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Black Friday can be a great opportunity to save on the latest tech, and these steps can help you make the most of the sale
Even though we’re still a few weeks away from the actual date set for Black Friday, most retailers have jumped the gun with plenty of Black Friday-themed offers and price promises to entice buyers ahead of time. As someone who’s covered every sale since 2018 as a journalist, none of this is a surprise to me. In that time, I’ve seen retailers drop their Black Friday sales earlier and earlier in an attempt to get ahead of the competition.
I even remember the year that Amazon debuted its Prime Big Deal Days sale right at the end of October to get a jump on rivals. All of that experience and the countless deals I’ve written up have led me to develop a simple, three-point guide that anyone can use to make the most of the Black Friday sale. Let’s get into it.
Don’t get swept up in the chaos
I always bring this up before anything else because it’s a trap I’ve fallen into. During one Black Friday sale several years ago, when I clearly had a bit too much coffee and not enough sleep, I ended up buying a Nintendo Switch Lite, purely because it was on offer. Even though the deal itself was solid, I had absolutely no need for the console, and ended up returning it a few days later. The whole thing was a headache I could have avoided had I set out a clear plan ahead of time. Luke Baker
Now, before the Black Friday sale even begins and the hype takes over, I make a list of the products I actually want to buy and, more importantly, the budget I have to work with. Not only does this mean that I don’t end up buying stuff that I’ll come to regret, but it also means I don’t have to worry about overspending and getting into a financial panic.
I understand that this tactic might sound a bit basic, but Black Friday sales aim to generate impulse buys, so I can’t overstate its importance. Take the time to put together a list of the devices you’re actually interested in, whether that be one of the best smartphones or the best smartwatches, and thank me later. Never trust the ‘before’ price
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Here’s an issue that, thankfully, a lot of shoppers are becoming savvy to, but I still find it baffling that retailers think this is an acceptable practice. I’m talking specifically about ‘before’ prices (the listed cost of a device prior to the discount) and the way they don’t accurately reflect the previous going rate. Amazon is particularly notorious for it. In some instances I’ve seen a listed before price that didn’t even correspond with a device’s RRP, and was simply being used to inflate the supposed saving that consumers could access. What I’ve learned from this is that you can rarely take retailers at their word, which is why I recommend taking things into your own hands.
If you’re shopping at Amazon, you can use the price history tools Keepa or CamelCamelCamel to see how much a device has actually gone for in the past. You can often see data going back years, which is very helpful given that we’ve seen a lot of price increases of late. Britta O’Boyle
Don’t be afraid to go refurbished
This is the one piece of tech buying advice I give year-round to friends and family, but I double down when it comes to Black Friday. While I understand the temptation to go for a new device, the best deals I’ve ever seen on handsets have always come from retailers selling refurbished units. Check out Amazon Renewed in the US. In the UK, the likes of Giffgaff, Back Market, Mobiles.co.uk and more are easy sites to recommend if you want an iPhone or a flagship Android at a much lower price. I recently nabbed an iPhone 17e in ‘like new’ condition from Giffgaff for just £529, which was a very easy way of skirting around that phone’s recent price hike – it’s now £699 from the Apple Store.
What helps is that these retailers adhere to a professional standard when it comes to the refurbishing process, so the quality of a device is no longer a guessing game. Several also come with additional consumer guarantees, with Giffgaff offering a 24-month warranty with phones that meet the ‘like new’ standard, while Vodafone, as part of certain data plans, provides a Lifetime Service Promise to help out in case anything goes wrong with your device. Hopefully all of these points help you to make the most of Black Friday 2026, and don’t forget to check out our coverage of the sale when it goes live, as we bring you the deals that our team of tech experts personally recommend.
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