Finding the best deals is all about patience – pre-order campaigns and sales events like Black Friday rely heavily on advertising, but sometimes it’s better to wait and see. This week we found a lot of discounts on current devices that are just coming off the pre-order buzz. Use the links below to navigate to your country:
Samsung is doing a ‘boost’ promo deal in the UK for the Galaxy S23 series. When you trade in your old phone for an S23 or S23+, get a £200 warranty using Samsung credit S23 BOOST code. If you don’t have an old device to replace, use it S23 CLAY instead of the code to get £100 off. For more information, visit Samsung.com.
For the Galaxy S23 Ultra, the codes are the same, but the discounts are slightly different. You can get £150 on top of the trade-in value of your old phone, or a straight £150 discount if you don’t trade-in. For more information, visit Samsung.com.
You should also consider buying the phone from Amazon. Currently, the retailer has bundled the Galaxy S23 Ultra, S23+, and S23 with a pair of Galaxy Buds 2 (the vanilla S23 also gets a transparent case). These bundles are priced around £50 less than the MSRP of the phone alone. So if you don’t have anything to trade and need a pair of TWS buds, the Amazon deal might be a better option, otherwise go with Samsung’s deals.
Next up, the battle of the two £300 phones. The Samsung Galaxy A33 is powered by the Exynos 1280, has a microSD card slot, and will receive more updates. It has a bigger 5000mAh battery, but it charges slowly at 25W. The A33 also has a better screen – 6.4-inch Super AMOLED with Gorilla Glass 5. It can record 4K video with its 48MP main camera, while the Moto tops out at 1080p. Also, this has a proper IP67 rating, the Moto is only splash and dust proof.
Moto Edge 30 Neo is powered by Snapdragon 695. Its 6.28-inch P-OLED display is slightly smaller, but it runs at 120 Hz. Both screens are FHD+, but only the Samsung has reinforced glass. Although the Neo’s battery is smaller (4,020 mAh), it achieved exactly the same Endurance rating in our tests (both got 104 hours) and has fast 68W wired charging as well as basic 5W wireless charging (it’s slow, but it’s an option, unlike Galaxy).
Moving down the price ladder we find a pair of £250 phones, the Motorola Edge 20 and the Oppo Find X5 Lite. The Moto phone is larger with a 6.7-inch 144Hz OLED display, but packs a smaller 4,000mAh battery with 30W charging. Battery capacity is the Achilles heel of this phone.
The camera is impressive for this price range – 108MP head (1/1.52”, no OIS), also has an 8MP 3x telephoto lens (with OIS) and a 16MP ultra-wide angle (119°). Also, the Moto is powered by the Snapdragon 778G, while the Oppo uses the less impressive Dimensity 900.
The Oppo Find X5 Lite is smaller with a 6.43-inch screen (90Hz, also GG5), but its 4500mAh battery reached almost 40 hours longer endurance in our tests, and with a 65W charge, it can be fully charged in half an hour. The 64-megapixel main camera (1/2.0″, no OIS) and the 8-megapixel ultra-wide (119°) are less impressive.
Four Apple iPhone 14 models are cheaper on Amazon than on Apple.com. The iPhone 14 Pro Max has the biggest discount, but the discounts on the 14 Pro and vanilla 14 aren’t bad either. Indeed, only the iPhone 14 Plus stands out with a discount of only €100.
By the way, Amazon does not yet have a new yellow color option for the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus. You may have to pay full price if you want one.
Next up is a trio of 270 euro Android phones – Samsung Galaxy A33, Galaxy M23 and Moto Edge 30 Neo. The M23 has the better chipset of the three, the Snapdragon 750G, although here it’s only paired with 4GB of RAM. This one has the biggest screen, a 6.6-inch 120Hz LCD, so the quality isn’t the best.
The Galaxy A33 drops to the Exynos 1280, but gets 6GB of RAM. Both the A33 and M23 have 5,000mAh batteries and 25W wired-only charging. The A33 uses a Super AMOLED display – 6.4 inches with a smaller 90Hz refresh rate. The A33 also has an IP67 dust and waterproof rating.
The Moto Edge 30 Neo has a smaller 6.28-inch P-OLED display that runs at 120Hz. The Snapdragon 695 makes this the only phone that can’t record 4K video. The battery is smaller at 4,020 mAh, but it lasts just as well as the Galaxy A33’s 5,000 mAh battery (both got 104 hours in our tests) and supports both fast 68W wired charging and 5W basic wireless charging. Neo is not fully waterproof, but it has basic water resistance.
Xiaomi 13 Pro was launched in India a couple of weeks ago and its price is quite high. However, since the vivo X90 Pro is not yet available in the country, you won’t get many options if you want a 1-inch camera sensor or a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset with enough power for image processing.
The Samsung Galaxy M53 is turning a year old, but it offers a 108-megapixel main camera for ₹26,000 (it also has an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera, but it’s much less impressive). This phone is equipped with a large 6.7 inch 120Hz Super AMOLED display and has a large 5000mAh battery (25W charging). The Dimensity 900 chipset isn’t 2023’s best, but you get a microSD slot.
The iQOO Z6 Pro costs ₹3,000 less and uses the more powerful Snapdragon 778G. The screen is not that good because it is smaller and slower (6.44″ and 90Hz) and the 64+8+2MP rear camera is nothing to write home about. The iQOO wins the battery charging race, but its 4,700 mAh can do 66 watts wired.
Next, three phones under ₹20,000 – Redmi Note 12, OnePlus Nord CE 2 Lite and Samsung Galaxy M33. All three have fairly large screens of around 6.6 inches, all three have FHD+ resolution and a 120 Hz refresh rate.
However, the more expensive Redmi uses Super AMOLED, the Nord has an IPS LCD and the Galaxy has a standard LCD. Redmi is also the only one with an IP53 rating. The first two have 5000mAh batteries with 33W charging, the Galaxy M33 gets a 6000mAh battery in India (25W). Note that the Nord is the only one without an ultra-wide-angle camera, the Redmi has an 8-megapixel module, the Galaxy a 5-megapixel module.
Finally, the chipsets. Redmi Note 12 uses Snapdragon 4 Gen 1 and Nord CE 2 Lite uses Snapdragon 695. This means that the Galaxy M33 with the Exynos 1280 graphics card is the only one capable of playing 4K video. All three have 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, along with microSD slots and 3.5mm jacks.
Finally, another trio, though this one focuses on the ₹10,000 mark – Samsung Galaxy M13, Galaxy M04 and Realme Narzo 50A Prime. All three have a full Android operating system by the way, no Go Edition here.
You might want to skip the Galaxy M04 as it’s the only one with an HD+ display, with the other two having 6.6-inch FHD+ LCD (60Hz). In addition, Helio P35 is slower than Exynos 850 in M13 and Unisoc T612 in Narzo. And the M04 is the only one that doesn’t have a fingerprint reader and has a 13-megapixel primary camera.
The Galaxy M13 and Narzo 50A Prime both have 50-megapixel main cameras, but Samsung also stands out with a 5-megapixel ultra-wide camera. The Samsung also has the biggest battery, a 6,000 mAh unit compared to 5,000 mAh on the other two. All three have microSD slots and 3.5 mm connectors.
The MacBook Air with the new Apple M2 chip launched for $1,200 in mid-2022, now Best Buy is offering it for $1,050 (the 8/256GB unit is $1,350 for the 8/512GB). There’s talk of a 15.5″ Air coming later this year, but that might use the M3 and will certainly be more expensive.
Last year’s iPhone SE costs $430 brand new on Apple.com (64GB). Amazon lists the refurbished units for $285, a savings of $145 — that’s a 33% discount. This model uses the same Apple A15 chip as the new iPhone 14 (albeit with less RAM, 4GB vs. 6GB), so it’s powerful enough, even if the 60Hz 750 x 1,334-pixel display isn’t the sharpest (in case you’re wondering, analysts doubt whether the vanilla iPhone 15 has a screen over 60Hz).
We spotted a couple of Apple Watch deals that might be good for working out. Best Buy has paired the Apple Watch Series 8 with Beats Fit Pro TWS buds, knocking $50 off the combination of both the 41mm and 45mm watches.
If that combo is too expensive, here’s a budget version – the Apple Watch SE 2022 with Beats Flex (this is a neckband-style headset). This combo is only $20 off, but it’s still $150 less than the option above.
We decide on a cheap 5G phone, the OnePlus Nord N200. That’s $100 less than the refurbished iPhone SE, with a larger FHD+ 90Hz display with modern bezels and a 5,000mAh battery with two and a half times the capacity of the SE battery. And you get, among other things, a microSD slot and a 3.5 mm connector. That being said, we are talking about the US market, and many may still prefer the iPhone.