Black Friday falls on 26 November this year (2021). Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the US, is traditionally the start of the sales. Except that this year, just like every year for the past few years, the sales start earlier and earlier!
In fact, you can generally find a discount on an Apple product year round, although not from Apple itself (unless you shop in Apple's Refurbished Store).
But the best discounts, theoretically, happen during the Black Friday deals bonanza. In fact many resellers are stating that if you buy a discounted product now the price will not go down further for Black Friday - and if it does you will be able to get the difference back.
If you are looking to invest in a new Mac you may be wondering if its worth waiting a until the end of November for a Black Friday deal. We're here to let you know what to expect, and whether to wait or just buy now (if the deal is good enough!)
We round up the best MacBook Air deals, MacBook Pro deals, iMac deals and Mac mini deals year round, so we know that the best deals don't always happen at Black Friday and we will know if a Black Friday deal is actually decent, or just ok.
What can you expect this Black Friday?
Hoping to save money on a new Mac this Black Friday. Here's what to expect from the various Mac resellers, including Apple itself.
You may be more likely to find deals for Apple peripherals, such as the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID. We have a separate round up of deals on the Apple Pencil, Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse.
As we find out about Black Friday Mac deals we will highlight them below.
What you won't get...
The one thing holding the deals back this year could be the stock shortages that have meant that new products are incredibly hard to get hold of. For example, ever since it launched in April this year it's been very difficult to find the 24in iMac in stock. Read: Where to buy 24in iMac M1.
If you are after one of the new Macs you may struggle to find one on sale, let alone a Black Friday deal!
Apple
Apple's Black Friday offer isn't usually a sale as such, but rather the company offers vouchers with qualifying sales. So you're making the saving on the next product you buy, not this one.
In 2020 Apple's Black Friday event began on 12am on 27 November and continued until 11:59pm on 30 November (aka Cyber Monday). Apple offered customers a gift card worth up to £120/$150/AUD$210 with select purchases. Here are the gift card values you could 'earn':
We expect that Apple will offer something similar in 2021. Note that not every Apple product was included in the offer. Last year the MacBook Pro and iMac had vouchers associated with them, which mean that the MacBook Air and Mac mini were left out of the voucher scheme. It was a similar story with the Apple Watch - the 3rd gen was included but the new models weren't.
This might have been because Apple didn't need to incentivize people buying the newer products.
Amazon
Amazon has already started its Black Friday sale: you can find Early Black Friday Deals on the website already. However, as yet we aren't seeing anything relating to the Mac.
Our best indication of what we might see discounted over Black Friday is to look at what Apple offered for Prime Day discounts earlier this year (to take advantage of Prime Day you need Amazon membership, which costs £79/US$119/AUD$59 annually, though customers can opt for a £7.99/$12.99/AUD$6.99 monthly subscription instead. A 30-day free trial is also available and you can cancel any time.)
For Prime Day Amazon offered the following:
AO
AO.com's Black Friday deals are already live, although we have yet to see any specific Apple Black Friday deals.
However, AO does offer great deals year round on Apple products.
For example:
Argos
Argos will hold a Black Friday sale, but we don't expect to see great discounts on Macs as we rarely see them beat the other resellers deals at any other time.
Have a look at this page on the day though, because you never know!
Currys
Currys has already started their Black Friday sale. Check this page for the latest Black Friday deals.
Curry's is usually good for discounts on Apple products - we usually see Currys, Amazon, John Lewis and Laptops Direct matching prices. As for Black Friday, you can expect some Mac-related deals, although we expect they will be for older, discontinued products.
Here are some of the deals available on Currys right now - although these aren't Black Friday specific.
eBuyer
eBuyer has also kicked off the Black Friday sale already. You can see more here. eBuyer says that it is offering its Black Friday prices now, they say that if the price goes lower they will refund the difference.
We often see good Mac deals on eBuyer, such as these current ones:
John Lewis
John Lewis hasn't started its Black Friday deals yet, but you can check this page for the latest information.
We do tend to see good deals on Apple products at John Lewis, although whether any will be advertised as Black Friday deals remains to be seen. Here are some of the best deals right now:
KRCS
KRCS can be relied on to discount Mac all year round, in fact KRCS is always first to discount any new Mac, offering money off as soon as they become available. As a rule KRCS offers 5% off Apple's price, so you can always get a deal there.
KRCS's Black Friday deals has now kicked off with some excellent discounts. You can check here for more information.
For now, here are some of the best KRCS deals:
KRCS hasn't discounted these Macs any further than usual, yet, but they may do:
Laptops Direct
You can already find Black Friday savings at Laptops Direct here.
Among them are the following Macs:
