Best Buy Lures Black Friday Shoppers With Low Prices on TVs

If you're shopping for a new TV during the Black Friday rush, it's always smart to wait for Best Buy's Black Friday ad. And, thanks to some overnight tips from FatWallet.com and BestBlackFriday.com—do those guys ever sleep?—we've now seen the retailer's offers.

Among the doorbuster specials: a 49-inch Toshiba 1080 TV for just $150 and a 60-inch Samsung 4K UHD smart TV for $800.

If you're thinking of heading out, Best Buy throws its doors open at 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day and doesn't close them until 1 a.m. on Black Friday. They open at 8 a.m., but it pays to be early because the retailer distributes tickets for sale items outside the door an hour before it opens. If you'd prefer not to leave your couch, you can shop online all day Thursday, with free shipping. Just beware that some deals are only available in-store.

Here's a breakdown of some Best Buy Black Friday deals:

Top TV Deals

That 49-inch Toshiba 49L310U 1080p set in the $150 in-store-only doorbuster special usually sells for more than $400. That makes it a good deal. Keep in mind, though, that early this year, Toshiba decided to exit the TV business, and it now licenses its brand to Compal, a Taiwanese company.

We think the $800 60-inch UHD smart TV—the Samsung UN60JU6390FXZA—is a derivative model created specifically for Best Buy's Black Friday promotion, so there's no way to do a price comparison, but $800 seems like a very good price for a set that size from a major brand, and Samsung TVs have typically done very well in our TV Ratings (available to subscribers).

The 48-inch Samsung UN48J5201AFXZA 1080p smart TV on sale for $380 usually sells for about $600.

And the 24-inch LG 24LF452B 720p TV on sale in-store for $80 typically sells for about $150.

Best Buy also has eight Black Friday deals you can get right now, including a 55-inch Toshiba 55L310U 1080p TV, a basic model, for $350, and a 40-inch Insignia TV, model NS-40D420NA16, for $160. This set from Best Buy's house brand is in our TV Ratings.

If you're a gamer looking for a new TV and a new video game console, Best Buy has an interesting deal: a 40-inch Samsung UN40H5003AFXZA 1080p TV with an XBox One The Lego Movie videogame package for $500. The TV itself usually sells for about $380. This deal is an in-store-only Black Friday doorbuster that starts at 8 a.m.

Ultra Specials

Best Buy will have a number of UHD TVs for sale during the event, though right now the specific model numbers aren't available, so we can't tell how great each deals is. We'll try to track down some models numbers when we post our Best Black Friday TV Deals in a week or so. Here are the offers:

A 55-inch Samsung SUHD smart TV for $1,000
A 60-inch Samsung SUHD smart TV for $1,300
A 55-inch Samsung SUHD smart TV with 3D for $1,500
A 65-inch Samsung SUHD smart TV with 3D for $2,000.

Several LG sets will also be on sale:

A 43-inch LG UHD smart TV for $400
A 49-inch LG UHD smart TV for $500
A 50-inch Vizio UHD smart TV for $600.
A 65-inch Vizio UHD smart TV for $1,000.

HD TV Deals

For those looking for a regular 1080p TV, here's the list of sets (once again Best Buy hasn't listed specific model numbers):

A 24-inch Samsung 720p set for $148
A 40-inch Insignia 1080p TV for $160
A 32-inch 1080p Samsung set for $228
A 50-inch Sharp 1080p TV (available only at Best Buy) for $300
A 40-inch Samsung 1080p smart TV for $318
A 55-inch Toshiba 1080p set for $350
And a 60-inch Samsung 1080p TV for $698

Other Electronics Deals

Other get-them-now deals include $100 to $125 off an Apple iPad Air 2—an increasingly popular Black Friday item this year—an Insignia NS-SB515 2.1-channel sound bar speaker for $100, and a 27-inch iMac with an Intel i5 processor, 8GB of memory, a 1TB hard drive, and a Retina 5K display for $1,650.

And here are a few other specials to watch for:

Panasonic DMP-BD903 Blu-ray player with streaming for $40; it's $100 at a few places right now.
Sony BDPS3500 Blu-ray player with streaming for $50, down from $80 at a few places right now.
Samsung BD-H6500/ZA 3D Blu-ray player with 4K upscaling and streaming for $88. This model is in our Blu-ray player Ratings, available to subscribers, and normally sells for about $130.
PS4 and Xbox One bundles starting at $299, a now-common Black Friday price.
An Amazon Fire 7-inch tablet for $35 instead of $50.
Chromecast 2 and Chromecast Audio together for $50. They're usually $35 each.
Microsoft Surface 3, with 64GB, for $399, about $100 off its current price.
Beats Dr. Dre Powerbeats 2 earbuds for $99. These headphones, in our Ratings, normally sell for about $150.
Bose SoundTrue On-Ear Headphones for $60, down from $90 to $100.

If you're looking to beef up your TV's sound, there's a Samsung 400-series 2.1-channel sound bar system with a wireless sub for $148 and a basic Insignia sound bar with Bluetooth for $50. The Samsung generally sells for about $230.

Now that Best Buy's Black Friday ad is out, we expect to soon see Walmart's. For our take on that, and other Black Friday TV deals, keep checking back for updates. Also, check out our 10 top Black Friday shopping tips and our Countdown to Black Friday calendar.