If you are interested to learn embedded systems on your own, you wold need a basic development board, that can be PIC, ATMEL or anything. When you buy at a store, they keep dual prices; lower reasonable price for the professionals and higher (usually double) for the beginners), and if you have no idea about the price, they take advantage of your innocence and sell their product at higher price, almost double the cost. I'm telling this on my own experience.
I would recommend you buy online, since they give you reasonable and
standard price (they cannot post dual price online) , also it reduces reseller costs. Or if you have to buy at
your nearest store, just check online for the product (or similar
product to know the approximate max. price), now go to the store and check the product price, if it is closest to the price you saw online, buy it! you are lucky. Else boldly ask, why is it double the price or use your own methods, if there are many customers around you, he definitely won't accept it, if you are the only person around, may be there is a chance that you can get it at the reasonable price.
For instance, I bought the following in a store and later when I checked it online, I was shocked to see that I bought it for almost double the price. So, Beware! Don't do the same mistake that I did. Buy smart.
Product
|
Store Price
|
Online price
|
PIC
development board V3 (Make: HPS)
 |
Rs.
1,800
(@
Sunrise Electronics, Coimbatore)
|
Rs.
800
|
Universal
Programmer (Model: TOP2005+)
|
Rs.
5,000
(@
Sunrise Electronics, Coimbatore)
|
Rs.
3,200
|
Some good online store to purchase electronics and embedded components,
- http://www.embeddedmarket.com/
- http://www.robokits.co.in/shop/
- http://www.hobby2go.com/
- http://www.simplelabs.co.in/ (Arduino)
- http://www.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?lang=en&keywords=