It’s one thing to do a bit of online shopping during the Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales, but it’s another to put your money where your mouth is. (Where did that phrase come from, anyway?) If you’re curious what our writers, editors, and reviewers bought for themselves, here are some of the items, many of which are still discounted.
I’ve been planning a monitor upgrade for a while — I even mentioned it in my “What’s on your desk?” entry back in August — and finally pulled the trigger this weekend. I’d been using two old 24-inch monitors of different brands, resolutions, and specs, and knew I wanted something bigger and 4K to replace them both. I’ve had a few other major expenses recently though, so I talked myself down from a 32-inch model, or the higher-spec Dell 27-inch display with a USB-C hub built in, for one that covers all my needs, if not all my wants. The IPS panel seems great for the price, the modern design looks slick on my desk, and it has USB-C connectivity and 120Hz refresh rate, all for less than $300. That makes it pretty much perfect for me right now, giving me more desktop space during the work day and a few specs suited to my increasingly occasional PC gaming sessions too. — Dominic Preston, news editor
My partner and I recently moved to a smaller apartment — but with a larger living room. We had been making do with a several-years-old 40-inch TV, but when Black Friday hit, we decided we deserved to upgrade. So, we bought a 55-inch Hisense U7 Mini-LED TV. Yes, we were aware that it was only a mid-level TV, and that these days, a 55-inch TV seems relatively diminutive, but it was within our budget and got some fairly good reviews. It arrived Sunday, and so far, we’re really happy with it. Setup was obscenely simple, we were able to ditch the old Chromecast we were using in favor of the TV’s Google interface, we’re happy with the colors and brightness (although the sound could be better), and we’re going to have fun tweaking all the settings to suit our cinephile leanings. — Barbara Krasnoff, reviews editor
I don’t typically buy a lot of stuff during Black Friday / Cyber Monday, but I took advantage of sales to get a few bigger-ticket things I was going to buy anyway. I got an Oxo coffee maker because my old Bonavita broke irreparably a couple months ago. This Panasonic 4K Blu-ray player has been in my cart for half a decade, fluctuating between $450 and $550; it briefly dropped to $399 over the weekend so I pulled the trigger.
I also got a collection of D&D Young Adventurer’s Guides for my 10-year-old for Christmas. — Nathan Edwards, senior reviews editor
I have to be careful with events like Black Friday / Cyber Monday as I tend to buy many things I don’t really need or want. To check that impulse, I made a list this year and was pretty good at sticking to it. The first thing I bought was a retractable USB-C cable from Baseus. It’s boring but practical and is something I’ve needed since I upgraded to an iPhone 17 earlier this year and rendered all my old cables obsolete. Here’s hoping it makes my bag “neater and lighter than ever.”
I also bought a copy of Death Stranding 2: On The Beach. The first game was undeniably weird but I thoroughly enjoyed stepping into the role of postapocalyptic delivery man and have been looking forward to the sequel all year. Between travelling, moving flat, and starting a new job, I’ve not had much chance to game lately so I’m hoping it’s worth the wait. The Verge’s review suggests I won’t be disappointed.
There was one impulse buy: these cute Lego Botanicals Happy Plants. I think they’re meant for kids, but I thought they’d make my boyfriend smile. — Robert Hart, AI reporter
I tried to restrain myself from going overboard during Black Friday this year, and I think I did a good job. I purchased one item that I truly needed: Arctic MX-6 thermal paste. I’m using it to upgrade the CPU on a used watercooled PC that I bought at a flea market. (Thankfully, it doesn’t need RAM!)
Amazon’s Black Friday sale knocked a few bucks off the version that comes with alcohol wipes that you can use to clean up the existing thermal paste on your CPU die. But I didn’t actually need the wipes; I misread the listing as coming with six tubes of paste, not just measly alcohol wipes. (Don’t be like me and actually read the listings!) — Emma Roth, news writer
I live next door to a subway station in New York City, so I’ve had my eye on this realtime circuit board LED display of subway car locations for a while now. They knocked 20 percent off for Black Friday, so I jumped on it — and I’m looking forward to eying this thing every time I hear the train rumble.
Traintrackr also has versions for Boston, DC, Chicago, London and San Francisco, and there’s a sexy-looking, limited-edition black version for New York City. — Travis Larchuk, Vergecast supervising producer
