Microsoft just gave us the perfect excuse to wait until Black Friday to buy a Surface Pro

Poor old Microsoft. It puts all that effort into building – and then launching – a new wave of Surface devices, including the Surface Pro 7 and Surface Pro X, but instead of making me want to rush out and buy one of its new products, instead I want hold tight. Then buy one of the older models.

That’s because, while the new Surface devices – especially the Pro X – look pretty good, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are coming up. Why does that matter? Because, in the many many years I’ve now been covering Black Friday (I think this will be my 1,245th), one of the things that has been pretty dependable (apart from riots at Walmart over crap TVs) is that Surface products, especially the Surface Pro line up, get some excellent deals.

So, usually around this time of year, I’d normally tell anyone who was thinking of buying a Surface Pro to wait a few more weeks and see what kind of Black Friday deals are available. A bit of patience can save you a decent chunk of change.

Microsoft Surface 2019

New devices, big price drops

However, with Microsoft launching new Surface products, it makes it even more likely that the older Surface products will get price cuts as retailers look to clear out the older stock. Remember – Black Friday isn’t done because retailers are kind and want to give us a nice pre-Christmas gift, but because they want to make a lot of money by shifting old (or crap) stock.

Now, the likes of the Surface Pro 6 and the Surface Laptop 2 are certainly not crap, but now that their successors are out, they are ‘old’. At least in the eyes of retailers.

We’ve already seen some decent Surface Pro 6 discounts in the UK since the Surface Pro 7 launch. I expect them to only get better the closer to Black Friday we get.

Minor upgrade

Another good reason for holding off until Black Friday and getting a Surface Pro 6, rather than a 7, is that in our early tests, the Surface Pro 7 isn’t that much of a huge upgrade compared to the previous model.

While that’s disappointing on one hand, it means you can buy the Surface Pro 6 without worrying about missing out too much. In fact, the biggest thing you’ll miss, is the higher price tag.

So, thank you Microsoft for showing us lots of new goodies. But I’m going to hold off for a while…