Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2016: All the best deals in one place

Black Friday has come and gone, but the holiday sale season isn’t over yet. Cyber Monday is here, and that means one last wave of deals coming at you. So if you missed getting an early start on your holiday shopping on Friday, were holding out for better deals, or just want to upgrade some gear, it’s time to hit the internet.

There’s a lot of deals out there, though. But don’t worry we’ve done the hard work for you, and collected a list of the best deals we’ve seen on our favorite products so far.

After spending the last few days in the company of your extended family, it’s only natural that you might want to disappear into another reality for hours on end. That’s where GameStop’s Cyber Monday deals could help. The retailer is offering $100 off the price of the HTC Vive VR headset this Monday, along with $50 off a new Xbox One, and $50 off the Uncharted 4 PS4 bundle — with two free games.

The price cut means the Vive will cost $699.99: still a hefty fee, but more reasonable than before. Buyers of the new PS4 Pro will also get the same two free games as people who buy the PS4 Uncharted 4 bundle — The Last of Us and Ratchet & Clank — if they buy online. A host of games are also getting discounts, with recent titles like Doom, Dark Souls III, ReCore, and Fallout 4 available for $20.

Amazon is predictably slashing prices on its own line of electronics, like the Kindle, Echo, and Fire TV Stick for Cyber Monday this year, but it’s also offering deals on other hardware. We’ve rounded up the best of Amazon’s Cyber Monday discounts below for you to check out and maybe even buy.

Amazon devices:

While most people tend to focus on the big deals on things like TVs or laptops on Black Friday, it’s also a great time of the year to buy books. Yes, actual print books, not Kindles (although Amazon does have sales on a bunch of Kindle models too, should digital be more your speed.)

Here’s where you should be looking if you’d like to build out your library this Black Friday.

In addition to everything else on sale on Black Friday, it’s also a great time to pick up some deals on new audio equipment. Whether you’re looking for a new pair of headphones, or some great new speakers, we’ve combed through the various circulars and advertisements to find the best of the best Black Friday headphone and speaker deals.

The best headphones to buy on Black Friday

Black Friday is finally here. And while there’s some amazing deals to be had, it’s tough to sort through them all. We’ve been rounding up all the various deals across product categories and companies to find the best options for the last few weeks, and now we’re taking a look at the best of the best we’ve seen so far.

It’s by no means a comprehensive list — there are far too many deals out there — but here are the best deals we’ve seen on our favorite products so far.

After skipping out on Black Friday last year, Apple is back with some seasonal deals. Or, well, gift cards. Rather than giving customers money off products, the iPhone-maker is instead bundling in gift cards worth up to $150 on select purchases.

Here’s what you can get:

Google has sweetened the deal for a new Chromecast, offering 3 months of free HBO Now access for new subscribers. If you want HBO, the deal basically nets a more-than-free Chromecast: the streaming device is on sale for $25, and 3 months of HBO Now normally costs about $45. The free subscription also comes with Google’s higher-end, 4K Chromecast Ultra, which costs $69. It’s definitely the best deal Google is offering this year for Black Friday.

We’re not telling you what to do with that HBO subscription, but there are only two episodes of Westworld left, so now is a good time to take a trip to the park if you’ve been missing out.

Google is well on its way from being a company synonymous with search and the web to a brand name well known for its hardware products. We’re all familiar with the Chromecast name; the streaming stick has been Google’s Trojan horse into the living room, selling millions of units and establishing the search giant’s software as a viable media nexus. Now, there’s the Google Home smart speaker to compete with Amazon’s Echo, as well the company’s new flagship Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones.

All of these products are on sale for Black Friday this week, and you can pick them up on discount from a number of different retailers. Verizon is only the authorized Pixel and Pixel XL seller in the US, besides the Play Store. So phone deals are contingent on joining Verizon’s network, or already being a part of it. For Home and Chromecast, you’ll be able to shop around at a few different places.

Smartphones don’t get the kind of eye-popping, fight-in-the-aisles quality deals that TVs do on Black Friday, but stores are still offering plenty of incentives to pick one up this weekend. For the most part, that means bundles on today’s top phones that don’t necessarily lower their price, but do end up giving you more for your money. Here’s the best of what we’ve spotted.

Buy “any” Apple or Samsung smartphone on a Verizon or AT&T installment plan, get a $250 Walmart gift card (note that “any” does not include Samsung’s Galaxy J3 or any phone that’s being sold at a discounted price)

Sony and Microsoft just released new versions of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Plus, all the new fall games are out, and you’ve probably already fallen behind on the latest and greatest. Black Friday is a perfect time to upgrade your gaming gear, with deals on hardware, games, and more.

We’ve gone through the array of deals out there to find the best of the best whether you’re looking for a new consoles, new controllers, or new games, so you can spend less time reading advertisements and more time playing.

Here’s the bad news about Black Friday laptop deals this year: the new MacBook Pro isn’t on sale (surprise!). Sorry. However, I do have some good news. There are pretty decent markdowns on the Surface Book, as well as on the reliable Dell XPS 13. Yay! And Apple is offering gift cards up to $150 with the purchase of select laptops. We compiled some of the biggest Black Friday deals here for you to check out. Maybe this is the year to treat yourself to a new laptop.

The best laptop to buy on Black Friday

Like Microsoft, Sony has also lifted the lid on its PlayStation Store's Black Friday deals ahead of the day itself, offering a host of new and older games with some hefty discounts. While regular customers will still get access to these deals, PlayStation Plus members will get even better discounts in many cases, getting more money off games like Overwatch, The Witcher 3, and Star Wars: Battlefront.

Also included in the sale are semi-recent titles like Far Cry: Primal, Just Cause 3, and the first season of Hitman, as well as well-received games like Grand Theft Auto V, the Dishonored Definitive Edition, and Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. That makes it a good time to build your back catalog if you've just picked up a new PS4 Pro to go along with your cheap Black Friday 4K TV.

The Play:1 is the entry-level gateway speaker from Sonos, and this weekend it’s on sale for $149 — $50 off the usual price — at a variety of retailers, including Amazon, Sonos, Best Buy, and the Apple Store. And despite being at the lower end of the Sonos product line, the Play:1 is still a fantastic speaker, whether used on its own or in a multi-room setup.

Sonos has bundled two Play:1s together for $349 in the past, but this individual $50 discount is one of the best prices we’ve seen on the speaker. It’s a good deal, especially for a Sonos product given that the speakers rarely go on sale. So if you’re looking for a single-room speaker or just want to build out your Sonos system, now's a good time. Sonos’ Black Friday sale will run from November 24th through November 28th.

While Black Friday sees deals on almost anything you could ever want to buy, be it an upgraded phone or a new pair of jeans, the iconic big score for more people is a new TV, with stores slashing prices on tons of models. And while sometimes these tend to be budget versions of better models, or companies trying to clear out years-old stock, there also are some good deals out there, too. Sorting through everything to find the best options is a chore, and you’ve got better things to do this holiday season.

So whether you’re looking to make the leap to 4K, upgrade to a smart TV, or just get a bigger and better set, we’ve combed through the stacks of ads to find the very best deals on TVs for you this Black Friday.

If you've been thinking about switching over to Eero's mesh routers, you can save up to $100 later this week. Eero is offering discounts on its routers over the course of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, starting November 23rd through November 28th at Eero's website, Amazon, and Best Buy. The discounted prices are below:

The market for mesh routers is getting more and more crowded, with big names like Netgear and Google joining in alongside earlier, smaller companies like Eero and Luma. But even with the price drop, the $399 Eero 3-pack is still more expensive than the (also discounted) $299 Luma 3-pack or Google's upcoming Wifi mesh router system. On the plus side, Eero also recently released an update for its routers, adding Alexa integration and improved connectivity, which should further improve the experience of using it should you decide to pick one up this weekend.

If you’ve been biding your time to get an HTC Vive, you can save $100 on one later this week. On Black Friday and Cyber Monday, HTC is dropping the Vive’s price at all online and retail stores, including Amazon and the official Vive site. That means it will sell for $699 “while supplies last,” the first big discount we’ve seen of a high-end VR headset. HTC’s site has a list of available retailers, as well as a map of brick-and-mortar stores with the Vive.

Viveport, HTC’s VR experience catalog, will also have some discounted titles. The full list is here, and includes relatively small projects like Cloudlands: VR Minigolf, horror game A Chair in a Room: Greenwater, and World of Diving.

We’re two weeks away from Thanksgiving, which means that Black Friday is just around the corner. Walmart is joining in on the sale action, with the company offering its trademark discount on TVs — this year, offering several 4K models, along with deals on consoles and computers.

Walmart is using a two-pronged strategy for its Black Friday sales this year: a first wave of deals that begins right now and runs until Thanksgiving, and a second set of Black Friday discounts that start on Thanksgiving Day. The big-box retailer is also making a strong online push, with extra inventory being dedicated specifically to Walmart’s website. The online sales begin at 12:01AM on Thanksgiving morning, while those planning to brave stores in person can start taking advantage of the deals on Thursday night at 6PM.

We’re officially one week away from Black Friday (or what’s technically considered Black Friday at least, since companies are starting earlier and earlier each year) and eBay is next up to join the Thanksgiving weekend sales.

The company announced its deals for both Black Friday — where the highlights are discounts on DJI drones a nd Samsung TVs — and Cyber Monday, which will see a major sale on Apple’s 12.9-inch iPad Pro.

Microsoft is unveiling its Black Friday deals for the Xbox One today. New Xbox One games like Battlefield 1, FIFA 17, Titanfall 2, and even Overwatch are all being discounted by up to 40 percent. Battlefield is available for $40.19 until November 28th, and FIFA 17 and Titanfall 2 are just $35.99 if you have Xbox Live Gold. Microsoft is even making it easy to get the deals by offering a month of Xbox Live Gold membership for just $1.

There are also some impressive deals on older titles like GTA V, or Xbox 360 games like Red Dead Redemption and Call of Duty: Black Ops. All of Microsoft’s Black Friday deals are available for Xbox Live Gold members today digitally (or November 22nd without Gold), and will run until November 28th. You can find all of Microsoft’s Xbox Black Friday deals over at Xbox.com, or a full list at Major Nelson’s site.

Barnes & Noble has announced that it would be releasing a new Nook tablet on November 25th and it will cost $49.99.The tablet, unimaginatively named Nook Tablet 7" is a simple Android tablet that has been customized with Nook software.

It features both front- and rear-facing cameras and has 8GB of space, but will allow users to add up to 128GB of storage with a microSD card. It’s supposed to get seven hours of battery life.

Amazon isn’t just starting Black Friday early this year, it’s extending it far beyond Thanksgiving weekend until December 22nd. The company claims that you’ll be able to “find new deals as often as every five minutes” on Amazon’s website for the next 35 days until the holidays.

To that end, Amazon has released some of the deals and discounts it intends to offer during this apparently endless cycle of commercial consumption. All the sales will be offered at some point between now and December 22nd, with many of the deals coming in what Amazon is calling the “Turkey 5” — the five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday — although no exact scheduling or timing has been announced yet.

Microsoft is offering some discounts on Black Friday at the Microsoft Store, and, as one might be able to guess, the deals center around Microsoft’s Surface PCs and Xbox One consoles, along with a few other Windows computers. Additionally, Microsoft is offering some of the first deals this year on the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, bundling a purchase of either VR headset with a free $100 Microsoft Store gift card.

The deals go live at 12:01AM ET on November 24th on the Microsoft Store site. The full list of Microsoft’s offers can be found here, but we’ve rounded up the best deals below:

GameStop’s Black Friday ad just leaked courtesy of BFAds.net, and it has some of the better console discounts around. While other stores like Target, Best Buy, and Amazon offer similar price cuts for specific console bundles, GameStop is offering up $50 off standalone units and console bundles for both platforms. And not to be left out, GameStop is selling the $99 Nintendo New 3DS Super Mario bundle.

For a full list of GameStop’s Black Friday deals, check the ad out here. The deals are available online and in-store from Thursday, November 24th to Sunday, November 27th, with doors opening at 5AM the day after Thanksgiving. For now, these are the hardware deals to check out: