Deal: Get ready with Samsung, Google or CMF phones and accessories

Black Friday is a generalization of the season rather than a specific day, so there are discounts before, during, and after. We’re in the “after” period and now is a good time to refresh your gear.

Let’s start with Samsung. The Galaxy S24 Ultra is still its best camera phone and when the S25 Ultra arrives, it will still only upgrade the ultra-wide camera (from 12MP to 50MP). Anyway, that’s what the rumors say. You can pair it with the Galaxy Watch7 (44mm) and Galaxy Buds3 Pro, available in Bluetooth and LTE variants, and the total savings will come to £385.

Let’s take a look at one such offer for Google fans. The Pixel 9 Pro has the same cameras as its bigger Pro XL brother, something the smaller Galaxy S24 can’t say. You can pair it with Google’s new and improved Pixel Watch 3 (45mm), which is also available in Bluetooth and LTE variants, and the Pixel Buds Pro 2. Savings add up to £203.

We also have a cheaper alternative, it is based on the CMF theme. The CMF Phone 1 punches well above its weight with a 6.7” FHD+ 120Hz OLED display, Dimensity 7300 chipset, and a 5,000mAh battery. The back can be changed for a custom look. The CMF Watch Pro 2 doesn’t have the best health tracking sensors, but it’s cheap and also customizable (the front bezel can be changed). Finally, the CMF Buds Pro 2 offer noise cancellation for cheap and a unique feature – a volume dial on the charging case.

You can also pair Samsung or Google accessories with the Galaxy Z Fold6 or Pixel 9 Pro Fold. The reason to stick with the same brand is that accessories work best with similar devices, for example the ECG on Galaxy watches only works with Galaxy phones. However, the Pixel Watch app can still perform ECG when connected to a non-Pixel phone. However, DND and bedtime sync only work with the Pixel.

If you’re not a fan of large horizontal foldables, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip6 is an alternative (Google doesn’t have a Flip foldable yet).

The farewell party of OnePlus 12 series is going on. There’s a £300 discount for the 16/512GB model of the OnePlus 12 and a £200 discount for the 12/256GB, so the extra RAM and storage is only a £50 upgrade. There’s £200 off the OnePlus 12R.

The OnePlus Nord 4 is £100 cheaper than the 12R. It is a mid-range phone, but its Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 is quite competitive with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 inside the 12R. The 6.74” display isn’t an LTPO panel like the R-model, but it has the same pixel density. The 12R has a slight edge in terms of cameras. Both phones pack a 5,500mAh battery with 100W wired-only charging. Of course, the Nord 4 is famous for its now rare metal unibody.

As a cheaper alternative, there’s the OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite. It features a 6.67” 120Hz FHD+ OLED display and IP54 dust and water resistance rating. It is powered by Snapdragon 695.

The Sony Xperia 10 VI eventually ditched the 695 in favor of the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1. It’s a quite beautiful device with a 6.1” 21:9 display (the phone is only 68mm wide) and a selfie camera and stereo speakers. Top and bottom bezels instead of going deep into the display. The 48MP main camera is joined by an 8MP ultra-wide (the Nord CE4 Lite doesn’t have an ultra-wide).

The Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+ surprisingly has DeX – desktop-like multitasking used to be an exclusively S-series feature. If you get the 128GB variant, the tablet will have 8GB of RAM instead of just 4GB, which will really help with multitasking.

Apple’s iPad (2022), aka the 10th generation, is its most affordable modern option (by this we’re talking USB-C ports). It’s not as good at multitasking, but that’s a software limitation – the Apple A14 is still a fast chipset for this price range.

There’s half off the Amazon Fire Max 11 if you get the 64GB model, 43% off the 128GB (in both cases, that’s £125 off). Note that these prices are with lockscreen ads. Still, it’s pretty cheap for a good-quality 11” IPS LCD (60Hz, 2,000 x 1,200px) and stereo speakers – great for streaming and light gaming.

Tablets like the Tab A9+ and Fire Max, as well as phones like the Xperia 10 VI, Nord CE4 Lite, and the CMF Phone 1, have microSD slots — yes, it’s mostly inexpensive models these days. You can get massive amounts of storage, 2TB, for just £150 with the SanDisk Extreme microSD card! Can get it. It is rated A2 (4,000/2,000 read/write IOPS for app use) and can deliver sequential read speeds of up to 240MB/s.