Best Black Friday Deals (2023): UK Discounts

You know the drill by now, we're getting the gang back together, one last job. It's Black Friday. Below you will find a tightly curated list of bonafide Black Friday deals handpicked by the WIRED team. Not just from Amazon but John Lewis, Argos, Currys, Richer Sounds and some surprisingly nifty Costco finds this year. You will find the real discounts noted, not the inflated numbers you might see elsewhere. When deals are sold out, we'll strike them through and we'll keep this page running until the end of Cyber Monday. Dig in.

Phones and Tablet Deals

Here’s a solid alternative to the Amazon Fire HD 10 that will actually let you install (almost) any app you like, as it has access to Google Play. What you get here for the money here is quite excellent too. The Pad X9 has an aluminum casing, a 120Hz 11.5-inch screen with a solid 2000 x 1200 pixel resolution, and a large 7250mAh battery. Its processor, the Snapdragon 685, is quite low-powered, though. Don’t expect miracles with games like Fortnite and Genshin Impact.

Just a month after their release, the Google Pixel 8 phones are already on sale at £100 off. You can also save even more at Currys by trading in a phone. Even an ancient one will do, as long as it works. At review, we thought the Pixel 8 battery life was too short, but it performs well, and has a bright screen and a great set of cameras.

This phone is a fairly direct rival to the Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus and beats it in a few areas. It has a sharper OLED screen, a larger battery, and higher-resolution 50MP secondary cameras. This is a powerhouse and is only seeing such a tasty discount here because Honor isn't quite a household name like Apple or Samsung. This is also the version with 512GB storage and 12GB RAM. So, the big question: can you get on with that giant camera ring on the back? It’s an audience divider.

Call the Vatican, we found a legit deal for a latest-generation iPhone. This is £80 less than you’d pay for the 128GB version of the iPhone 15 from Apple, and most partner retailers.  This generation saw Apple finally adopt USB-C in place of the Lightning connector. It only earned this world-beater a 7/10 score at review, but you can only get so far with this year’s incremental updates. However, you will need to fork out £15 for a Costco membership to buy one.

Samsung can often seem to be outpaced by the Chinese phone-makers on the budget end, like Xiaomi and Realme. This deal more than levels the playing field. It’s not often we see a £250 phone that has IP67 water and dust resistance. The Galaxy S34 5G does. Its screen is also an excellent 120Hz Full HD-grade OLED. This deal is for the 256GB version, which typically costs £100 more over at Amazon.

This is Samsung’s previous-generation top foldable phone, a book-style monster that used to cost £1,649. Is it worth making do with last-gen when spending this much money? On paper, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Z Fold 5 aren’t all that different. The biggest change in person is the Galaxy Z Fold4 has a gap by the hinge, while the Galaxy Z Fold 5 folds properly flat. This makes it a thinner phone. Is that worth an additional £800? We’ll leave that one with you.

As is generally the case during these sales periods, you won’t actually find many amazing deals (aside from the Costco one above) for the latest iPhones. But you can save some cash on the previous-generation iPhone 14, with £50 off either the standard or Pro version. Changes in the newer 15-series generation weren’t mind-blowing, but camera resolution did get a bump from 12MP to 48MP, and the phones adopted USB-C over the Lightning connector.

You’ll find more impressive-sounding price drops here, but the Nothing Phone (2) is only a few months old and was a value-focused phone to begin with. It has the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor, a last-gen flagship, dual 50 MP cameras, and a full metal and glass design. The outer appearance is the most striking part, though, with the light-up glyphs we saw in the original Nothing Phone (1), but refined. That first phone is available from £299, also worth a look.

Laptops and Gaming Deals

You’ll have trouble beating this Acer deal in terms of specs per pound. It has 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD. You pay more than this laptop’s cost just to get these upgrades in a MacBook Air. The Intel Core i5 chipset is good too, even if it is a low-voltage CPU. You won’t see amazing color reproduction in its screen but models we’ve seen from this series before do at least use an IPS panel, avoiding the nasty look of a basic TN screen.

Sony / WIRED

Despite selling like gangbusters since launch, you can get a healthy discount on the Sony PlayStation 5 right now. This is the full disc console, the one we’d recommend for ultimate flexibility. No, this isn’t the PlayStation 5 Slim announced in October, but that is one of the least interesting console updates ever. It’s not much smaller, doesn’t look all that different, and brings no notable performance changes. Bundles are available elsewhere too, including a £390 one with Final Fantasy XVI at House of Fraser and a Spider-Man 2 bundle with bonus free game (including Dead Space or The Last of Us (Part 1) for £400 from Argos.

An Acer like this is one of the better buys of the moment for folks who want a mid-performance gaming PC that will also make a solid family PC. It uses a punch Intel Core i5-13400F CPU, one a good bit faster than the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 seen at this price. The Nvidia RTX 4060 will keep pace with games years into the future too. Its case may be a touch aggressive for some tastes, but at least it keeps the case LED lighting simple: just red light inside.

This is one of the few monitors that offers a better PC gaming experience than a standard OLED TV. It’s a curved OLED monitor with an ultra-wide aspect ratio of 21:9. The maximum refresh rate is much higher than that of consumer TVs too, at 175Hz. All you need now is an Nvidia RTX 4090 graphics card to go along with it. Take note of the connections before buying, as there’s no full-size HDMI so some setups will require an adapter.

The Black Friday tech equivalent of buying new socks, microSD deals are back for this year. Much as with October’s Prime Day, we recommend Samsung’s EVO Select line for most people. These cards are cheap, reliable, and perform well above their price with real-world read/write speeds close to 100MB/s.

LG’s Gram series asked “why can’t a 15-inch laptop weigh less than a kilo?” We used to be happy with the idea 1.3kg was the standard for portable 13-inch PCs, but the Gram family laughs at that nonsense. This is a 15-inch laptop that weighs 0.99kg. It’s a portability dream, and even has a powerful processor, OLED screen and long battery life. The rigidity of its panels takes a hit, though, and some of you will really want an above-Full-HD screen when spending a grand. Fair enough.

This would make an excellent alternative to a MacBook Pro. Its raw CPU power isn’t that far off Apple’s M2, it has a metal shell and, the highlight, a super-saturated 1800p OLED display with black levels not even Apple’s mini-LED screens can touch. It’s no good for gaming, but is otherwise a highly versatile laptop. You can also get the more powerful version with an Intel Core i7 CPU for an additional £200. This Core i5 model is the better buy, though, as both have a 512GB SSD and 16GB RAM.

Who needs the Meta Quest 3 when the older version is available new for just £200? At this price we’d strongly recommend considering the older version if you are going to use both on-board wireless VR and PC VR. When hooked up to a PC the much greater power of the Quest 3 doesn’t matter so much. The resolution of this headset is still up there at 1920 x 1832 pixels per eye (in theory, but the horizontal resolution ends up a bit lower as there’s a single panel, not one per eye.) Just planning on using the headset solo? The Quest 3 is a significant upgrade.

Microsoft

Discounts on Xbox Series X consoles are rare, and this one is a corker. You can get the console alone for £90 less than its pre-price-hike cost. Or you can roll the dice with a refurb and save even more (£30). There are plenty of bundles floating around too. The best value is likely the Xbox Series X plus Diablo IV deal from John Lewis at £390.

The Steam Deck OLED is the PC gaming handheld to get if you ask us. But this is a legit deal for the Asus ROG Ally, even if we didn’t think much of it at review (3/10). An AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme makes this appreciably more powerful than the Steam Deck, although its battery lasts less long, in part thanks to its use of Windows rather than SteamOS.

Headphones and Speaker Deals

One of our only criticisms of the WIRED Recommends Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones at review (9/10) was they were a bit pricey at launch. This Black Friday deal solves that by lopping £100 off the original cost, or around £40 off the more recent online pricing. They have excellent noise cancellation, truly absorbing sound and are super-comfy.

These headphones are ancient, released in 2017 when the world was a different place. But it doesn’t matter because the Philips Fidelio X2HR is the polar opposite of today’s popular street headphones. They’re not tech-packed and don’t use a battery. You can’t really use them out of your home either, as their open backs leak sound and don’t block out noise. However, you’d be hard-pressed to find any better-sounding pair for £70. They provide balanced audio, with wide and open imaging. Ideal for late-night movies and gaming when loud surround sound is off the cards.

It’s only in the sales you'll get AirPods for two figures, so enjoy. Or if you want active noise canceling then AirPods Pro (2nd Gen) are now £199 (£30 off) including a MagSafe wireless charging case. There are good Black Friday deals to be had on 3rd Gen AirPods too. Apple itself runs an Apple Store Shopping Event, rather than discounting. So you can get an Apple Gift Card worth up to £60 when you buy AirPods directly from Cupertino.

Your best Bose buy for Black Friday so far is this pair of “SE” series Quietcomfort headphones. We called them dated in our original 7/10 review, but we can excuse that at this price. They sound smooth and have excellent active noise cancellation plus plush pads. What does the SE part mean? The standard Quietcomfort QC45 comes with a hard case and the cheaper SE with a softer case. Big whoop. If you want the white or green shades this series comes in, though, you will have to pay the £90 extra for the non-SE version.

This setup of affordable hi-fi separates features a Denon turntable, Cambridge Audio amp and Wharfedale speakers. The hi-fi bundle is perfect for anyone with a new–or rekindled–love of vinyl and includes cables. If Black Friday comparison shopping is stressing you out, relax in the knowledge that Richer Sounds will refund you the difference if the price drops any time between now and Tuesday 28th. Its best deals are for VIP Club members but the club is free to join, offers extended guarantees, and more.

An outstanding deal on this new-for-2023 soundbar which features 17 speakers, wireless Dolby Atmos surround sound, wireless subwoofer, Alexa voice control, AirPlay, and more. It adds stunning audio to your home AV setup without clutter. You can also save on its big sibling the Samsung Q990C Soundbar Speaker for £940 (£660 off) for an even bigger audio upgrade. WIRED picked last year’s model, its predecessor the 990B, as our Best Dolby Atmos Bar.

Want a soundbar on a budget? Look no further. This one-box Bose is 55cm wide, compact enough to fit under any size TV, connects via a single cable, and is a doddle to set up. Television, films, and games sound clearer immediately, a cure for muffled dialogue, and you can stream music to it via Bluetooth too.

At this price, you can pop a Pop (see what we did there?) in every room without breaking the bank. Use Alexa voice assistant anywhere, not just to stream music, podcasts, and radio but also for smart home control. To that end, Amazon has some ludicrously cheap Black Friday deals to get you started: pick up an Echo Pop with a Philips Hue smart light bulb for £23 (£36 off) or with a Sengled Smart Plug for £23 (£37 off). Both, of course, work with Alexa.

Wearables and Fitness Deals

Peloton

The Peloton hype cycle of the early Covid months may have died down, but Peloton remains a cracking service if you can keep your motivation up. Its standard bike is down to £1,095, from £1,345. This gets you a top-quality static bike with 21-inch screen for just £100 more than the refurb price. The Peloton Bike+ with a bigger tilt display is one sale too, as are packages that include weights sets. Bear in mind you will need to pay £39 a month for the All-Access Membership, which is what gets opens up Peloton’s video workouts.

The Whoop band is a fitness tracker with a difference. There’s no screen here, no GPS to produce maps of your runs. However, it is a favorite of lots of fairly hardcore athletic types for its ability to judge how well-rested and ready for exercise you are. We know marathon runners who swear by this thing to balance their workout routine. This moderately tasty deal offers a band and a year of the subscription for £189, down from the usual £229.

You won’t find deals for Suunto’s watches everywhere, but the whole range has seen its prices chopped over at the Suunto official store. Our pick of the bunch is the Suunto 9 Peak, which is sleek for an enthusiast sports watch. It has a titanium casing, Sapphire screen protection, and is just 10.6mm thick. The software isn’t quite as slick or responsive as Garmin’s best, but the battery last up to two weeks and it has full GPS, plenty of tracking modes and on-watch navigation (but no downloadable maps.)

Fitbit has had a rocky ride since it was bought by Google in 2021. The Sense and Versa lost features, then gained new ones. And the Fitbit Charge 6 has been affected by GPS signal issues. Your safest bet is the rather charing Inspire 3, a cute and affordable band that doesn’t cost too much, and makes a decent outdoors exercise tracker if you bring your phone along with. It doesn’t have GPS, but does have a color screen, unlike the older Inspire models. It was runner-up in our best Fitbit test, after the Fitbit Charge 5, also available for £100 this Black Friday.

We like the look of this watch from Triwa. Its blue version has real punch in its use of color, and the internals are sound too. The watch uses a Japanese quartz movement for reliable time-keeping. As you might guess from the name, the body is made of recycled plastic. But it’s at least moderately tough too, with 10 ATM water resistance. Two additional smaller dials can keep track of other time zones.

The Epix 2 was the watch that proved the future of Garmin wearables is probably in OLED screens, not the practical but bland-looking transflective ones it used almost exclusively for years. Maps look great on this watch, and yet a charge can still last upwards of two weeks. This band has since been superseded by the Garmin Epix Pro, but the two key differences are a tweaked heart rate reader and a built-in LED flashlight. It’s a neat upgrade, but the standard Epix 2 is no slouch.

TV Deals

Hisense’s OLED TVs seemed to get wider distribution in the US than in the UK. We’ve always thought that was a shame as while these sets may not always have the picture processing or motion chops of a top-tier Sony or Panasonic, they’re a whole lot cheaper. This 48-inch Hisense is available for £600 from Costco, although you will have to spend £15 to get the annual membership that actually lets you order from the site. According to retailer Very’s website, it once sold this very TV for £1,300. It has two HDMI 2.1 ports (four total) and one supports VRR.

Amazon’s Black Friday price for this projector is decent. You get £110 off what you’d pay from some rival retailers. However, it steps up a level when you account for the £200 cashback available from Epson at present. Yes, you’ll have to submit proof of purchase through an online form, but these cashback schemes are not some scam. You end up with a 4K pixel shift projector with good brightness and strong detail for just £580. That’s a win. Black depth is the main weakness of this model compared to, for example, JVC’s D-ILA projectors.

Chinese brand XGIMI has quietly become one of the most trusted names in more lifestyle-leaning projectors. This is a true 4K projector with an LED light source, meaning no more need to replace a lamp after a couple of years. Blacks levels aren’t at the level of a good, more traditional home cinema projector, but it’s easy to use and has an Android interface for on-board apps. This is not a portable projector, though, it needs to be plugged in.

You might cringe at the idea of owning an Amazon TV, but this one offers good mid-range performance. It uses a VA panel, for fairly good contact and blacks, if not at the level of an OLED TV. And, as you might guess, it has the Fire TV interface baked in. The Omni series is much better than Amazon’s basic TV range, as it uses one of Samsung’s QLED panels. There’s even local dimming, a high-end feature, although with 64 zones it’s not the best example of this tech in action. Still, a real bargain. Other sizes available: 50in, 65in, 43in.

If you sign up for Richer Sounds’s VIP club you can get £300 off this TV. It’s a big commitment, though, as it involves filling in a form and paying absolutely nothing. This is LG’s last-generation flagship Gallery Edition OLED TV. It was so far ahead last year that it’s still brighter than the go-to pick from 2023, LG’s C3, with slightly higher brightness. This series does not come with a stand, though, so is best for folks who plan to wall-mount. Such a mount is included.

Before upgrading your TV you should always consider if it’s just a new interface you need. You can blast away creaky menus and fill app gaps with a Chromecast with a Google TV dongle. Unlike the older Chromecast sticks, this one has a full smart TV interface and includes a microphone remote for voice commands. You can even install some games and, for the more tech-savvy, retro game emulators. There’s a cheaper HD version, but it is less powerful and has less RAM.

Home Deals

This Black Friday deal definitely doesn’t suck: you can save up to £150 on various Dyson stick vacuums, air purifiers, and the like in its own sale this week. Get a good price on the latest stick vacuums like the V15, literally the best Dyson vacuum according to the WIRED team… or pick up other models, like the affordable Dyson Omni-glide vacuum for £200 (£100 off).

Amazon

Amazon originally offered a Black Friday BOGOF, buy one get one free, promo on the Show 5 smart display, but now it's just half price. You'll also find the cute Echo Pop speaker for just £18. These aren’t close to the top of any Amazon ranges, and we found the Echo Pop’s bass a wee bit weak. However, this is a great way to get your home tooled up on the cheap.

This 65% discount is the attention-grabbing bargain if you want Emma’s lush, multi-layered mattress that promises to regulate your body temperature and absorb motion, but there are good deals to be had across the range. All with a 10-year guarantee and a 200-night trial.

Certain online department stores are selling this exact same model for £120, so grab a bargain. Its two drawers total 7.6 liters and cooking can be synced, so you can make a whole meal for the family or get priceless extra cooking capacity on Christmas Day (air fryers make brilliant roast potatoes, just sayin’). And it has a handy viewing window, a feature we rated when WIRED tested a smaller air fryer from Instant Brands.

A great value bundle of home security cameras from Amazon’s own brand. The two cameras are enough for smaller homes. For larger setups, there are deals on bigger bundles too – all at half price or less. The range includes a video doorbell and floodlights too. The setup is simple and they work with Alexa.

This is the kitchen gadget everyone wants in 2023. Ninja appears to have become the go-to brand for folks after a strongly recommended air fryer. It received plaudits in our air fryer group test, although it was the more multi-cooker-like Ninja Speedi (found below) that took away our top award. The Foodi Max is more of a straightforward air fryer, one with a mammoth 9.4L capacity, ideal for families rather than singletons or couples. The two drawers let you keep different elements separate, and manage timings more easily.

Is it even Black Friday if you don’t buy an electric toothbrush? Our pick of the Black Friday pack for your pearly whites is this Oral-B at 68% off. It boasts AI brushing recognition (but doesn't go overboard with the AI features like some), pressure sensing, and app guidance and today it’s less than £90.

We mention this one not because it’s a sensational deal, but because this is just about the time of year people consider buying a wake-up alarm clock to combat seasonal affective disorder. The Bodyclock Luxe 750DAB is Lumie’s top-end lamp and is the only one in the range with a DAB radio baked-in, rather than a crusty FM tuner or simply some wake-up sounds. It emulates a sunrise over a duration you choose, 15 to 90 minutes, gradually getting brighter and less warm-toned. It has Bluetooth too, for music streaming from a phone once you’re up.

Gifts and Toys Deals

Find a small person (this is aimed at age 5+) and buy them this digital microscope, if only so you get to play with it too. It allows you to examine everyday stuff magnified 200x on screen, so you don’t have to squint down a viewfinder. Plus it comes with ‘smart slides’ that play BBC science videos on screen too. Inspire a young scientist today!

Of all the many LEGO discounts to be found this Black Friday, this is among the most substantial for an iconic set. Yes, LEGO obsessives, we know this is not the ultimate LEGO Hogwarts, a mammoth 6,020-piece kit you can also snag for around £330 from Argos this Black Friday. But this is within easier reach of Christmas present budgets. It’s a 2,660-piece kit that takes a slightly simplified approach to the classic movie set.

Hot milk frothers started out for cappuccino-making but they quickly became hot chocolate machines. Lean into the trend with this unapologetic Hotel Chocolat kit. It even comes with a selection of posh chocolate flakes. A decadent Christmas gift.

The Line6 HX stomp guitar modeler uses the same tech as Line6’s top-end Helix line-up. That means you get realistic virtual guitar amps and legions of effects, all crammed into a highly portable floor unit. This deal only nets you around £50 off the price seen elsewhere, as these units just aren’t ever that deeply discounted. But GuitarGuitar also bundles a bespoke case worth £40, ideal for band practice sessions or gigs.

One of the best board games ever. This is a bit like Family Fortunes, but the idea is you need to pick the answer that will be most popular with other players. Grab it discounted as a gift or get it yourself, to bring daftness to any family gathering.

If you dream of having a pub in your home, a PerfectDraft machine from Philips gets you there without investing in plumbing. It chills the beer, keeping it fresh, and you don’t need any gas canisters to get a classic pub-style pint. You do end up paying more than you would be buying the same beers from the supermarket, but look beyond the basics to Tiny Rebel and European beers, like the 7.4% Kwak, and it starts to make more sense.

This oversized hoodie has many imitators but nothing beats the original. So get a good deal on this one and your teenager will thank you. OK, they’ll grunt their appreciation. But they will appreciate it and they will live in it for months. Oodies are so warm and snuggly, get one for yourself and it will probably pay for itself in savings on heating bills.

The most iconic LEGO set of the last decade, this take on the Millennium Falcon is made of a daunting 7,541 bricks. It takes an estimated 20-30 hours to build this thing. And despite all that, and the high cost of the set, its enduring popularity has seen this model stick in the range ever since 2017. Be prepared for it to take over your Christmas if you do decide to buy.

The perfect gift to keep small people digitally entertained… and off your phone. It takes 20 MP color photos and HD videos, giving you insight into the way they see things, but the built-in thermal printer uses till rolls for simple, monochrome prints. They’ll enjoy them and get crafty coloring them in and you’ll save a fortune on consumables. For ages 3+.