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Read more Black Friday approaches! In a year where asking Alexa what day today is feels totally normal, this Black Friday seems like it came out of nowhere.
As we say pretty much every year, a lot of Black Friday deals are… not that good. While there are certainly deals to be found, there’s also a lot of hand-waving going on to help retailers and manufacturers clear out the old models and get that Q4 numbers boost.
It can also be a day where it’s way too easy to buy junk just because it’s got a 40% off tag on it. With that in mind, we’ve tried to limit this list to the stuff we’d recommend even when it’s not on sale. If we see anything else worthwhile over the next day or two, we’ll add it — so feel free to check back in.
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A few tips to keep in mind today:
- If you see something is on sale and want to check if the “sale” price is really any better than normal, pop it into a price tracker like camelcamelcamel. If the price suddenly increased last week only to be “reduced” by whatever percent this week, you know somethings up.
- Be at least a little wary of TV deals. There are TV deals to be had, for sure — but the most eye-popping deals tend to be surplus panels with a new model number slapped on them. Google the model number; if that specific TV seems to only exist for the sake of Black Friday, think twice.
Apple
Image Credits: Brian Heater
Once unheard of, Apple deals on Black Friday are now a little easier to find. They tend to go fast though!
- Both Amazon and Walmart are selling AirPods Pro for $170 — a super steep discount from the usual $250. The stock seems to be coming and going fast, so this one might be tough to get.
- The 40mm, GPS version of the latest Apple Watch (Series 6) is down to $379 from $399 on Amazon right now. While that’s only a drop of $20, these things only just hit the shelves back in September.
- Best Buy has some pretty solid deals on the latest (8th gen) iPads, like a 10.2″ 32GB model for $280 (usually $330), or the 128GB model for $360 (usually $430.)
Amazon
Image Credits: Amazon
With people already flocking to Amazon on Black Friday, the company usually offers some pretty massive discounts on its Amazon-branded devices as a means of seizing the moment and getting more people into their ecosystem. Sure enough:
- Amazon’s Fire HD 10 tablet is down to $80, normally $150
- The super new, super spherical Echo Dot is down to $29, normally $50. The version with the built-in clock display, meanwhile, is down to $39, usually $60.
- The ad-free version of the highest capacity Kindle Paperwhite eBook reader is down to $129 (usually $180), while the absolutely incredible Kindle Oasis is down to $219 from $299.
Image Credits: Brian Heater
Google tends to go pretty big with the Black Friday discounts, and this year is no exception. Some examples:
- The Nest Hello doorbell is down to $179, normally $229.
- Nest Hub is down to $50 (normally $90), and its bigger brother the Nest Hub Max (pictured above) is down to $179 (normally $229.)
- The latest generation of the Nest Mini smart speaker is $19, down from $50. The beefier Nest Audio speaker, meanwhile, is down to $85 each (usually $99) with the catch that you’ve got to buy two.
- Stadia Premiere Edition — effectively a starter kit for Google’s gaming-in-the-cloud service Stadia, including both a Stadia controller and a Chromecast Ultra — is down to $70 from $100. The controller alone would normally cost you $70, so if you were already considering giving Stadia a spin it’s sort of like getting a free Chromecast Ultra?
Roku
Image Credits: Roku
Roku’s new Streambar — basically a Roku box and a soundbar crammed into one package — is going for $100 today, down from its normal price of $130.
Sonos
If you’re going to expand your Sonos system (which, hey, is sort of the point of having a Sonos system), Black Friday is usually a good day to do it. Alas, this years Sonos sales are a bit limited, but there are still savings to be found. Amazon has the portable Sonos Move down to $299 (normally $399) and the Sonos SUB down to $599 (usually $699), while Sonos itself is also selling its Beam Playbar for $299 (usually $399.)
Hulu
Image Credits: Hulu
If you don’t mind ads, Hulu is slashing the price of its ad-supported plan from $6 a month to $2 a month for 1 year. Sadly, no deal for the ad-free plan, which is still at its normal $12 a month — but if you were planning on checking out the ad-supported plan anyway, you might as well save a couple bucks.
Calm
Image Credits: Calm
Calm, the popular subscription-based meditation/sleep sounds service, is offering up a pair of promos: they’ll cut the price on a one year membership down by 50% (from $70 to $35), or a lifetime membership by 60% ($399 to $159.)
Video Games
You probably won’t be finding any deals on this year’s new Xboxes or Playstations because… well, they already couldn’t keep up with demand. This year’s best deals are going to be on games, services, and in a few cases, accessories.
Hell, the same goes for the Nintendo Switch. Even without a new hardware release this season, Nintendo’s console is flying off the shelves. If you’re looking for big savings on a Switch itself this year, know that the inventory is incredibly low — any retailer offering a Switch deal is really just doing it to get your hopes up and get you on the site. We’re having a hard time finding any in stock even at full price.
Xbox Deals:
- Microsoft is selling Xbox controllers (which will work with the next-gen Xbox Series consoles!) for $40, down from the usual $60.
- Best Buy is selling 3 months of Xbox Game Pass (Microsoft’s Netflix-style game subscription service) for $23, down from the usual $45.
- Gears 5 is $5 (usually $40) at Best Buy, Doom Eternal is $20 (usually $60) at GameStop, and Microsoft is taking $10 off the newly remastered Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2.
Playstation Deals
- Sony is selling 12 months of Playstation Plus (its service that lets you play multiplayer games online) for $45, down from $60.
- Amazon is selling Last of Us Part II for $30 (normally $60), and GameStop and a number of other retailers have Ghost of Tsushima going for $40 (normally $60). Sony has the oh-so-hard-but-oh-so-addicting Cuphead for $15, down from $20. Most retailers will also have sales on Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Watch Dogs Legion, and Star Wars Squadrons.
Switch Deals:
- Nintendo is selling Luigi’s Mansion, Super Mario Maker 2, Yoshi’s Crafted World, Mario Tennis Aces, and Zelda Link’s Awakening for $40 (normally $60) through Amazon and most other retailers. All of these are fantastic!
Reset yer counters: Facebook has had to ‘fess up to yet another major ad reporting fail.
This one looks like it could be costly for the tech giant to put right — not least because it’s another dent in its reputation for self reporting. (For past Facebook ad metric errors check out our reports from 2016 here, here, here and here.)
AdExchanger reported on the code error last week with Facebook’s free ‘conversion lift’ tool which it said affected several thousand advertisers.
The discovery of the flaw has since led the tech giant to offer some advertisers millions of dollars in credits, per reports this week, to compensate for miscalculating the number of sales derived from ad impressions (which is, in turn, likely to have influenced how much advertisers spent on its digital snake oil).
According to an AdAge report yesterday, which quotes industry sources, the level of compensation Facebook is offering varies depending on the advertiser’s spend — but in some instances the mistake means advertisers are being given coupons worth tens of millions of dollars.
The issue with the tool went unfixed for as long as 12 months, with the problem persisting between August 2019 and August 2020, according to reports.
The Wall Street Journal says Facebook quietly told advertisers this month about the technical problem with its calculation of the efficacy of their ad campaigns, skewing data advertisers use to determine how much to spend on its platform.
One digital agency source told the WSJ the issue particularly affects certain categories such as retail where marketers have this year increased spending on Facebook and similar channels by up to 5% or 10% to try to recover business lost during the early stages of the pandemic.
Another of its industry sources pointed out the issue affects not just media advertisers but the tech giant’s competitors — since the tool could influence where marketers chose to spend budget, so whether they spend on Facebook’s platform or elsewhere.
Last week the tech giant told AdExchanger that the bug was fixed on September 1, saying then that it was “working with impacted advertisers”.
In a subsequent statement a company spokesperson told us: “While making improvements to our measurement products, we found a technical issue that impacted some conversion lift tests. We’ve fixed this and are working with advertisers that have impacted studies.”
Facebook did not respond to a request to confirm whether some impacted advertisers are being offered millions of dollars worth of ad vouchers to rectify its code error.
It did confirm it’s offering one-time credits to advertisers who have been ‘meaningfully’ impacted by the issue with the (non-billable) metric, adding that the impact is on a case by case basis, depending on how the tool was used.
Nor did it confirm how many advertisers had impacted studies as a result of the year long technical glitch — claiming it’s a small number.
While the tech giant can continue to run its own reporting systems for b2b customers free from external oversight for now, regulating the fairness and transparency of powerful Internet platforms which other businesses depend upon for market access and reach is a key aim of a major forthcoming digital services legislative overhaul in the European Union.
Under the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act plan, the European Commission has said tech giants will be required to open up their algorithms to public oversight bodies — and will also be subject to binding transparency rules. So the clock may be ticking for Facebook’s self-serving self-reporting.