As it happens, you can use Amazon’s Android app-getting application on the Curtis LT7033 with a little finagling, and most reports say the hardware is good; the only problem is with the software, and since you’re going to replace that immediately it doesn’t matter.

But this is kind of offensive to me, the same way it would be to buy a brand-new $15,000 car and be forced to buy a $5000 aftermarket engine for it right away because the factory one is a total dog.

So… hmmm… what other super-cheap tablets are out there? I wrote about this a few weeks ago, with a strong look at tablets available from an international retailer called LightInThe Box.com. I also checked Amazon, but was not impressed with the tablets they offered.

The store I forgot to check was Wal-Mart. They may be the dregs of American retail, but since all tablet computers are made in China anyway, Wal-Mart is no worse a place to buy one than anywhere else.

At WalMart.com I found this $69 tablet, accompanied by copy that explicitly says it has Google Play pre-installed.

Since not all Android apps work with all Android hardware, there’s still a little risk. But Wal-Mart’s shipping is free, and if I don’t like it a return won’t be a lot of trouble because their nearest store is less than five miles away.

So I have ordered a “Nextbook 7 Tablet with 8GB Memory” from Wal-Mart. I don’t expect a whole lot from it for $69. I just want to read books and watch 480p videos on it, maybe read and respond to a little email while lounging on my patio. That sort of thing.

My cheap tablet will be here in a week or so. When it gets here, I’ll let you know if it’s worth what I paid for it.

The total came to over $2900. Amazing. Might as well trade the old Hyundai in on a new one, eh?

Except that I fixed cars for a living in my younger days, my father owned a machine shop and did most of our family repairs, including car stuff, and even though I am now too sick and decrepit to crawl under cars a whole lot, I know guys like Jesse who don’t charge anything near what a dealer does for labor.

And parts prices. Let’s start there. A cabin air filter for $44.95? I can get one for $10 or less. Engine air filter for $24.95? Again, less than $10.

Now let’s go to the top of the dealer’s sales list and look at the “CEI related” items. $654.06 plus tax.

I have access to something magic called “the Internet.” Did you know there are discussion websites for Hyundai owners, where they swap repair advice? There are similar sites for Jeep Cherokees, too, which is a good thing because I own one of those as well as the Hyundai. And whatever make of car you have, there’s probably a discussion board for it where you can learn what other people have done to remedy the “Check Engine Light” on with a “Fuel System Problem” code, and the “gas tank almost impossible to fill” problem that often seems to accompany it in Hyundais.

Ah ha! We are not the first ones to run into these symptoms. Many others say they can be fixed by replacing the fuel evaporation canister and blowing out the lines to it with compressed air, and that replacing the associated valves is almost never necessary but is no big deal if they’re clogged so badly that cleaning them with a little solvent doesn’t clear them right up.

The manufacturer’s suggested retail price, which is what the dealer charges, for a Hyundai original equipment evaporative canister, is 160.98.

You’ve heard of eBay, right? Me too. And did you know that many car parts dealers and junkyards use eBay as a sales channel? I found a parts guy who had that exact same canister for (hold your breath) $17.96, brand-new. With free shipping. Chances are slim that we really need either of the two valves the dealer recommends, but even if we get them they’re more like $20 each at local parts stores than $100+, which is what the dealer charges for each of them. And labor on that job? Sure, the canister is under the car and takes some jacking and crawling to get to, but once you’ve jacked the car and put jackstands under it (for safety; you NEVER get under a car held up only by a jack) it’s a two-bolt job. And two little hose clamps. The valves are just as easy to replace. Call it 15 to 30 minutes of labor.

So basically, I shopped the dealer’s $654 job down to well under $100, even if I pay Jesse to do it instead of doing it myself.

The rest of the items on the dealer repair list are also way out of line on price. Tuneup? They want $255.87 — on a 4-cylinder car. In real life the parts are $30 – $40, and it’s a top-of-the-car job I can easily do in 15 minutes. And that dealer likes to sell services like brake fluid, power steering and transmission fluid flushes way more often than they are needed, as this article from AOL points out: Fluid Flush Fallacy: Just a ‘Nightline’ Away From Scandal.

Amazing, isn’t it? And even more amazing, some people actually pay those prices, just as some people pay the blue-shirted Weak Squad people for heavily overpriced PC repairs.

There is an entire automotive underground in this country that fixes cars for a lot less money than a dealership or a fancy, heavily-advertised repair shop charges. The most visible members of this underground are chain parts stores such as AutoZone and Advance Auto Parts. I mention these two because they’re close to my home. There are many others, and a lot of them will recommend a local mechanic for you if you don’t know one. If nothing else, they’ll sell you parts for half or a quarter of their cost at the car dealer. Quality? Just as good, for the most part, and sometimes better.

Finding a Decent Mechanic

Plenty of low-overhead and mobile mechanics (who come to you with a service truck) advertise on Craiglist. Many more rely purely on referrals and repeat customers to keep their schedules full. How do you find this last bunch? Look for people who have good-looking older cars and ask them who they use. There is no way anyone is going to maintain a 1996 Jeep Cherokee (my car) as a daily driver at dealership repair prices. Rather, that car is maintained by me, Jesse, and sometimes Rebel, a morose biker and near-genius mechanic with a long beard who splits shop space with an appliance repair person I know in a low-rent backstreet industrial park.

I’m paying these guys something like 1/3 of what a dealership charges for labor, and they’re happy to get it, because it’s more than they’d get working at the dealership. And by working for themselves they get a level of freedom the local Hyundai dealership would never give them.

Referrals are also the best way to find a technician or network engineer to take care of your home or business computers. Do you belong to a Chamber of Commerce or other business group? Ask fellow members for advice. Failing that, ask businesses you patronize who they use. There are lots of competent IT techs who don’t want to work for someone else and keep their prices low to stay busy, and a little energy spent finding them will reward you ten-fold — if not more.

It all comes down to the Cheap Computing mindset, which is identical to the Cheap Car Repair mindset. Both will save you tons of money, and give you better-running cars and computers than spending top dollar for the most expensive service companies around, especially if you learn to do a little of the lighter maintenance and repair work yourself.

Since Apple and Apple buyers live in a different reality from the rest of us, an Apple product on sale for a little less than list is a wondrous thing, and we should not sneeze at the idea of saving money however and wherever we can.

Yes, I know. For every Apple product on sale, if you think a little different you can find something that will do the job just as well for half the price. You can also point out that my old (but new to me) Jeep Cherokee is more practical off-road transportation than an Audi Quattro for less than 1/5 the price, but there are plenty of people who prefer the Audi — and no doubt own iPhones instead of Android phones, too.

But even Audi and Apple buyers like to save a buck now and then, which is why they need to know about Apple’s Certified Refurbished Products outlet on eBay.

This is where you get a 64 GB iPod Touch for $229, reduced from $399. If an iPod Touch is a “gotta have it” item for you or a family member, this is worth a look. At least.

Some of us don’t even consider Apple products, either because they’re expensive, because we aren’t in love with the way they work, or both. But again: Some wouldn’t have anything else, and they have a right to be as cheap as the rest of us even though they like to stay in Apple’s proprietary universe. Which is a fine place to be for a lot of people; don’t get us wrong on that.

Here’s the dealnews story from which we grabbed the infographic: Price Trends: When to Buy a Mac

Here’s the readwrite take on the same infographic: How Long Should You Wait For Deals On Apple Products?

From the readwrite story comes the best advice in this whole schmear, condensed from the dealnews piece:

Dealnews offers another tip from its research. If you want the best price for Apple products, don’t buy them from Apple! Instead, wait until a new model comes out, then haunt the MacMalls and Best Buys of the world and buy the previous version days or weeks after the new release. You can thank us — and Dealnews — later.

So you can. These are the best Apple money-saving tips I’ve ever seen. Please use them for good, not evil.
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The dealnews Infographic:

I was happy to activate the new phone on my own via the Virgin Mobile website, but I mistakenly clicked a button for “activate” instead of for “switch my number.” Whoops!

I looked around for a way to undo my mistake, and kept getting told to call Virgin Mobile at 1-888-322-1122. So I called. And got stuck in an endless maze of voice menus, none of which held a solution to my problem. Being an American, I started punching “0″ while yealling, “Human!” at the recorded voice. And yelling “Operator!” Then I stated screaming obscenities at the phone, and after about eight minutes of that, I was connected to a person.

And the person not only failed to help me, but was hard to understand and, somehow, managed to switch me from the $35/month plan I’d signed up for (and paid for) to a $45/month plan, so that when I tried to make a call, my new phone still didn’t work because, it said, I had a zero balance in my account. Grrr….

I called again. Same insanity getting an actual human to answer, and once again a human in The Philippines, but this one was so flirty that if I wasn’t married, I would have asked for her home number. She was no more able to get my old cell number switched over than the first one, though. She put me on hold, where I waited and waited.

At least I have (as you probably do, too) a speakerphone, so I could set the handset down and do some computer work while waiting. Which I did. And when the phone call dropped… anyway, I called back. Screamed until I got another nice young lady, although this one was extremely hard to understand, and didn’t seem to have the slightest idea what I wanted, namely to have a working phone on the $35/month plan I wanted all along.

I could hear a male voice (a trainer?) behind the operator’s, and eventually I was told that I needed to get my account number from my previous cellular provider before they could move the phone number over.

Interesting. The prior provider only used my phone number, as far as I knew. In 5+ years, I never knew I *had* a separate account number. I called the old company’s customer service number. I don’t believe I had ever called it before. But guess what? Endless voice menus, none of which had an option for “retrieve account number.” So I screamed obscenities, and eventually I got a human (after a long period listening to a recording that said they were experiencing a heavier-than-usual call volume, I’d have a long wait, etc.) who gave me the account number.

Another call to Virgin. Fine. Screamed obscenities until I got a human. It was a Filipino girl I could understand. But she didn’t understand my problem with the $45/month charge vs. $35/month, and said she’d need to get a supervisor, could I please wait on hold, it will only be a minute, sir?

Except that after about 15 minutes on hold, it was midnight, and that’s when they close down, so I was cut off.

Note that at this point I have spent at least two hours on the phone, and my new Android phone is still not activated. I am not happy.

So I turn to Facebook and leave a nasty message on Virgin’s Facebook page. And a nasty message about #VirginModbile on Twitter. I had emailed after the first fruitless phone call, but had not gotten a response, so I did not try another email.

At this point, I was no longer a pissed off customer, but a journalist doing research. If I was going to go through all this irritation, at least, I figured, I ought to get paid for it.

And I learned something: that there is a crew of Virgin Mobile people they term “Virgin Angels” who monitor Facebook and Twitter and solve problems for upset customers.

Well, well, well. If I had known that in the first place, I could have saved myself a whole lot of irritation and frustration. And gotten a working phone a lot sooner, too.

So now you know this, and you know how to get customer service from Virgin Mobile without listening to useless phone recordings or being on endless hold. And in the end, thanks to help from two Virgin Angels, all my problems got solved and I even got a month’s credit for my trouble. Nice!

But what if you’re calling someone other than Virgin Mobile?

What you need to do, before making a customer service or tech support call is go to the GetHuman website and see what they say is the best way to get service or support from the company you need it from. There are other, similar websites, but none of the ones I tried came anything close to GetHuman, which had not just unpublished company phone numbers and tricks to bypass the awful voice menus that make us all so angry. (The trick for Virgin Mobile is to say “Live adviser” or “It’s something else” when you get a voice prompt)

GetHuman even has free iPhone and Android apps. Or you can just punch GetHuman.com into your Web-equipped phone’s browser and you’ll get a mobile (simpler) version of their site. Very nice!

Please save this advice and pass it on to friends, relatives, and coworkers. The amount of aggravation you save might start an entire new wave of niceness in America — and heaven knows, we could use one!

Everything at BestBuy.com ships free right now. BestBuy often charges more than other electronics retailers, but on some items they’re okay. With free shipping, they may be a slightly better buy on many things you need than a lot of others that typically offer better buys than BestBuy.

Wii U console – Suddenly $299 at Target, BestBuy, GameStop, and other stores. You couldn’t get one of these things *at all* a few weeks ago unless you were willing to pay a hefty premium on eBay. Now they’re on sale. BestBuy includes Nintendo Land for $299. And free shipping makes them a winner even if you don’t want NintendoLand — unless you want to go the store and get your console immediately. My local Target has Wii U units in stock while my local BestBuy does not. Your local stores may be different — and there are many stores online and off besides BestBuy and Target. Look around a bit before buying this or any other game console. One thing – Toys R Us seems to think a Wii U is worth $349, or $50 more than the low-price competition. Poor Geoffrey.

HP has a bunch of year-end deals going on. Laptops, desktops, printers… you can usually get HP computers from discounters for less than HP sells them, but not always. And the REDTAGPC coupon code might just save you $100 off whatever prices (over $799) shows on HP’s site. Well worth a look.

Non-timely tip for buying Lenovo computers: Even though Lenovo is now separate from IBM, IBM employees still get big discounts on Lenovo computers. If you have a friend who works for IBM, and you want a Lenovo product, your friend can get it for less than you can. Sony has a similar employee deal. Ditto many others. Something to check, just like routinely checking for online coupons.

Want to try a 3D TV? Dell is selling a 32″ Vizio 3D TV for $298. If that’s a D too many for you, look at the right side of that page for a 32″ 2D Vizio, with Wi-Fi built in, for $278. But if you don’t need Wi-Fi in your TV, you can get a 32″ Vizio from Wal~Mart for $228. If you want a really big (but only 720p) computer monitor, you can use this item as one, in addition to using it to watch TV. Hmm…..

How big an external hard drive do you need? If you do a lot of video production, 6 TB is not beyond the realm of possibility. What if you could get a major-brand 6 TB USB hard drive for $339? You can, from B & H photo. Such a deal, assuming you store that much data.

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In general, this is a great time of year to shop for electronics. We aren’t seeing a lot of technical advances right now (topic for another column) so buying today what you might not need until tomorrow may not be a bad idea if the price is right — and if you look around, it probably is!

Good bye for now. See you in 2013…

Answer: A gift card from Tiger Direct, the Florida-based company that absorbed the CompUSA and Circuit City brands. I know this seems like kind of an ad, but I like Tiger a lot. In fact, I bought the HP computer I’m using to write these words from them. Ditto my Vizio home theater sound bar and a number of other items. So this is not only not an ad, but an unpaid and unsolicited recommendation.

If you haven’t gotten a gift for someone on your list, you can send them a CompUSA gift certificate from Tiger on Christmas Eve or even on Christmas Day via email and they’ll get your gift on time. If that doesn’t make for a Merry Christmas, I don’t know what does!

For example, I wanted some knee and elbow protective pads. I shopped for them online, and found a set I wanted at a store we’ll call Sorts Athoritee for $17.99. I went to said store, and found that most of the knee and elbow pad sets there didn’t have prices on them. With the help of a sales associate, I found that the ones I saw online for $17.99 cost $34.95 in the store. For real? No kidding? Oy!

“The website is totally independent from the stores,” a Sorts Athoritee sales associate told me. “The prices and merchandise are often completely different.”

Good to know. I obviously won’t shop as much at Sorts Athoritee’s website in the future, will I?

The store where I’ve run into the most differences between web and in-person prices is K-Mart/Sears. Their site(s) don’t do a good job of making it clear what items are stocked in their stores instead of only in a warehouse for online sale, either. Unless you check very carefully, you may make a drive to the closest Sears or K-Mart for nothing.

K-Mart/Sears is not alone. An increasing number of national merchants now have notes on their websites saying that this item, or that item, is sold and shipped by boogaloo deals or some other bogus company, not by the famous-name store itself. Target does this, Wal~Mart does it, Best Buy does it, and so do others. These stores have spent years or decades building up their brands, and now they’re denigrating those brands to take in a few bucks in affiliate fees from the sub-merchants. I’m glad I don’t own stock in any of these companies, because their managements don’t seem to be thinking about their companies’ long-term futures.

In general, Best Buy is decent when it comes to selling items in the store for the Web-advertised price. The mouse for my main computer started acting squirrely a few days ago. I went to the Best Buys site and settled on this one, on sale for $5.99. Their site said it was in stock at my local store, so I zipped over there and bought one.

While I was at Best Buy to get my $6 mouse, a vendor associate told me about the wonderfulness of this HTC EVO V 4G cell phone and the no-contract $35/month Virgin Mobile plan I could get with it. As it happens, I have been thinking about replacing my 1997-era Motorola i335 phone and leaving Boost, which I was on because they only charged me a dime a minute — except they’ve creepd up to a quarter a minute recently, which is kind of like saying, “Miller, we don’t want you as a customer any more. Go away.”

So okay, Boost. Away I’ll go. In fact, I think I’ll go to Virgin Mobile, which my wife is on and likes a lot. They have a $35/month unlimited data and text plan that includes 5 hours (300 minutes) of talk. And I had been looking at exactly the $249 phone the person in Best Buy was pushing…. except I recalled seeing it for $189 on Virgin’s website.

And then came a real kick in the pants: That phone — the exact same HTC EVO V 4G — was now only $149 online through Virgin. Naturally, I looked for online coupons that might cut the price down even more.

I see one for Radio Shack — for $169. And a couple of the deal newsletters I get mention the $149 price from Virgin. Amazon? Not even close: $249 with the Virgin plan, $149 with Boost, but Boost doesn’t want me, do they? So Virgin it is. The phone I want at what seems to be the best possible price. A pretty good (for a cell phone) camera and video recorder, and a good monthly price for all the voice time I’m likely to need — and unlimited data and text bandwidth, which may be throttled if I use a bunch of it, but still a decent deal.

Why we shop instead of just buying… Look at the difference between the Best Buy price and the Virgin Mobile price for the HTC EVO V 4G: $100!

That’s a bunch of money! People who nod their heads and buy what the people in the store tell them to buy without checking elsewhere get reamed — unlike those of us who have the Cheap Computing mindset.

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PS – There was a Dick’s Sporting Goods next to my local Best Buy. They had a fine set of knee and elbow guards for $21. I bought them. Once again, I shopped instead of buying, and saved some money in return for a tiny bit of extra effort.