Happy Black Friday, everyone. Now let’s see what is good. Note that we have smartphone deals in a separate post, here we will focus on the best tablets, laptops, smartwatches and other offers for the US market. 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
Bigger ultras are rarely discounted, but the smaller (well, 11″) Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 gets price cuts frequently. It’s an IP68-rated tablet with full DeX support. It’s bundled with a stylus and you can get an optional keyboard with it.
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 OnePlus Pad 3 is an interesting alternative. It uses a Snapdragon 8 Elite instead of a MediaTek chip and has a larger 13.2″ 144Hz display. Note that it’s IPS LCD, not OLED. And it’s basically the same price as the Tab S10 model below, not the premium Tab S slate.
Speaking of which, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Pro and Tab S10 Pro+ use IPS LCDs – 10.9″ and 13.1″, respectively (both 90Hz). The Aquinos 1580 is a mid-range chip, however, not at the level of the Snapdragon 8 or the Dimension 9000 silicon.
The Galaxy Tab S10 Lite is Samsung’s new affordable tablet. It has a 10.9″ LCD (90Hz, stylus included) and is powered by the older Akinos 1380.
We have nowhere else to put it, so here it goes – the MetaQuest 3s is less than $250 and includes a free game. It’s not as capable as the Quest 3 (it’s a mix of Quest 2 and 3 hardware), but it’s an affordable entry into the world of VR. The Samsung Galaxy XR is available but not on sale, so it costs $1,800 — a whole different segment. Steam’s own XR headset is still “coming soon.”
Smart watches
The Google Pixel Watch 4 is one of the first smartwatches with satellite connectivity, but note that this option is only available on the LTE model. Still, if you want a backup option to help out in the event of an emergency somewhere out in the wild, it’s an interesting choice. The only other smartwatch with satellite connectivity we can think of is from Garmin — the Fenix 8 Pro starts at $1,200.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra only has LTE connectivity for now. It outdoes the Pixel with a 100m/10ATM water resistance rating and a larger 590mAh battery (vs. 455mAH).
The Ultra has that ugly look – the Galaxy Watch 8 Classic is more stylish. It has a rotating bezel, however, the 1.34” display inside is on the small side for a 46mm watch.
The vanilla Galaxy Watch 8 is Samsung’s thinnest yet at 8.6mm. It’s available in 40mm and 44mm variants with 1.34″ and 1.47″ displays, respectively (see what we mean about classic displays?). The Watch 8 models are rated for 50m/5atm water resistance and have ECG and blood pressure sensors.
You can save some cash and go for the older Galaxy Watch 7. It is thick at 9.7mm while having a slightly smaller battery (by 10mah). It uses the same Akinos W1000 chipset, though, and has similar screens. And it’s a circle, not a circle!
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. However, the functionality of URA Ring 4 is quite limited without a subscription.
Laptop
Apple released new MacBook Air laptops with the M4 chip earlier this year. It has since introduced the M5 (only available on the MacBook Pro for now), but the Hua was never a performance-oriented model anyway. The good news is that there’s now 16GB of base RAM, so all you need to worry about is storage.
Alternatively, you can grab the Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360. It has a 16″ OLED touchscreen, a 2,880 x 1,800px 120Hz panel that can be rotated into tablet mode. It’s a Windows laptop, of course, that uses several Intel Core Ultra processors with NPUS that is Microsoft Copilot AI.
The Microsoft Surface Pro is a tablet-style device that can optionally be paired with a keyboard if you plan on typing more than using a stylus. It comes in two variants—an LCD one with Snapdragon X Plus (10-core CPU) and an OLED one with Snapdragon X Elite (12-core CPU).
Another Windows AI laptop is the Acer Aspire 16. The Qualcomm-based laptop started at the high end, but is a fairly affordable model with a 16″ 1,920 x 1,200px 120Hz LCD touchscreen.
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.
Amazon Kindle e-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.
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