It’s November, which can only mean one thing: Black Friday 2023 is almost here. That means bargains on pretty much anything you can imagine, and that of course includes smartphones.
This Black Friday shopping season is the perfect time to bag yourself a shiny new smartphone, whether it’s a cheap SIM-free smartphone or a flagship device on a discounted contract.
Here, we give you the low-down on Black Friday 2023 mobile deals, including what we expect from this year’s shopping bonanza, an analysis of the phone deals available last Black Friday and our hand-picked list of the best early Black Friday phone deals we’ve seen pop up in the run-up to the big day later this month.
We’re also tracking the best early Black Friday deals separately for those searching for a tech bargain.
When is Black Friday 2023?
Black Friday 2023 is officially on Friday 24 November 2023, with Cyber Monday following on Monday 27 November 2023, though many retailers have already begun dishing out the Black Friday discounts in early Black Friday sales events.
As such, you can already bag yourself a bargain on a smartphone – but more on that a little later.
What phone deals do we expect on Black Friday 2023?
While it’s tough to say precisely which deals we’re expecting and how much the discounts will likely be, we can get a pretty good idea from both previous Black Friday sales events and the flurry of early Black Friday 2023 we’ve already seen appear in the run-up to the big day later this month.
While we’ll delve into the specifics of Black Friday 2022 deals below, more generally speaking, we saw pretty impressive deals not only on older 2021 smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 and Google Pixel 6 but even relatively new 2022 flagships like the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, boasting a tempting £200 discount compared to its regular £1,149 RRP.
That would suggest that Black Friday 2023 will be packed with deals not only on the latest 2023 flagships like the Samsung Galaxy S23, OnePlus 11 and Google Pixel 8 but noteworthy 2022 smartphones like the Google Pixel 7 and iPhone 14 where retailers are trying to shift surplus stock.
That’s indeed what we’ve seen so far from the early Black Friday deals from the likes of Amazon and Mobiles.co.uk, with retailers offering tempting contract deals on incredibly recently released phones like the iPhone 15 Pro and Google Pixel 8 Pro, while we’ve also seen considerable discounts on early 2023 flagships like the Samsung Galaxy S23.
There are also a notable number of SIM-free deals on mid-range smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy A54 5G, which brings them closer to proper budget phone territory.
That all points towards an exciting sale extravaganza with deals across phones of all shapes, sizes and most importantly, price points, both on contract and SIM-free.
What were the phone deals like on Black Friday 2022?
Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2022 were great days to pick up a smartphone on the cheap.
We saw a bunch of money-off deals on 2022 flagships including £200 off the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, as well as a whopping £450 off the foldable Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3, bringing it down to just £549. There were even deals on refurbished models of iPhone, with one particularly notable deal offering a refurbished iPhone 13 Pro in excellent condition for just £549.
It wasn’t just SIM-free deals however; Black Friday 2022 was also an excellent event for contract deals. We saw cheap contract deals on the Pixel 6a that bundled 100GB of data for £18 a month with no upfront costs, as well as a particularly tempting deal on the then-just-released Pixel 7 with 100GB of data and no upfront cost for £28 a month.
There was also the occasional tech bundle offered by retailers like Amazon, bundling the then-year-old Pixel 6 Pro with Pixel Buds A-Series for just £549, down from a combined price of £948.99, suggesting we could see something similar this year.
Best early Black Friday 2023 phone deals
Here’s a selection of the best early Black Friday phone deals we’ve seen so far:
- Google Pixel 8: no upfront cost, £26.99 per month with 250GB of data
- Google Pixel 8 Pro: £149 upfront, £29.99 per month with 250GB of data
- Google Pixel 7a: £9 upfront, £17.99 per month with 250GB data
- iPhone 14: £9 upfront, £29.99 per month with 250GB data
- iPhone 13: no upfront fee, £30 per month with 100GB data
- Motorola Edge 40: £200 off, bringing it down to £329.99
- Samsung Galaxy A54 5G: £170.13 off, bringing it down to £278.87
- Samsung Galaxy S23: no upfront fee, £27.99 per month with 250GB data
- Samsung Galaxy S23: £294.04 off, bringing it down to £554.96
- Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra: £400 off, bringing it down to £849
