If you’re serious about mobile gaming, these are the gaming phones to look out for this Black Friday – including some great early deals

Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro review images
(Image credit: Future)

Black Friday is almost here, which is a big deal for tech fans, gaming fans, and gaming tech fans. If that means you, keep reading, because I reckon we’re due to see big discounts on some of the best gaming phones during this year’s biggest shopping event.

That’s more than just a hunch – from last year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales to the various Prime Day sales since, we’ve seen some serious deals on top gaming phone models in the last 12 months.

And if that wasn’t enough, we can already see a small crop of gaming phone deals as retailers start to roll out early Black Friday discounts.

Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: was $1,419.99 now $1,141.08 at Amazon

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra might not come to mind right away when you think of the best gaming phones, but it's out pick for the best phone for gaming and more thanks to its powerful internal hardware, big and beautiful display, and big battery. It's also one of the best camera phones and the very best Samsung phone you can buy, meaning you won't be giving up other key features for the sake of gaming performance. This US-only deal knocks almost $300 off the price of the 512GB model.

Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro
Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro: was £1,099.99 now £949.99 at Scan

In the UK, SCAN has the Asus ROG Phone 9 Pro on sale for £150 off its retail price. As our pick for the best premium gaming phone, the ROG Phone 9 Pro is all about hardware power and gaming features. Its shoulder buttons, rear-mounted LED displays, and compatibility with controller and cooling accessories make this the best choice for the best and most demanding mobile games. It's also got the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset and, at minimum, 16GB of RAM, which is plenty of power for all kinds of gaming scenarios.

It seems likely that the ROG Phone 9 and ROG Phone 9 Pro will be discounted again, especially considering that both handsets have now been on the market for almost a year.

With the Galaxy S25 series being almost a year old, it’s likely we’ll see some solid price cuts for the best Samsung phones as sales ramp up.

And while the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are possibly still too new on the scene to see any big deals, stranger things have happened during Black Friday.

It’s more likely that we’ll see price cuts for the previous-generation iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, both of which are still pretty beastly handsets thanks to the A18 Pro chipset and 8GB of RAM.

Whether you’re after a specialist gaming phone from Asus ROG or RedMagic, or a mainstream iPhone or Samsung Galaxy handset with enough power for the best mobile games, it’s likely we’ll see some great gaming phone deals this Black Friday. Let us know which gaming phones you want to see discounted in the comments below.

Jamie Richards
Mobile Computing Staff Writer

Jamie is a Mobile Computing Staff Writer for TechRadar, responsible for covering phones and tablets. He’s been tech-obsessed from a young age and has written for various news and culture publications. Jamie graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London in 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism. Since starting out as a music blogger in 2020, he’s worked on local news stories, finance trade magazines, and multimedia political features. He brings a love for digital journalism and consumer technology to TechRadar. Outside of the TechRadar office, Jamie can be found binge-watching tech reviews, DJing in local venues around London, or challenging friends to a game of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

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