Black Friday 2020 UK deals: the best deals you can already pick up ahead of November 27
Black Friday 2020 is very nearly upon us, in fact Amazon Prime Day arguably kicked it all off with some Black Friday deals already live, right at the start of November. What a time to be alive. With the alluring promise of the ultimate deals on the finest of PC gaming gear, the annual consumer shopping frenzy represents a tempting time to either pick up a bargain to round off your perfect PC setup, or else get ahead of the Christmas gifting rush.
Where to find Black Friday deals...
Amazon - Basically everything
Lenovo - Discounts on Legion Laptops and PCs
Razer - Laptops and Gaming Accessories
Newegg - Components and Hardware
Microsoft - PCs, Laptops, and Games
Dell- Alienware PCs and Laptops
Laptops Direct - Laptops, Monitors and Gadgets
Scan - Components, Laptops and Gaming Accessories
Currys & PC world - Assorted tech deals
Ebuyer - PCs, Laptops, Components and Gadgets.
As usual, Black Friday 2020 itself occurs on the last Friday of November, which makes it the 27 November this year. But that is, of course, not telling the full story about the true extent of this shopaholism-inducing sales event. Some retailers and manufacturers have already launched their sales, such as Lenovo, Currys & PC world and Dell, and we're only just at the start of November.
On the plus side it does mean we don't necessarily have to jump into the maelstrom over the main weekend to find the best Black Friday deals on PC gaming goodies. There will be different offers across the month, with a host of different retailers aiming to get the jump on each other with the best offers.
Mostly that means they'll all be trying to beat Amazon. But that is generally an exercise in futility as Jeff knows all, Jeff sees all, and will price match everyone into oblivion. He's probably already plugged directly, meatily into a vast datacentre with neurons firing hither and thither, matching or beating the likes of Newegg, Scan, and the rest in deals... until he's bodily removed by his minions at some point in January to recuperate in a Bacta tank until Prime Day 2021. Probably.
The best early Black Friday deals
Yes, you can already make some savings on techie goodies right now, with a number of different early Black Friday deals on offer. Sure, we've still got a long time to wait until Black Friday itself, and with a load more deals set to drop too, but if you need something right now there are discounts to be had.
Early Black Friday Gaming PC deals
Dell G5 Gaming Desktop | Intel i5 | GTX 1660 Super|£918.99 £764.15 at Dell
This rugged looking unit from Dell boasts a 10th Gen 6-core, 12-thread Core i5-10400F alongside a GeForce GTX 1660 Super for a solid PC for 1080p gaming and even some 1440p action. You do only get 8GB by default, but there is a 512GB SSD for speedy boot times. Make sure you enter the promotional code Black15 at the checkout to save an extra 15% on top of the default 2% saving. View Deal
Alienware Aurora Ryzen Edition | AMD Ryzen 7| Radeon RX 5700 | £1,448.99 £1,231.64 at Dell
This may be brimming with last gen hardware, but it's still a well-spec'd gaming system for serious 1080p/1440p gaming. The Ryzen 7 3700X is a quality CPU, and the 8GB Radeon RX 5700 is a capable graphics card too. 2x 8GB HyperX RAM is welcome, as is the combo of a 256GB SSD and 1TB of HDD storage. Enter AW15 at the checkout to get 15% off the final price. View Deal
Scan 3XS Gaming PC| Intel Core i5| GeForce RTX 2060 | £999.98 £899.99 at Scan
Until the RTX 3060 is officially announced, the RTX 2060 is still one of the cheapest ways of getting in on the ray tracing game. Paired here with the capable 10th Gen Core i5 10400F, this PC has the muscle to impress at a range of resolutions, and that 1TB M.2 SSD means you won't be hanging around for your games to load either. View Deal
Early Black Friday Gaming Laptop deals
Razer Blade Stealth | Intel i7 | GTX 1650Ti | £1,899.97 £1,399.97 at Laptops Direct
It may not come with the greatest GPU ever, but that's a saving of £500 for a pretty decent gaming machine. It has 13.3-inch HD display, and will handle most games at medium settings; the 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD should see them running fast, as well. There's a one year warranty with this one, and you get a Marvel's Avengers game code for free, too.View Deal
MSI GE66 Raider | Intel i7 | RTX 2070 | £1,699.00 £1,599.00 at Currys
This laptop comes with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 GPU, and coupled with 16GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD, it should see you right with most top games. You may only be able to fit a few on there, but the 15.6-inch 240Hz 1080p screen also means higher FPS, even in more graphic-intensive games.
Lenovo Legion Y540 15 | Intel i5 | RTX 2060 | £1,299.99 £1,049.99 at Lenovo
If you use the coupon code 'CYBERSALE' at the checkout, you're looking at a £250 savings on a quality mid-range laptop. The 256GB SSD may only store a few graphics heavy games at once, but the Lenovo Legion will deliver a winning performance with most modern games at 1080p with ray tracing on. Plus, free shipping.View Deal
MSI GF65 Thin | Intel i7 | GTX 1660Ti | £1,239.99 £999 at Ebuyer
Although there's no RTX capability here, this is a great mid-range laptop with dedicated graphics and a nice big screen. The performance is good enough to handle most of todays top games on ultra graphics settings at 1080p, no problems. Really, this ones hard to beat, especially with savings of over £240.View Deal
Early Black Friday Gaming Monitor deals
LG 27QN600-B QHD | 27-inch | IPS | £251.99 £179.99 at Ebuyer
Quad HD or 1440p is still the sweet spot for plenty of PC gaming, and this LG panel shows why. A step up in clairty from 1080p, without needing a new graphics card that 4K needs. This is an IPS panel that supports a refresh rate up to 75Hz and FreeSync for tear-free gaming. A solid, no-nonsense panel. View Deal
Early Black Friday SSD deals
Sabrent Rocket PCIe 4.0 | 1TB | £199.99 £127.42 at Amazon
This is one of the best PCIe 4.0 SSDs you can buy at the best of times, and it's currently enjoying a healthy 36% saving, making an already great deal one that can't be missed. Hit sequential read and writes of 5GB/s and 4GB/s respectively, and enjoy awesome random performance performance too. View Deal
Early Black Friday TV deals
LG OLED55CX6LA 55-inch | 4K OLED | £1,599 £1,299 from Currys
We looked at the 48-inch version of this a couple of months back and couldn't help but be impressed by its incredible contrast and speedy 4K@120Hz capabilities. This slightly bigger version of that screen probably won't fit on your desk, but it'll play nicely with next-gen consoles and graphics cards if you do like to think big.
When is Black Friday 2020?
Black Friday itself falls on 27 November 2020, and effectively carries through the weekend into Cyber Monday on November 30, 2020. We expect the likes of Amazon will hold back certain key deal until this final weekend, though, as I pointed out earlier, you will find the whole dealsgasm going on throughout the month.
There is, however, the issue of shipping. With so much pressure on the delivery infrastructure a lot of retailers are looking to spread things out far more than even we expected, hence the early deals already on the books. If you want to guarantee your Christmas presents arrive before the holidays, then doing your shopping in November makes a lot of sense.
And that makes for a lot of shopping time.
What can I expect discounts on this Black Friday 2020?
When it comes to PC gaming we're expecting you'll be able to find discounts on pretty much every facet of your rig this year. Traditionally it's a great time to keep an eye out for gaming laptop deals, with companies keen to clear older, but still high-quality, stock before the end of the year and new generations are released.
There may also be some deals on the best gaming PCs over the month too, for the same reason. A new generation of Nvidia Ampere and AMD RDNA 2 graphics cards, as well as AMD Zen 3 processors, will be shipping before the year end, and that means last-gen machines might get their final hurrah.
It also means the best graphics cards of the existing GeForce and Radeon generations, which are mostly still available in the shops, could see some meaty discounts too. I would expect that, most especially, AMD Ryzen 3000 CPUs will be the key components to receive stellar deals throughout November.
The price of memory, and therefore the best SSDs, is in a bit of a freefall state right now, and that bodes well for some tasty deals this Black Friday. Again, we're expecting the PCIe 4.0 generation of solid state drives to really push on going into 2021, with new memory controllers spuured on by the release of Samsung's first PCIe 4.0 SSD, the Samsung 980 Pro, we expect to see existing PCIe 3.0 SSDs getting their own suite of discounts too.
The gaming monitor market has been mildly stagnant over the last year, but traditionally you'll find Black Friday a good time to be looking for either a straight monitor or for a big-screen 4K TV for gaming.
The PC peripheral market too goes into overdrive around Black Friday, and so the likes of Logitech and Razer are bound to be slashing prices on their existing stock of gaming keyboards, gaming headsets, and the not-so humble gaming mouse.
What should I avoid buying on Black Friday 2020?
Basically anything you don't need. It's distressingly easy to be duped into dropping cash on something just because there's a hefty discount attached to it… even though you have absolutely no use for it.
If you're considering making a purchase around Black Friday we would absolutely recommend going into November with a plan of attack. That probably sounds needlessly aggressive, but you need to know what you actually want to buy first or you'll end up with no end of crap.
Cheap crap, maybe, but crap nonetheless.
Do some research on the products you'd like to pick up in the sales, and maybe some alternatives in case those don't pop up, and set yourself a strict budget too.
Products like graphics cards and processors have obvious tiers (though the different companies work damned hard to make product names as confusing as possible), and SSDs have rated speeds, but for peripherals it's tougher to tell from the specs whether they're worth the money. Checking for reviews, from such luminaries as ourselves, should guide you on your way, and also checking price trackers such as CamelCamelCamel will let you know if a deal's more than just skin deep.
Any other Black Friday 2020 tips and tricks?
If you haven't already used it up during a credit card splurge around Amazon Prime Day, then you ought to take the opportunity to sign up for a free 30-day trial of Amazon Prime. That will get you early access to the Lightning Deals, and help you grab some of Jeff's best deals of the day. It will also net you free shipping on a host of products and speedy delivery too, and at the very worst it'll be handy when it comes to bagging some last-minute Christmas gifts for that aunt you always forget about.
But whatever happens around Black Friday 2020, we'll be on hand throughout November to make sure that you're told about the best PC gaming deals going down around the event, and hopefully put a stop to any potential buyer's remorse.