Amazon Black Friday deals live: millions of discounts to launch at 12:01 PST tonight

It’s the right time to buy the M1 MacBook Air

Allisa James, Computing Staff Writer, TechRadar

If you’re in the market for a MacBook Air, you’re in luck: the 13-inch M1 MacBook Air has plummeted to just $799 at Amazon (opens in new tab). That’s a $200 discount on the older-but-still-excellent laptop, and takes it the cheapest price we’ve ever seen.

Even though the 2020 model has been superseded by the more powerful (and more expensive) new MacBook Air M2 (2022), it still sits at number three in our best laptops guide. We gave it 4.5/5 stars in our Apple MacBook Air (M1, 2020) review: its performance is incredible thanks to the powerful M1 chip, and the battery life is excellent. It’s easily the best value laptop money can buy right now, and a great choice for work or school. It’s also great for watching movies.

Best Buy has the same deal – but Walmart can’t match it this morning (the same model is $888.88 at Walmart). 

What to expect in the Amazon Black Friday sale

So what new deals will drop when the sale gets underway at midnight?

Well, it’s likely that many of the existing discounts will remain available. As we’ve seen over the last few years, many offers that go live in early November actually stay the same through Black Friday and into December. Increasingly Black Friday doesn’t have the huge price-drop spike that we saw in the past; instead prices drop earlier and the deals run for longer.

That said, Amazon did confirm a few more in its initial sale announcement. They are:

• Up to 50% off select Fire TV devices
• Up to 30% on De’Longhi Espresso Machines
• Up to 40% on select laptops, desktops, and monitors from HP and Dell
• Up to 40% on the NordicTrack S22i Studio Cycle
• Up to 30% off select Peloton accessories and apparel
• Up to 30% on select toys from Play-Doh, Transformers, and Nerf
• Save on kitchen products from Cosori, KitchenAid, Ninja, and Vitamix

Read more: Upcoming Amazon Black Friday details announced

A Black Friday classic: Echo Dot for $24.99

Here’s one you don’t need to wait until midnight for…

Amazon has already cut the price of its latest Echo Dot by 50% – dropping the price to $24.99. Amazon’s smart speakers are always a classic Black Friday bargain, and this deal is particularly notable because Amazon only released the new Echo Dot 5th Gen at the end of September – this is the first time it’s been on sale. 

We’ve not reviewed it yet, but according to Amazon it has improved audio – specifically, up to 50% less distorting, and yet up to twice the bass at the same time – as we reported at the time.

Right now, it costs the same as the excellent fourth-gen version, which we awarded 4.5/5 stars in our Echo Dot 4th-gen review, so we’d go for the newer model. If you’re not sure where to start with smart home tech, here’s your answer.

Welcome to our coverage of the Amazon Black Friday sale

Thanks for joining us this morning. 

Hold on, you may be thinking, haven’t there been Black Friday deals at Amazon for the majority of November already? It’s true, the retailer has had early offers for a few weeks, but tomorrow marks the true start of the Amazon Black Friday sale.

Whether it makes that big a difference remains to be seen, but Amazon has said the event will run for 48 hours across November 24 and 25. Thousands of new offers are set to go live – including a selection of limited-time lightning deals every 30 minutes.

These include price cuts of up to 70% on Amazon’s own smart home devices, coffee machines, toys, appliances, Samsung, HP, Dell, Bose and Xbox – as well as a brand new Nintendo Switch bundle.

Stay tuned for regular updates on some of the best early deals in the run-up and then we’ll share our top picks from the fresh batch of Amazon offers once they go live at midnight. Whatever they may be.