Black Friday 2018: Early Offers for Laptops, TVs, Video Games and Other Technologies

Black Friday is less than a week away and we are starting to get a good idea of ​​what the world of technology plans to offer.

If you know how days like this are going, it's not surprising that most of the "offers" announced for Black Friday are not really discounts. While it is true that Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday bring legitimate technology deals that are more interesting than any other time of the year, it is also time for retailers to jump on the public without gifts, by offering many gadgets less than stellar at unbeatable prices. not much lower than they are the rest of the year. (As always, price history sites like CamelCamelCamel are an invaluable resource if you're on the sidelines of an agreement.)

So we've spent the last few weeks telling device makers about their upcoming offerings and reviewing the scans of ads that major retailers have set aside before Friday's sale. Below you'll find a quick summary of gadget and gaming offerings that can grab your attention – and what to expect from major technology brands and product categories later in the week.

Note: Ars Technica can earn compensation for sales from links on this post via affiliate programs.

Many good deals are already live

Before going any further, however, we will note that several authentic offers available on Black Friday have been posted earlier. Most retailers will be offering more complete sets of offerings on the Thanksgiving night – and Walmart is planning to start the night before – but if you want to get off to a good start, here are a handful of great deals right now :

• Sony PlayStation 4 Slim + Marvel's Spider-Man for $ 199.99 at Walmart (catalog price $ 359.98).
• Sony PlayStation Plus Membership (1 year) for $ 39.99 on Amazon (catalog price $ 59.99).
• Sony PlayStation VR + Motion Controller PS (pack of 2) + PS + Camera Very hot + Creed: Rise to Glory Bundle for $ 249.99 on GameStop (catalog price $ 349.99).
• Sony DualShock 4 Controller for $ 38.99 on GameStop (catalog price $ 59.99).

Amazon and Google will continue their war for the home (smart)

Alexa and Google Assistant are largely due to the fact that Amazon and Google have made their digital assistants available cheaply. Naturally, both companies plan to continue this Black Friday strategy by updating almost the whole range of Echo devices and Google Home.

For Amazon, these offers will include Echo Dot latest generation priced at $ 24, the latest Echo at $ 69, $ 40 on Echo Spot and Echo Plus and $ 50 on the new Echo Show. Meanwhile, Google announces that it will have the Google Home Mini system for $ 24, Home Wide Format for $ 79, Home Hub with a touch screen for $ 99 and $ 50 on the Home Max focused on audio.

Both OEMs also announce discounts on other proprietary devices. In addition to the deals on the Fire TV Stick 4K and Fire HD 10 TVs listed above, Amazon claims to have the new $ 80 Kindle Paperwhite, the $ 50 Fire HD 8, and various offers on the Ring and Blink home cameras.

For Google, expect to see the latest $ 25 Chromecast model, $ 49 Chromecast Ultra compatible for $ 49, $ 15 Chromecast Audio, $ 40 Daydream View VR headset and $ 20 to $ 70 off any the family of Nest Thermostats and home cameras. Outside the smart home, the company also plans to sell the Google Pixel 3 at $ 649, the Google Pixel 3 XL at $ 699 and the base model of its $ 750 Pixelbook Chromebook.

Almost all of these deals will come online on Thanksgiving night, with the exception of Nest Deals, which Google says will be available at its online store the day before. Most of the above solutions will also be available at third-party resellers such as Walmart and Best Buy. Here, nothing will prevent Echo and Home devices from being less immune to privacy and communication vulnerabilities, but if you're already sold with the smart speaker idea, this is the good time to choose one.

Many game offers, but some big names are missing

God of the war is one of many games that will be reduced on Black Friday. ">

Enlarge / God of the war is one of many games that will be reduced on Black Friday.

As was the case in the past, Black Friday will bring a large number of discounts on video games at retailers. Unfortunately, most ads only mention discounts on games on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. This does not mean there will be no sales for PC titles, but we can not speak specifically.

There are too many sales to list in this article, but here are some highlights God of the war for $ 25 at Walmart, Forza Horizon 4 and Assassin's Creed Odyssey for $ 30 at Best Buy, Soulcalibur VI for $ 35 at Walmart, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 for $ 40 at various retailers. Deny: Automata, Detroit Becoming Human, and Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle will all be $ 20, while others like Horizon Zero Dawn, South Park: the fractured but whole (for Switch), and Condemn will be available for less than that.

Although we have listed some of these games in our list of first contracts above – just in case you have a subscription in a particular store – note that not all gaming contracts will be uniform among retailers . It's a good idea to check prices before pulling the trigger. you can save about $ 5 more.

It should also be noted that we have not seen any announced offers for some recently published titles. No major retailer has announced a direct discount on Red Dead Redemption IIfor our part, and have we not seen any individual offers for the last Pokémon or Spider Man Games. In general, if something had just come out, Probably will not be for sale.

Offers for gaming equipment, on the other hand, are easier to predict. The big ones are mentioned above and already live in a few shops. A $ 200 package including a PlayStation 4 Slim and Spider Man is probably the highlight, even if Microsoft will offer its entry-level console, the Xbox One S, at the same price. The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 controllers are down $ 40, as is a 12-month pass for Sony's PlayStation Plus online service.

Microsoft seems to be the only one to offer a 4K compatible console: its drop from Xbox One X from $ 100 to $ 399 at most major retailers. To date, we have not seen any advertising for offers on the Sony PlayStation 4 Pro.

Decrease in resolution, the only contract we've seen with Nintendo Switch is a bundle comprising Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the usual price of $ 300 from the console. All in all, it's quite modest – we've already seen unique sales on eBay and others that have already allowed the device to go down.

Regarding virtual reality, Sony is reducing its PlayStation VR headset by $ 100 to $ 199 for a bundle that does not include Move's motion controllers and $ 249 for an inclusive bundle. Oculus announced that its Go and Rift helmets would save $ 20 and $ 50 respectively on Friday.

Not a ton of Apple offers, but a good discount on iPad

In general, Apple will not benefit from significant discounts on the iPhone, Mac, Apple Watches and iPad Pro launched in the past two months. The company has so far not reported any discounts for Apple.com or its own retail stores. As is often the case, use third-party retailers to find meaningful solutions. (Or try the refurbished Apple Store, which remains an underrated means of getting new gadgets at a reduced price.)

B & H has the latest MacBook Air at $ 100 off at the time of writing this article, but as we are still reviewing this notebook, we do not want to give any formal recommendations yet. The outstanding deal we saw for new iPhones comes from Walmart, which says it will throw a $ 300 gift card from an iPhone XS, an iPhone XS Max, or an iPhone. an iPhone XR from Thanksgiving. This offer will only apply however to in-store purchases and will require you to activate the phone on Verizon, Sprint or AT & T.

There are however some great offers on non-new Apple gadgets. The company's 9.7-inch iPad will cost $ 250 in various stores, which is a good $ 80 discount. The standard and LTE models of the Apple Watch Series 3 last year will be down $ 70, bringing the entry-level model to $ 200. B & H gets $ 300 off this year's 15-inch MacBook Pro, featuring an 8th-generation Core i7, 16GB RAM, and a 512GB SSD, bringing it $ 2,499. If you like Apple Music, Best Buy plans to sell the HomePod speaker at $ 250, which is $ 100 less than usual. And Newegg says it will cost $ 19 off a pair of AirPods, although we have seen better discounts for these headphones in the past.

Be careful with laptops, televisions, and operator phone offers

For many people, Black Friday is the best time to buy an expensive item, such as a laptop, TV or smartphone, but it is essential not to jump immediately to the most attractive price. Retailers will announce a full load of these items, but most products on sale will be smaller models that OEMs are trying to unload while people are more eager to shop. This is especially the case with TVs and laptops. If you see a device priced below $ 300, there is a good chance that it is of poor quality. Do your research in advance and start the day knowing exactly which model number you want.

For smartphones, both retailers and operators will have deals for Apple, Google, OnePlus and Samsung brand phones, but beware of the details. Most of these discounts are conditional on your acceptance of a 24 or 36 month device payment plan, which effectively links you to a carrier for a few years and leaves you hooked if you want to switch providers.

Even if it suits you, most agreements with operators will only be applied in the form of invoice credits spread over several months and not in the form of instant rebates. Walmart, Target and Best Buy will have decent gift card deals for the new iPhone, Pixel and Galaxy devices, but as noted above, they are only in-store, plan accordingly.

That said, we have seen some remarkable offers. For TVs, Amazon is offering the LG 55-inch C8 OLED TV at a price of $ 1,696, which is still a ton, but counts for a $ 500 discount. Best Buy took $ 70 on Roku 65-inch TVs from TCL's Series 6, while Amazon took $ 400 on Sony's 65-inch X850F – both 4K-sized TVs. The same goes for Samsung NU8000 devices, which currently cost between $ 50 and $ 300 of their usual price. In terms of budget, B & H is offering new Vizio E Series 4K TVs at $ 40-100 off.

In addition to the aforementioned MacBook and Pixelbook offerings, Microsoft has a Surface Pro 6 configuration with a first-generation Core i5 chip, a 128-GB SSD, and a Type Cover at a cost of discount of 270 USD. On November 22, HP plans to make a solid contract that will allow a Core i5 model of its 13-inch Spectrum x360 to increase to $ 850, while Microsoft will have a Core i5 model of XPS 13 from Dell (9360) for $ 700. Lenovo and Dell will also have offers on their sites, although most of the offers we have seen apply to older devices.

Discounts on smartphones are harder to find. In addition to the Google Pixel offers mentioned above, Best Buy has announced the sale of an unlocked model of the Samsung Galaxy S9 for $ 520. It's a $ 200 discount and a great price for a headphone-equipped phone, but for most people in this category, we always recommend the OnePlus 6T. Beyond that, we did not see any reduction on the phones for which we actually advised people to buy.

A random summary of the rest

There is still a lot to go. Finally, here is a small number of announced business that are not yet alive but deserve to be favorite for Friday: