53 Early Best Buy Black Friday Deals (2022): Phones, Instant Cameras, TVs
The retailer has a flexible holiday return policy, and the discounts are going strong….
Black Friday is almost upon us. Looming overhead like the sales juggernaut it is, we’re merely a week away from the green flag. For those with itchy trigger fingers, though, Best Buy has posted tons of early Black Friday deals ahead of schedule. If you see one you like, jump on it now rather than waiting for Thanksgiving to pass you by. We’ve whittled down the best deals right here, from smartphones and laptops to headphones and action cameras.
Be sure to check out our other Black Friday coverage, including Best Early Black Friday Deals, Early Target Deals, Deals on Google Devices, Deals on Microsoft Hardware, and our Black Friday Shopping Tips.
We test products year-round and handpicked these deals. Products that are sold out or no longer discounted as of publishing will be crossed out.
Updated November 23, 2022: We’ve added several new deals, such as the iPad.
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Best Buy’s Extended Returns and Guarantees
Too afraid to buy because you think prices will be lower on Black Friday? We’ve all been there. Don’t worry—Best Buy says products marked “Black Friday Deal” will remain the same price on the big day, so you don’t have to worry that you might overpay right now.
The retailer is also offering an extended return window so any purchases made through the end of the year can be returned through January 14, 2023. That way, if you buy a holiday gift for someone early, they still have time to exchange or return it after the new year. If gifts are on your mind, be sure to check out our gift guides and buying guides for inspiration.
Laptop and Tablet Deals
Usually, a laptop with a 16-inch screen is cumbersome and heavy. Not the LG Gram. It’s lightweight and slim, and it doesn’t compromise performance. This model comes with an Intel 12th-gen Core i7 chip, 16 GB of RAM, and a 1-TB SSD. It’s an excellent price for those specs. The downside is the keyboard, which doesn’t feel as satisfying to type on, as it doesn’t offer a ton of key travel. Read more about it in our Best Laptops guide.
Last year’s Surface Pro 8 (7/10, WIRED Recommends) is still a powerful machine, especially for work (and at this price). This 2-in-1 laptop/tablet hybrid packs a large 13-inch display (with a 3:2 aspect ratio), a 120-Hz refresh rate, a 1080p Windows Hello-compatible webcam, and an 11th-generation Intel Core i5 chip, which is plenty for most tasks. The keyboard isn’t included here, so make sure to snag it as well.
Even though it’s been superseded by the M2-powered MacBook Air, the M1-equipped Air from 2020 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is the best cheap MacBook, and now it’s even cheaper. It’s plenty powerful for most tasks. We’ve even had fewer thermal issues and performance hiccups with this model than with the latest.
Apple introduced a new design with its latest MacBook Air (7/10, WIRED Recommends), which is also powered by the new M2 chipset. It has plenty of power for most everyday tasks, solid battery life, and a 1080p webcam. You also get a MagSafe connector so the laptop won’t fly off if you trip on the cable. It’s pricier than its predecessor, but this discount helps remedy that. Just remember that the chipset doesn’t let you connect this machine to more than one external display.
This is last year’s iPad model (8/10, WIRED Recommends), but it’s still excellent and plenty powerful for most tasks. The downside is the older design, with thick bezels surrounding the screen, but maybe you like it. After all, it retains the home button and is the only iPad in Apple’s current lineup with a headphone jack. Read more in our Best iPad guide.
We’ve seen this deal pop in every now and then for a few months. The iPad Mini (8/10, WIRED Recommends) probably won’t get cheaper on Black Friday. Our favorite pick for the most portable iPad is perfect for students and folks that travel frequently. It’s small but powerful, and it has nice features like USB-C charging and support for the second-generation Apple Pencil. Read our Best iPad Accessories guide to kit it out.
If you want an Android tablet, you’ll hardly do better than the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8. It has a nice 11-inch size that’s not too big and not too small. It’s powerful, thanks to the flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset inside, and the LCD screen is sharp, bright, and colorful. It comes with a stylus and has some of the longest software support for an Android tablet. This is a great price for it, but if you want to save even more, the Galaxy Tab S7 FE is also on sale for $420 ($100 off). Performance isn’t as smooth but it’s perfectly fine for consuming media (and has a large screen).
You may be wondering what sets the Kids’ version (for children aged three to seven years) apart from the regular HD 8, and the answer is that they’re the same device. The difference is that this one comes with a grippy, durable case and a two-year worry-free damage plan because as you’ve long suspected, kids are tough on everything. It also includes a free year of Amazon’s Kids+ service, which provides access to kid-friendly books, movies, games, and apps, all with parental controls. It’s $3 per month after the first year. If you don’t care for the kid-friendly features, the standard Fire HD 8 is just $55 ($45 off).
The app selection on Fire tablets is limited without access to the Google Play store (though there’s a workaround), but the 2021 Fire HD 10 (7/10, WIRED Recommends) is still the cheapest way to get your hands on a big-screen tablet. This 10.1-inch-screen model offers an impressive productivity suite, 12-hour battery life, and a snappy processor that won’t stutter and pause like Fire HDs of old.
Our best budget gaming laptop is also on sale right now. The 15-inch display and plasticky build won’t blow you away, but you get a Full HD panel and a 144-Hz screen refresh rate to keep up with the Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti powering it.
This is our top pick if you’re after a gaming laptop. Yes, it’s still quite expensive, but you’re getting powerful specs, like a 12th-gen Intel Core i9 chip, an Nvidia 3070 Ti graphics card, and a 1-terabyte SSD in an all-black chassis that offers plenty of ports.
This is our favorite gaming laptop if you’re after the best battery life. This model comes with a Ryzen 7 6800H processor, 16 GB of RAM, an Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti graphics card, and a 512-GB SSD. The spacious 15-inch screen is nice, as is the 120-Hz screen refresh rate, and you’ll be able to play most games at high settings sitting around 60 frames per second. Read more about it in our Best Budget Gaming Laptops guide.
Phone and Wearable Deals
The Pixel 6A (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is our favorite Android phone. It comes with many of the benefits of the higher-end Pixel line—including Google’s Tensor chip, a crisp OLED display, and all the camera and AI wizardry Google typically puts in its phones—in a much less expensive package.
Google’s most recent flagship phone, the Pixel 7 (8/10, WIRED Recommends), has barely been out for a month, but it’s already on sale for $100 off. That’s impressive since we already liked its low price. You get speedy performance, a 90-Hz screen, wireless charging, daylong battery life, one of the best cameras on a smartphone, and plenty of helpful smart features you’ll use every day (which you can read more about here). The Pixel 7 Pro, which has a larger 120-Hz screen and a 5X optical zoom camera, is also on sale for $749 ($150 off). You can find more Google deals here.
Samsung is set to announce a successor to this phone early in 2023, but that doesn’t stop this S22 Ultra (9/10, WIRED Recommends) from being a good buy. There are almost no other smartphones in the US that have a 10x optical zoom camera, and that lets you capture sharp photos of subjects far away—like your kid running across the soccer pitch. It’s a high-end phone in every other way, from stunning performance to a fantastic 6.8-inch display. There’s even a built-in stylus. The standard Galaxy S22 is also on sale for $700, but it frequently dips to that price and isn’t as good of a deal.
This year’s flagship phone from the self-proclaimed “flagship killer” was the OnePlus 10 Pro (7/10, WIRED Recommends). It’s an accomplished smartphone that excels at the basics with a big, bright screen, solid battery life, fast charging capability, and the highly customizable OxygenOS on top of Android 12. The versatile cameras fall short of our favorites and there’s no millimeter-wave 5G, but this is a good alternative if you don’t fancy a phone from Google or Samsung. The OnePlus 10T, which has some of the fastest charging speeds in a phone, is also on sale for $600 ($50 off).
If you want to pay as little as possible, the Moto G Stylus 2022 (6/10, WIRED Review) is our pick for the best smartphone under $200. There’s no 5G network support or NFC for near-field contactless payments, but the battery will last you two full days of typical use, and there’s a headphone jack and MicroSD card slot. It also comes with a stylus to use on the screen, if you want more precision than your fingertips.
This budget OnePlus phone (7/10, WIRED Recommends) has a surprisingly great array of features for the price, including an AMOLED display (true blacks, vivid colors), daylong battery life, and excellent performance. It even includes NFC for contactless payments, a MicroSD card slot, and a headphone jack. OnePlus will deliver security updates to it for three years too. The downsides? It will only get Android 12 (which makes it already out of date). It only works on T-Mobile and AT&T, and with the latter carrier, you’ll only access 4G LTE.
This is the first discount we’ve seen on Apple’s luxury smartwatch (8/10, WIRED Recommends). It’s meant for folks that tend to take on more extreme outdoorsy activities. It has the best battery life you’ll find on an Apple Watch mostly because it’s much bigger than the standard Apple Watch and can accommodate a bigger battery. There’s a loud siren in case you’re lost in the woods, and a spare Action Button to trigger specific and configurable actions. On the other end of the spectrum, the Apple Watch SE (2nd Gen) is on sale for $229 ($20 off) and is great for anyone who wants to get an Apple Watch on the cheap and doesn’t mind a few missing features.
Despite Google getting into the smartwatch hardware game, Samsung still makes one of the best smartwatches for Android users right now. The Galaxy Watch5 (7/10, WIRED Recommends) has a lot of fitness features that are comparable to those on the Apple Watch, though some—like electrocardiogram measurements—only work if you pair the Watch5 with a Samsung phone.
Google’s first-ever Pixel Watch misses some key features at launch, like SpO2 sensing, auto workout detection, and fall detection (coming soon), but it’s a gorgeous smartwatch that is really comfortable and is accurate at tracking the health and fitness basics—heart rate tracking plus electrocardiograms. Its responsive interface lets you keep track of notifications and respond to messages, even phone calls. Unfortunately, battery life is lackluster, and it charges slowly, so it’ll constantly be top of mind. It only works with Android phones.
Audio Deals
Google may be a relative newcomer to the world of earbuds, but the Pixel Buds Pro (9/10, WIRED Recommends) impressed us with seven hours of playtime, intuitive touch controls, and the ability to easily swap between devices. Unfortunately, they’re missing some features if you use them with iPhones.
These look like the original AirPods Pro, but the brand-new second-generation wireless earbuds (9/10, WIRED Recommends) deliver better audio quality, and Apple has added a speaker in the case so you can use the Find My app to ping it (handy when you’re rushing out the door and can’t find it). The earbuds also have longer battery life. Most importantly, the noise-canceling tech remains some of the best in a pair of wireless earbuds.
Our resident audiophile, Parker Hall, called last year’s Galaxy Buds2 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) “the new standard in midrange wireless earbuds.” They’re comfortable, with active noise canceling and enough water resistance to survive your workouts. If you want the latest and greatest, the Galaxy Buds2 Pro (9/10, WIRED Recommends) are also on sale for $200 ($30 off).
It’s not every day you see something score a very rare 10/10 review score on WIRED. With an absolutely astounding 300 hours of battery life (when most of the competition offers 30 to 40), the HyperX Cloud Alpha will outlast even the longest gaming session. Add to that a rich sound quality, comfortable ear cups, and a decent mic and you’ve got the best pair of gaming headphones.
If your workouts are more intense than those of the average person, you might prefer headphones designed to keep up with you. On that front, the Jabra Elite 7 Active is our favorite. In our testing, they fit people with wildly different ear sizes without falling out. They also have great noise canceling and at least eight hours of battery life.
One of the only things we didn’t like about the Jabra Elite 85T (9/10, WIRED Recommends) was the high price. With this sale, they’re nearly perfect. They have a comfortable design, physical buttons for controls, a wireless charging case, and great noise canceling. You even get a two-year warranty against water damage.
These Beats headphones (8/10, WIRED Recommends) are particularly great if you’re in the Apple ecosystem. They pair easily with iPhones and other Apple devices, get an incredible Bluetooth range, and have at least 20 hours of battery. Unfortunately, Android users might not enjoy the same battery life.
Camera Deals
The Hero11 from GoPro (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is one of our favorite action cameras. This model adds a taller sensor that’s great for vertical video, if you’re into that sort of thing, and can record up to 5.3K video—though you’ll need a new-ish phone to edit that footage via the company’s Quik app. If you want to save more, you can get a very similar experience with the older Hero10 Black model, which is on sale for $350 ($100 off).
Sony’s A7 cameras are consistently among our top picks for most people, and while the A7 IV (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is our favorite, it’s also really expensive. If you don’t mind missing out on some newer autofocus features, however, the A7 III is also a great camera, especially at this price.
Sales on Nikon gear don’t come too often, though this is a small discount on what’s arguably one of the best cameras from the company. There’s excellent dynamic range, a superfast autofocus system, and great video quality. The interface is intuitive and the camera is comfortable to hold. The only strange thing? It uses dual-interface cards: one XQD/CFexpress and one SD card.
Ecosystem lock-in is real in the camera world, and if you’re a die-hard Canon fan, the EOS-R is our top pick for you. It’s a hefty camera with satisfying machined metal bits, phase-detect autofocus, and even a handy cover that pops out to protect your sensor when you change lenses.
Another step down from the A7 III (though still a great camera in its own right), this AII kit comes with a 28- to 70-mm variable lens. If this is your first mirrorless and you don’t already have Sony lenses, this is a great place to get started without unloading a ton of cash.
This APS-C sensor camera is one of the best you’ll find in this price range. It is compact but produces sharp photos and features in-body image stabilization for less blurry video and photos. The autofocus is better, there’s a fully articulating screen, and Fujifilm’s interchangeable lenses are more affordable than most other camera brands.
This instant camera’s vintage aesthetics and easy-to-find buttons make it a great gift for anyone that wants to print their photos immediately. It has a smartphone companion app with features like Tripod Mode to take in more light at night. You can shoot double exposures for the effect. Read our Best Instant Cameras guide for more.
If you’re primarily shooting video, we like the Panasonic Lumix S5. It’s a full-frame sensor with support for V-Log recording, anamorphic 4K support, and an L-Mount interface so you can use Leica lenses. The autofocus isn’t great, but maybe you prefer pulling focus manually.
Home Theater Deals
We call the QN90B (8/10, WIRED Review) the best TV for bright rooms for its impressive contrast and brightness. That’s not an easy task for a TV manufacturer, as bright rooms tend to wash out colors on many TVs. Add in the fact that the QN90B has a very wide viewing angle so you can watch from nearly anywhere in the room, and you’ve got a versatile screen for difficult spaces.
The Hisense’s U8H (8/10, WIRED Recommends) delivers excellent picture quality and includes an easy-to-use Google TV interface, which also supports casting from your smartphone. The Mini LED panel offers great contrast too. There’s a 55-inch model on sale for $600.
Roku is our favorite streaming service around the WIRED Gear team, thanks to its ease of use and the wide variety of channels available. The Ultra adds faster Wi-Fi and is capable of streaming 4K-resolution content, which makes it the top-tier choice among Roku’s lineup. You might already have a 4K TV with streaming apps built in, but the default interfaces are usually awful. A streaming device changes that.
The Chromecast With Google TV (8/10, WIRED Recommends) brought the Chromecast in line with other streaming sticks that have a physical remote and a full TV interface. It’s one of the easiest streaming sticks (well, dongle really) to use, and I particularly like that you can add movies or TV shows to your watch list from Google search results and they’ll show up in the Chromecast’s interface. There’s Google Assistant support too. Don’t have a 4K TV? No worries. The new Chromecast With Google TV HD is also on sale for $20 ($10 off).
We really like the Signa S4 for its rich, room-filling sound and Doly Atmos capability. There are three modes: Cinema mode, which works in a simulated 3.1.2 Atmos surround that really fills a room, Night mode, which limits the subwoofer so you don’t wake the neighbors, and Music mode.
This is great if you want a bass-heavy home theater. Our tester spent over a year with this monster, which also comes with two subwoofers and side and rear speakers to fill out a room better than soundbars that rely on bouncing audio waves off the walls.
This M-Series soundbar from Vizio (9/10, WIRED Recommends) strikes the perfect balance of detailed surround sound audio without breaking the budget. We particularly like this one for gaming as it makes it easy to hear that enemy sneaking around behind you.
OLED TVs have some of the richest highlights and contrasts, and the Vizio is the cheapest on the market. We gave the 55-inch version (9/10, WIRED Recommends) positive remarks in our Best TVs guide, thanks to its ability to work with the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 at 120 frames per second in 4K resolution. As far as balancing cost to image quality, this screen is arguably the best value OLED on the market.
Home Deals
This is one of the lowest prices we’ve seen on this model. These stand mixers can stand (pun intended) the test of time and will prove useful to any home baker’s arsenal.
Security camera companies like to lock you into subscriptions. If you want to avoid that, check out the Cam2 Pro, which includes two cams and a hub. It’s one of our preferred outdoor security cams, thanks to its 2K resolution and wide 140-degree field of view. Each camera also includes two-way audio and a siren to discourage theft.
If you don’t want all the bells and whistles of a sophisticated (and expensive) indoor security cam, check out the Blink Mini. We gave it top marks for being cheap and compact in our Best Indoor Security Cameras guide. It offers good-quality video, two-way audio, and Alexa integration. The motion detection is accurate, but it can’t distinguish between people and pets. Remember that this is an indoor-only security cam and is not weatherproof.
It’s not our absolute best recommendation for a security camera, but the Nest Cam is great if you’re already in the Google smart home ecosystem. You can check the feeds of your cameras on Google’s Nest Hub display or even the Chromecast With Google TV. The battery needs charging after a little more than a month. You can also just buy one for $120 ($60 off).
The Nest Audio (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is what you want if you primarily plan on pumping music with a smart speaker. It still has Google Assistant inside, so you can ask the voice assistant all sorts of queries and use it to control your smart home devices. What makes it great is its audio quality—you get bold sound with plenty of bass. You can pair two together for stereo sound.
There’s no cheaper way to get into the Google smart home ecosystem than with the Nest Mini (7/10, WIRED Recommends). At $20, you can put one of these in most rooms of your house. They don’t have the robust speakers of more expensive options, but if all you need is to set timers and get reminders, this is an excellent entry.
Google’s Nest Hub Max (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is our favorite smart display overall. It has great speakers, a spacious 10-inch touchscreen, and a camera for video calls. Google’s software can also identify specific members of the house to show only the reminders and events that are relevant for that person, and it even has a guest mode so other people can use it without seeing your personalized results.
If you prefer your smart display without a camera (and there are plenty of reasons you might), the smaller 7-inch Nest Hub (7/10, WIRED Recommends) does most of what the Max can, in a cheaper package. It supports gesture control so you can pause videos with a hand movement, making it great in the kitchen, but it can also use radar to track your sleep habits, so it’s a solid option for the bedroom too.
Amazon might be rethinking its Alexa strategy, which might understandably deter you from investing any more in the ecosystem. Nevertheless, this is a good upgrade if you want an Alexa-powered smart display. It doesn’t integrate quite as well with the rest of your digital life as Google’s display might, but it’s got solid speakers and handy alarm tools that make it a great kitchen companion. The smaller 5-inch version is also on sale for $35 ($50 off).
This is the first major discount on Amazon’s latest budget smart speaker. It delivers better sound than ever before (with double the bass), and a new sensor lets Alexa perform a task based on the room’s temperature. There are gesture controls now too, so you can tap the top to dismiss a timer or to play/pause music. The 5th-generation Echo Dot With Clock is also on sale for $40 ($20 off), as is the Echo Dot Kids Edition for $30 ($20 off).
Lenovo makes some pretty great smart home accessories for the Google Assistant ecosystem (sometimes even nicer than those from Google itself). This alarm clock is a great example. It offers a 4-inch smart display and alarm clock features to help you wake up, and it comes with a spot to wirelessly charge your phone at night.
Black Friday Retailer Sales
Want to browse the sales yourself? Here are a few top retailers participating in Black Friday deals.
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