Happy Black Friday, everyone. Now, let’s see what’s good. Note that we have smartphone deals in a separate post. Here we focus on the best tablets, laptops, smartwatches and other offers in the UK. Note that Black Friday sales will run for a full week, leading up to the actual Black Friday (and then there’s Cyber Monday, but in limited time).
Here are some shortcuts to jump straight to what you care about:
Tablets
The M2-powered Apple iPad Air 11″ and 13″ models are on sale—while the chipset is now three generations old, the tablets themselves are from last year. There are only a few storage models left, but given the discounts, we’re not complaining.
You can also consider buying a keyboard for air tablets to turn them into highly portable laptops. Here’s one from Belkin.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is one of the largest tablets you’ll find with a gorgeous 14.6″ 120Hz OLED — for reference, the iPad Air has a 60Hz IPS LCD. The tablet has a powerful Dimension 9400+ chipset and full DeX multitasking.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra is £100 cheaper, but comes with an older Dimension 9300+ chip. It’s still pretty fast, but then you can save some money by getting the lower storage option and buying a microSD card later.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 is an IP68 rated tablet with full DeX support. It comes bundled with a stylus and you can get an optional keyboard depending on what you want to do with it. It is powered by the Dimension 9400+ chipset and the storage is expandable via microSD.
There’s no Plus model for this generation, but the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10+ is still a viable option with its Dimension 9300+ chipset. It has a larger 12.4” display but otherwise more than that.
The Xiaomi Pad 7 and Pad 7 Pro feature 11.2″ IPS LCDs (144Hz, 12-bit). The Pro model is powered by the Snapdragon 8S Gen 3, while the vanilla slate has the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3. Both models have 8,850mAH batteries, however, the Pro has slightly faster charging (67W vs 45W).
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S10FE and Tab S10F+ use IPS LCDs – 10.9″ and 13.1″ respectively (both 90Hz). The Akinos 1580 is a mid-range chip, however, not at the level of Snapdragon 8 or Dimension 9000 silicon.
The Galaxy Tab A11+ is a new entry-level tablet from Samsung. It has an 11″ 90Hz LCD and is powered by the Dimension 7300. It may be cheap, but it is ready for 7 major OS updates and comes with UI 8 (Android 16) out of the box.
The Redmi Pad 2 is another 11″ slate, this one with a 90Hz IPS LCD. It uses the Helio G100 Ultra chipset.
The Honor Pad 10 is slightly larger with its 12.1” 120Hz IPS LCD and slightly more powerful with the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chip.
Laptop
The Microsoft Surface Pro is a Windows tablet powered by Qualcomm’s flagship chipset. It comes in multiple variants with different LCD and OLED displays and different chipsets – Snapdragon X Plus or X Elite. Note that the cheaper 12″ LCD with Snapdragon X Plus includes a free keyboard (it’s a separate purchase for the pricier OLED/X Elite model).
Or you can get an actual laptop – a Microsoft-level laptop. It also has multiple screen options (LCD or OLED, in 13 to 15″ sizes) and a choice between Snapdragon X Plus and X Elite chipsets.
Smart rings
You can pair – or even pair – a smartwatch with a smartwatch. The Samsung Galaxy Ring works with the Samsung Health app and does not require a subscription. Ultraman Ring Air also has almost full functionality in the app (although a subscription offers some additional features). However, the functionality of URA Ring 4 is quite limited without a subscription.
Amazon Fire tablets
These are Amazon’s already unbeatable and bargain prices for Android tablets. They have good quality screens and come in several sizes to suit your needs – they’re perfect for watching videos, scrolling through the web and maybe some light work or gaming. They aren’t particularly powerful, but the price reflects that. Just note that there is no access to the Google Play Store out of the box (which can be easily fixed).
Additionally, there are children’s versions of some of these tablets. They disable ads and are designed for younger users. They also come with a 1-year subscription to Amazon Kids+.
You can install the Parent Dashboard app on your phone and set time limits and academic goals. You can enable or disable certain apps like YouTube and Spotify. A quick note about the Pro models: they come with a different set of defaults before permissions. For example, a Pro tablet can access the entire Internet (with content filters in place), while regular models can only open selected sites. Of course, all of these are subject to change by the parental control app.
Hey readers
While you can read books on an LCD tablet, your eyes will thank you for going with an e-reader instead. Amazon has a wide variety, from small and cheap to larger, more premium models.
The Amazon Kindle Colorsoft has an E-Link display capable of displaying colors. This is great for graphic novels or viewing more complex documents. It can also be used in black and white mode (which increases the PPI of the screen).
The Amazon Kindle is large enough to comfortably read PDFs and comes with an included stylus. These books are more for work and creativity than reading (although you can do that too). Note that the colors are coming soon, but it didn’t launch in time for Black Friday.
As an alternative to the author, you can grab the remarkable 2. Notable improves its tools—and practically mandatory subscription service—for note-taking. The cloud service makes syncing notes a breeze, but it comes at a cost.
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