Black Friday is almost over, but it’s not too late to grab a new gadget. Note that we have the best smartphone deals for the UK in a separate post. Here we will focus on everything else.
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Tablets
The M2-powered Apple iPad Air 11” and 13” models are on sale – while the chipset is now three generations old, the tablets themselves are from last year. Only models with a lot of storage are left.
You can also consider buying a keyboard for the Air tablets to turn them into a highly-portable laptop. Here’s one from Belkin.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra is one of the largest tablets you will find with a beautiful 14.6” 120Hz OLED – for reference, the iPad Airs have 60Hz IPS LCDs. The tablet has a powerful Dimensity 9400+ chipset and full DeX multitasking.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra is £100 cheaper, but it comes with the older Dimensity 9300+ chip. It’s still quite fast, but then you can save some money by getting the lower storage option and later on buying a microSD card.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 is an IP68 rated tablet with full DeX support. It comes bundled with a stylus and you can get the optional keyboard, depending on the work you want to do with it. It’s powered by the Dimensity 9400+ chipset and storage is expandable via microSD.
There’s no Plus model this generation, but the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10+ is still a viable option with its Dimensity 9300+ chipset. It has a larger 12.4” display but is otherwise more of the same.
The Xiaomi Pad 7 and Pad 7 Pro feature 11.2” IPS LCDs (144Hz, 12-bit). The Pro model is powered by the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, while the vanilla slate has a Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3. Both models have 8,850mAh batteries, however, the Pro has slightly faster charging (67W vs. 45W).
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 FE and Tab S10 FE+ also use IPS LCDs – 10.9” and 13.1”, respectively (both 90Hz). The Exynos 1580 is a mid-range chip, however, not on the level of the Snapdragon 8 or Dimensity 9000 silicon.
The Galaxy Tab A11+ is a new entry-level tablet from Samsung. It has an 11” 90Hz LCD and is powered by the Dimensity 7300. Cheap though it may be, it is slated for 7 major OS updates and comes with One UI 8 (Android 16) out of the box.
The Redmi Pad 2 is another 11” slate, this one with a 90Hz IPS LCD. It uses the Helio G100 Ultra chipset.
The Honor Pad 10 is a bit larger with its 12.1” 120Hz IPS LCD and is quite a bit more powerful with the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chip.
Laptops
The Microsoft Surface Pro is a Windows tablet powered by Qualcomm’s ARM chipset. It comes in several varieties with different LCD and OLED displays and different chips – Snapdragon X Plus or X Elite. Note that the cheap 13” LCD with the Snapdragon X Plus includes a free keyboard (that’s a separate purchase for the pricier OLED/X Elite model).
Or you can get an actual laptop – the Microsoft Surface Laptop. This one also has several screen options (LCD or OLED, from 13” to 15” in size) and a choice between Snapdragon X Plus and X Elite chipsets.
Smart rings
You can pair – or even replace to some extent – a smartwatch with a smart ring. The Samsung Galaxy Ring works with the Samsung Health app and does not require a subscription. The Ultrahuman Ring Air has almost complete functionality built into the app as well (though a subscription offers some extra features). The functionality of the Oura Ring 4 is pretty limited without a subscription, though.
Amazon Fire tablets
Here are Amazon’s already cheap not-quite-Android tablets and bargain bin prices. These have good quality screens and come in several sizes to match your needs – they are best for watching videos, scrolling through the web and maybe some light work or gaming. They are not particularly powerful, but the price reflects that. Just remember that there is no access to the Google Play Store out of the box (which can be fixed easily enough).
Additionally, there are Kids versions of some of these tablets. They disable ads and are built for young users – by that we mean that they ship with a sturdy case and have a 2-year worry-free warranty. They also come with a 1-year subscription to Amazon Kids+ – an all-you-can-eat service with free, curated content for kids (including Marvel TV shows).
You can install the Parent Dashboard app on your phone and set time limits and educational goals. You can enable or disable certain apps like YouTube and Spotify. A quick note about the Pro models: these come with a different set of permission defaults. For example, a Pro tablet can access the whole internet (with content filters in place), while the regular models can only open select sites. Of course, this is all subject to change via the parental control app.
E-readers
While you can read books on an LCD tablet, your eyes will thank you for going with an e-reader instead. Amazon has a wide variety, ranging from small and cheap to larger, more premium models.
The Amazon Kindle Colorsoft has an e-ink display capable of displaying colors. This is great for graphic novels or for viewing more complicated documents. It can be used in Black & White mode too (which increases the screen’s PPI).
The Amazon Kindle Scribe is large enough to read PDFs comfortably and comes with an included stylus. These are intended for work and creativity more so than reading books (though you can do that too). Note that there is a Colorsoft variant coming soon, but it didn’t launch in time for Black Friday.
As an alternative to the Scribe, you can grab the reMarkable 2. reMarkable optimizes its devices – and the practically mandatory subscription service – for note-taking. The cloud service makes syncing notes a breeze, but it does cost money.
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