BF&B
Over the (many) years I’ve covered holiday shopping as a journalist, I’ve seen the once-singular Black Friday evolve into a multi-day, then multi-week event, and finally a galloping leviathan running from the beginning of November through mid-December. I’ve taking to calling this entire season “Black Friday and Beyond” as shorthand — at least partly because I can’t bring myself to say “Cyber Monday” (even typing it out is painful).
If Black Friday has a secret it’s this: Whatever is on sale will be again, and has been before. Don’t FOMO yourself into rushing online and spending money because it’s Black Friday. But also don’t hang around waiting for a better sale — if you find the right thing at the right price, go for it.
Other thoughts on Black Friday season:
“Doorbuster” limited deals are often on cheap junk that’s not worth it at any price.
Black Friday is more of a state of mind than a specific date. Anything after Halloween is in the holiday sale zone, and that’s moved up even more this year after Amazon took another bite of the Prime Day apple with its Oct. 11-12 sale.
Comparison shopping is less useful than it used to be, as big retailers are quick to copy each other’s sale prices.
Want a MacBook Air, buy now. Want a MacBook Pro, wait until next year (still waiting for M2 models).
You’ve got a good chance of getting a PS5 with a little effort.
Valve’s Steam Deck will be an unexpectedly popular gift.
One of the things my colleagues and I do to cut down on holiday shopping overload is curate lists of actually useful cherry-picked deals. The internet is awash in similar lists churned out by content farms, but my team and I take great pride in hand-picking the deals we include, not just rubber-stamping anything that says “sale!”
Here are a few lists to get started:
Best MacBook Deals
https://www.cnet.com/deals/best-macbook-deals/
Best Chromebook Deals
https://www.cnet.com/deals/best-chromebook-deals/
Black Friday Laptop Deals
https://www.cnet.com/deals/best-laptop-deals/
Best Black Friday Nintendo Switch Deals and Bundles
https://www.cnet.com/deals/best-nintendo-switch-deals/
Black Friday Deals on Electric Scooters and E-Bikes
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/black-friday-deals-on-electric-scooters-and-e-bikes/
Best Black Friday 3D Printer Deals
https://www.cnet.com/deals/best-3d-printer-deals/
Last-minute game hardware (and software)
A last batch of gaming hardware and software is arriving just under the holiday shopping cutoff. Here are some items of note:
Don’t sleep on Plague Tale: Requiem, the creepy rat swarm game you didn’t know you needed
https://www.cnet.com/tech/gaming/a-plague-tale-requiem-is-the-creepy-rat-swarm-game-you-didnt-know-you-needed/
Nvidia’s new RTX 4080 desktop GPU reviewed
https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/geforce-rtx-4080-review-sufficiently-speedy-for-solid-4k/
Sega’s still making retro mini-consoles — here’s the Genesis Mini 2:
https://www.cnet.com/tech/gaming/sega-genesis-mini-2-review-making-the-case-for-mini-consoles/