

The only show stopper? No official Android market access. They’ve pre-loaded a third party store called the G-market which actually links you up to apps that Handango offers. You won’t find official versions of Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps, etc. on this device, but if you did some looking around, you may find a way to enable such functionality.

There’s also a custom interface layered over the standard Android which is reportedly somewhat sluggish. But, according to a release on ViewSonic’s site, a recent update allows the user to switch between the customer interface and the default one (hurray for choice!).

Important Specs:

• Android 2.2 (no Android Market access)
• 10.1 inch capacitive touchscreen @ 1024×600
• Dual-core Cortex A9 Nvidia Tegra CPU @ 1GHz
• 512MB of DDR2 RAM
• 16GB internal memory
• 1080p hardware decoding: H.264/H.263/ VC-1/MPEG-2/4/WMV9/DiVX
• Front-facing 1.3MP camera
• MicroSD slot, full-sized USB 2.0 slot, MicroUSB slot (for charging)
• 3.5mm headphone jack

If you’re interested, head over to Woot.com to check it out, they’ve got a boat load of additional specs. Don’t forget that this deal will vanish once the clock strikes 12am Central time, or even earlier if it sells out!

LaptopMag has a solid review on the ViewSonic G-tablet if you are looking to do some pre-purchase research.

Our favorite deal-a-day site, Woot.com (and sister site sellout.woot.com) has a solid deal on the most recently released iPod Touch. If you’re looking to grab one of the most user friendly MIDs on the market, you’ve got your choice between 8GB and 32GB.

If you go for the 8GB option from Woot.com, you’ll be getting the device for $179 which is 22% off of retail from Apple.com, and 13% off of the device new from Amazon. It’s also 11% off of Apple’s own refurbished offering. Keep in mind that with this option you are paying $22.37 per GB of capacity.

If you’re looking for a little more bang-for-your-buck, you can go with the 32GB option for $229 from Sellout.woot.com and you’ll be paying only $7.15 per GB of capacity. That’s 24% off of retail from Apple.com, and 17% off of a new one from Amazon. It’s also 12% off of Apple’s own refurbished offering.

If you are interested in this deal, don’t wait! As per Woot’s model, these deals are good for just one day (until 12PM central time), and they could go out of stock even before then!