Some of the stuff we bought during Black Friday and Cyber Monday

It’s one thing to do a little online shopping during the Black Friday/Cyber ​​Monday sales, but it’s another to walk the talk. (Or did that phrase comes, anyway?) If you’re curious about what our writers, editors, and reviewers have purchased 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 Desktop?” article. » entry in August – and finally pulled the trigger this weekend. I was using two old 24-inch monitors of different brands, resolutions, and specifications, and I knew I wanted something larger and 4K to replace them both. However, I’ve had a few other big expenses recently, so I’ve moved away from a 32-inch model, or the higher-spec Dell 27-inch monitor with a built-in USB-C hub, to a model that covers all my needs, if not all my wants. The IPS panel looks great for the price, the modern design looks sleek on my desk, and it has USB-C connectivity and a 120Hz refresh rate, all for under $300. That makes it just about perfect for me right now, giving me more desk space during the workday and some specs suited to my increasingly casual PC gaming sessions. — Dominic Preston, editor-in-chief

My partner and I recently moved into a smaller apartment, but with a larger living room. We were making do with a 40-inch TV that was several years old, but when Black Friday hit, we decided we deserved to upgrade. So we bought a 55-inch Hisense U7 Mini-LED TV. Yes, we knew it was only a mid-tier TV and these days a 55-inch TV seems relatively small, but it was within our budget and got pretty good reviews. It arrived on Sunday and so far we are really happy with it. The setup was obscenely simple, we were able to ditch the old Chromecast we’d been 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 movie-loving bent. — Barbara Krasnoff, Reviews Editor

I usually don’t buy a lot of things during Black Friday/Cyber ​​Monday, but I took advantage of the sales to buy a few more expensive things that I was going to buy anyway. I bought an Oxo coffee maker because my old Bonavita broke beyond repair a few months ago. This Panasonic 4K Blu-ray player has been in my cart for half a decade, hovering between $450 and $550; it briefly dropped to $399 over the weekend, so I pulled the trigger.

I also received a collection of D&D Young Adventurer’s Guides for my 10 year old for Christmas. — Nathan Edwards, Reviews Editor

I have to be careful about events like Black Friday/Cyber ​​Monday because I tend to buy a lot of things that I don’t really need or want. To check that impulse, I made a list this year and have been pretty good at sticking to it. The first thing I bought was a retractable USB-C cable from Baseus. It’s annoying but practical and something I’ve needed since I upgraded to an iPhone 17 earlier this year and made all my old cables obsolete. I hope this will make my bag “cleaner and lighter than ever”.

I also purchased a copy of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. The first game was undeniably weird, but I really enjoyed playing as a post-apocalyptic delivery boy and looked forward to the sequel all year. Between traveling, moving, and starting a new job, I haven’t had much chance to play lately, so I hope it’s worth the wait. The edge the review suggests I won’t be disappointed.

There was an impulse purchase: these cute happy Lego Botanicals plants. I think they are aimed at children, but I thought they would make my boyfriend smile. — Robert Hart, AI reporter

I tried to keep myself from overdoing it during Black Friday this year, and I think I did a good job. I bought something I really needed: Arctic MX-6 thermal paste. I use it to upgrade the CPU of a used water-cooled PC that I bought at a flea market. (Luckily it doesn’t need RAM!)

Amazon’s Black Friday sale knocked a few dollars off the version that comes with alcohol wipes that you can use to clean existing thermal paste on your CPU chip. But I didn’t really need wipes; I misread the listing as coming with six tubes of paste, not just miserable alcohol wipes. (Don’t be like me and read the ads!) — Emma Roth, news editor

I live next to a subway station in New York, so I’ve had my eye on this real-time LED display of subway car locations for a while now. They had 20% off for Black Friday, so I jumped on it – and I can’t wait to look at 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 limited edition sexy black version for New York. — Travis Larchuk, Vergecast Supervising Producer