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27 of our favorite Black Friday deals
Thanks for joining our Black Friay 2022 live coverage this weekend. We’re signing off for the evening – so we’ll leave you with a recap of some of the most interesting deals that caught our eye today. See you tomorrow for more of the best offers…
Cheapest-ever klaxon
This deal concerns the new, top-tier, class-leading wireless over-ear headphones from Sony. A quick glance at our in-depth, full-fat review of the Sony WH-1000XM5 will tell you everything you need to know about ’em. You don’t even need to read it – just gaze upon those five sweet stars.
They’re still not the cheapest option on the market of course. But for this money, they’re the best, hands down.
Want a slightly more wallet-friendly option? Our best Black Friday headphones deals is the place for you, and all the deals are live now.
7 alternative Airpod deals
Becky Scarrott, senior audio staff writer, TechRadar
When it comes to earbuds, there’s Apple’s AirPods, and then there’s everyone else. But this year’s Black Friday Apple AirPods deals haven’t been that great yet – they’ve been good, but not jaw-dropping.
So these are the AirPods alternatives we want to steer you towards. (But if you’d prefer a Black Friday headphones deal, we’ve got those too – and our extensive roundup of Black Friday earbuds deals is already live.)
There are a few Black Friday iPad deals around today – but not many
Good Black Friday iPad deals were few and far between last year. Today, there still aren’t many we want to draw your attention to yet – except these three, which are worth a look.
3 of the best air fryers – our top picks
If you’re wondering which air fryer to choose out of the thousands that are available, we’re here to help. Here are three of the best air fryers we’ve tested…
The Instant Vortex Plus 6-in-1 Air Fryer is probably the best air fryer for most people: its performance is great – it consistently turned out the crispiest fries and chicken wings of any air fryers we tested – and it’s fairly priced at under £150 for the 5.7L model.
The Cosori Pro is a little cheaper; or if you want to go all out, The Ninja Foodie is our premium pick – it has two separate compartments, so you can cook two different dishes at the same time. Handy.
And if you don’t care about the best models – you just want the biggest saving – you’ll find all the best Black Friday air dryer deals in our full round up.
The brand behind the iconic Instant Pot also makes air fryers, and its top-of-the-range model consistently turned out the crispiest fries and chicken wings of any air fryers we tested. In our testing, the fries had crisp exteriors but soft, fluffy insides, and the chicken was moist, while its skin was crispy and retained loads of flavor.
The Instant Vortex Plus 6-in-1 Air Fryer with ClearCook & OdourErase builds on the previous iteration, the Instant Vortex Plus, with a plastic window in the basket, and a light, that lets you keep an eye on food while it’s cooking, and has a built-in filter to reduce smells too.
However, it doesn’t come with any cooking charts, which means you will need to spend time experimenting to achieve the right cooking duration and temperature, particularly when it comes to frozen food. We also found the crisper plate falls out if the basket is tipped up too much when removing food, and the display suffers from fingerprint marks. However, these are minor gripes on what is in our eyes, the best air fryer on the market right now.
Read more: Instant Vortex Plus 6-in-1 review
If you want a budget-friendly air fryer that’s as stylish as it is effective, then the Cosori Pro LE Air Fryer L501 is worth considering. Unlike any of the air fryers we’ve tested previously, the LED and touch control panel is located on the glossy top of this kitchen gadget creating a streamlined look.
On test, we found the air fryer produced crisp, crunchy fries with soft, fluffy potato inside and succulent juicy chicken wings. However, it struggled to evenly brown foods, so we found ourselves tweaking cooking times, and it wasn’t effective when cooking frozen foods either.
It has seven presets for dishes such as bacon, seafood, and cake. It also has a reminder to shake, which can be activated when setting the cooking time that will alert you halfway through cooking so you can turn the food to achieve an even crisp.
Read more: Cosori Pro LE Air Fryer L501 review
This air fryer has two separate compartments, so you can cook two different dishes so they’re ready to serve at the same time. In our review, we were impressed at just how quickly the air fryer crisped and evenly browned our fries.
The two cooking drawers, which have crisper plates inside, have an overall capacity of 10-quart / 9.5 liter and are deep enough to hold a 3lb / 1.4kg batch of fries or 4.4lb / 2kg chicken each. Ninja also offers a smaller capacity version, which holds up to 8-quart / 7.6 liters and is known as the Ninja Foodi Dual Zone Air Fryer AF300.
This handy kitchen gadget can roast, dehydrate, bake and even reheat, as well as air fry, although, like most air fryers, the reheat function can’t replace a microwave. We were impressed that different cooking methods can be employed in each compartment at the same time and the ‘sync’ feature ensures both compartments finish cooking at the same time, so you’ll never be waiting around for one part of your meal to finish cooking.
It is one of the bulkier air fryers we’ve tested and it does take up a significant chunk of space on a worktop. However, it looks pretty stylish combining a glossy black finish with silver accents.
Read more: Ninja Foodi Max review
What to consider when buying an air fryer
Air fryers are hot products this year, there’s no doubt about that. They cook lots of foods faster and are cheaper to run than a traditional oven, so may help lower your household bills. But there are loads to choose between. So how do you pick the right one?
We’ll share our top three air fryers in a moment – in the meantime, here are some key considerations from our Homes Editor Jenny Oksien.
Basket air fryers tend to be healthier because they funnel the juices, as well as the fat, away from the food but you can’t check on the food without opening them and letting cold air in, which can stall the cooking process.
Bowl air fryers, however, have glass lids so you can keep an eye on your meal, but the cooking juices remain in the air fryer and in contact with the food, making it tastier but not as healthy.
Check the capacity of the air fryer. If you’re feeding four or more mouths, look for larger air fryers, which can hold around 6.5 quarts / 6 liters, while couples will find designs that have a capacity of around 2.5 quarts / 2.5 liters will be sufficient. Some of the best air fryers also have more than one compartment, which means you can cook multiple foods at the same time.
When does Black Friday start?
It’s late November and there are Black Friday 2022 ads everywhere. But when does Black Friday actually start? Is it already running?
Black Friday doesn’t officially start until November 25 – this coming Friday. But in many ways Black Friday has started. There’s a huge influx of Black Friday deals already, and the annual sales event is in full swing at most major retailers.
It’s fair to say that we’re now deep into peak discount season. The best deals of the year used to appear on Black Friday itself, but that’s now no longer the case. Last year, most of the biggest offers launched in the seven days leading up to Black Friday – and then remained relatively static as we moved through Black Friday weekend into Cyber Monday.
In fact, there were very few new deals in many of the largest product categories on either Black Friday or Cyber Monday last year – and some of the best offers from earlier in the month didn’t return. That’s a trend we expect to see again this year.
From today, then, our advice is to keep your eyes peeled. We’re seeing some serious Black Friday deals now – so if you see a great saving on a product you’ve had your eye on in the coming days, we recommed grabbing it.
9 of the best Black Friday TV deals
Matt Bolton, Managing Editor, TechRadar
Black Friday TV deals arrived early this year, thanks to sales from shops including Amazon, Currys and John Lewis. This weekend there are super-low prices on a wide range of TVs – everything from premium OLED and QLED displays and huge 75-inch sets right through to budget and small smart TVs. Here are some of our top picks.
See more Black Friday TV deals in our round up.
Black Friday TV deals: quick links
7 of the best Black Friday deals on TVs
Black Friday deals – are they legit?
James Pickard, Deals Editor, TechRadar
I’ve been covering Black Friday for a number of years now, and one of the big points of debate each time is whether the deals during the sale are really as good as they seem. Unfortunately, there’s no simple answer.
In a lot of cases, there are some genuinely good Black Friday deals now, including many big and popular products that have dropped to their lowest prices of the year. I use various price-tracking apps to monitor these top sellers, and track many manually too, and that means I can say with almost 100% certainty whether a specific item has been cheaper before.
However, there are definitely times when a bit of retailer trickery leads to some less-than-stellar deals. As with any sales event, you’ll see a mixture of bargains, discounted end-of-line stock and strange things found in the back of a warehouse somewhere. Sometimes, you have to sift through that to uncover the gems.
But that’s also why we’re here. Now that Black Friday’s in full swing, it’s important to know that we’ve carefully considered the deals we’re sharing based on product quality, price history and how interesting we think they’ll be to you. It’s something we do all year-round anyway to bring you the top bargains.
Need batteries?
This 12-pack of Duracell AA batteries is an Amazon best-seller today. But they cost £7.13 at Amazon (down from £14.50) – whereas we’ve found them at Argos for £4.90 today.
You’ll probably have to collect them, mind, if you get them at Argos – and not all stores have them in stock – but if you’re looking to save money, it’s a cracking price and worth seeing if they’re available near you.
(Or you can just buy them at Amazon for £7.13 – which is still cheaper than Tesco – and have them delivered.)
Oculus Quest 2 is cheaper – but could drop again
Meta’s Black Friday deals have gone live and there are some decent prices on the VR headset, which we gave 4.5/5 stars in our Oculus Quest 2 review. The discounts don’t quite bring the headset back down to the lowest price we’ve ever seen (£299 in August), but the added games are good value.
The Oculus Quest 2 is one of the best VR headsets around, especially if you’re on a budget. While it’s not as impressive as the Valve Index in terms of specs, or normally as cheap as the Pico 4, Meta’s device has more than a few things going for it.
First, unlike the Index, Meta’s headset is standalone. If you want to connect it to a PC you can but to play a VR game you don’t have to. You also don’t need to set up any annoying towers in the real world either, you just have to clear a space and draw a quick outline once you put the headset on so it knows where is safe and you’re ready to go.
Secondly, while the Pico 4 is normally slightly cheaper at £379 (it’s only available in the UK) and comes with slightly better specs, its software is definitely inferior right now. Generally, the Pico OS doesn’t feel as fine-tuned as what Meta’s hardware runs on and the games on the Pico 4 aren’t as good as those on the Quest platform. Not only does it lack great titles like Beat Saber and Resident Evil 4 VR, but the Pico 4’s version of games like After the Fall and Walkabout Mini Golf lack content that’s available on the rival hardware.
There’s £600 off the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 at Amazon
Here’s one from our phones team: Amazon has dropped the prices of Samsung smartphones by as much as a staggering £610. Last year’s flagship Galaxy Z Fold 3 was £1,599 but now sits at £989 – its lowest price ever. If you’ve wanted to pick up Samsung’s big foldable but couldn’t stand paying more than £1,000, now is your chance.
Where and why did Black Friday start?
Black Friday feels like it’s been around forever. But where it did all start? And where did that name come from?
Well, the first known mention of Black Friday related to this shopping experience was in November 1951, when the journal Factory Management and Maintenance (opens in new tab) used it to describe people calling in sick the day after Thanksgiving so they could have an extra day off work.
Around this time, police in the US were using the phrases “Black Friday” and “Black Saturday” to describe the horrendous traffic that occurred at the beginning of the pre-Christmas shopping season.
It wasn’t until 1961 that there was a movement (opens in new tab) from the local government to change the shopping season to “Big Friday” and “Big Saturday”. Clearly, that never caught on.
It wasn’t until much later that the notion that Black Friday was the time when retailers moved ‘back into the black’ became the leading thought and it was clearly an attempt to bring positivity to the term.
This Shark cordless vac has dropped in price again – almost £200 off
The Shark IZ202UK Anti Hair Wrap cordless vac has a whopping £190 off its usual price – that’s an even better deal than the £180 off we saw on Friday. It’s now down to just £189 at Shark (opens in new tab), which means you’re getting a lot of power for a lot less money.
This is a limited edition version and includes a useful car detail kit. It’s a good option for pet owners particularly…
23 of the best Black Friday deals this morning
There’s loads going on today. Here are some of the best Black Friday discounts our pro deal editors have seen this morning…
Get the excellent Nest Mini smart speaker for just £20
Alex Whitelock, Deals Editor, TechRadar
The official Google Store launched its Black Fridays sale in the UK last week, and it’s offering up the fantastic Nest Mini smart speaker for just £20.
This is the lowest price yet for the budget smart speaker, and a deal that’s well under half-price – considering it usually retails for £49. Overall, while we’re quite in the loose-change pocket money range here, we’re definitely in bargain territory, especially if you’re looking for a smart home-related gift.
At £20, this is a fairly cheap way to kick-start your smart home setup. You could, for example, purchase a couple of devices and place them throughout your house, making use of the myriad Google Assistant voice functions to control your lights, TV, or other smart-compatible devices.
Amazon devices are super cheap
Amazon has slashed the prices on many of its own devices, just as it does every year. That means you can pick up everything from an Echo Dot to a Fire Tablet to a Kindle for a lot less than usual.
The best deals include an Echo Dot (4th Gen) for £19.99 (opens in new tab), a Fire TV Stick for £22.99 (opens in new tab), a Fire Tablet 7 for £31.99 (opens in new tab) and a Kindle Paperwhite for £94.99 (opens in new tab).
Some of these devices have been cheaper before, but not by much and it’s worth noting that both the Fire 7 and Paperwhite are now at their cheapest prices ever
7 of today’s best Lego deals in the UK
Lego’s always popular over Black Friday. We’ve seen sets selling out quickly over the last week, but there are still plenty of deals around this morning – at Very and Amazon especially.
It’s Black Friday at Amazon today
Amazon launched its 10-day Black Friday sale on Friday. The retailer is calling it ‘Black Friday week’, but the event runs from November 18-28 so you get a full 10 days of discounts (it’ll feature Cyber Monday deals on November 28).
Here are some of today’s highlights – and you can browse the sale for more.
Welcome back to our Black Friday deals live blog
Good morning, and thanks for joining our Black Friday live coverage this Sunday. We’re bringing you all the biggest news, deals, and tips and tricks for bagging the biggest bargains today. Here’s what’s been happening so far this weekend…
