Commodore and Amiga in NYC

[Floid]

starf81 wrote:
Ehm... I need the hard drive for my MacBook Pro :-D

Not the absolute lowest prices on Earth, but J&R ("J&R Music and Computer World," I believe) is a candy store for tech in general and may have a slightly more esoteric selection than you'll find at a Best Buy.  Prices on a generic 2.5" HD are probably not going to vary much between large and small shops anymore; use Pricewatch.com or Froogle to gauge the going rate and decide accordingly.  (Last I checked, the big retail chains had the advantage due to volume.)

FYI:  "Working pull" laptop drives are pretty much guaranteed to have been dropped at some point and aren't worth the trouble.  Moreso than desktop drives, you should treat them as consumables and expect the bad block reallocation table to fill over N years of bumps and jostles.  If the drive was pulled to wind up in the surplus market, either its host machine broke (How do laptops most commonly break? Destructive impact.), SMART warning software alerted impending doom, or it reached its rated MTBF.

B&H and Adorama are always fun if you need photographic gear.  Remember that B&H is closed Saturdays for shabbes.

There's at least one vintage gaming 'thrift shop' on Manhattan, but I can't remember where, only that the prices were truly stratospheric.  If you know how to shop online, you can probably skip that sort of thing.

Canal Street has pretty much withered AFAIK, but it can't hurt to take a look.  Some random blogger still found it worthwhile in 2006.

If you need something from a hole-in-the-wall shop (cables, network switches, USB-to-ATA adapters, etc), it might be worth venturing to Queens, particularly the China- and Koreatowns (as opposed to those of Manhattan and Brooklyn!), but bring a guide or plan your destination, as that's a huge area.  

If you do head out that way, or need a touristy excuse, Shea Stadium and Corona Park with the famous World's Fair globe are relatively close.

[Floid]

Er, speaking of retail chains, if you're coming in part to do the shopping thing, the major chains (anywhere in the Northeast) to watch for electronics are:  Staples, OfficeMax, Office Depot; Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, and J&R (J&R is specific to NYC); and maybe Target, Wal-Mart, and K-Mart.  

We don't have Fry's on this side of the country, unfortunately.

All of those but Wal-Mart have weekly sales with particular monitors, disks, whole systems, etc. at cutthroat prices.  

The retail trinity of Target, Wal-Mart, and K-Mart might be worth it if you need anything for a console, (K-Mart often has dusty stock of last year's console titles marked $10-$20 cheaper than elsewhere, since nobody goes there for games)... of course, with the exchange rate you might just want to hit a Gamestop or similar specialist chain.

Note that DVI, HDMI, and even boring USB cables are mindbendingly expensive at all major chains, it's how they make up for some of the loss-leading.

[Floid]

Might as well toss this here, since I just mentioned them:

CompUSA is through.  This might make for some serious bargains, or not.

When they closed the local (Norwalk, CT) one months ago, most of the good stuff left quickly and the 20%-40% markdown on everything else just brought it in line with online prices.  

With the whole chain shutting down, though, the new management have no motivation to shuffle inventory between stores.