Bell shares early Black Friday “deals”

Bell has posted a page with Black Friday deals, but anyone with a basic understanding of math can see that most of these plans aren't good deals. If you're looking for a new phone or planning to shop on Black Friday, we often recommend stopping by a store as they usually have better deals due to local competition. This is doubly true in shopping centers.

That said, let's break down Bell's offerings and see if you can save money.

The first thing that looks like a good deal is the Google Pixel 10 Pro. The company is offering a discount of up to $1 per month if you sign up for a two-year contract and plan to return the phone after that. However, the only plan it currently offers under this deal is $115 per month. As a result, you'll have to pay Bell $2,784 over two years for the phone and plan, and after that time you won't own your phone. The Samsung S26 deal turned out to be exactly the same.

It's actually cheaper to buy a no-deal Pixel 10 Pro for $15 a month with Bell's $85 plan, since that's only $2,400. However, once the contract expires, you still don't own the phone.

You can buy the Pixel 10 Pro directly from Google for $1,349, but you can pair it with Virgin's $50 Plan (also Bell coverage area) and your total cost over two years is just $2,549. Or you can use another provider, e.g. Public mobile And Freedom Mobile there are even better options.

With the Bell plan you get more perks like HD video streaming and 250GB of data, but I still don't know anyone who uses that much data per month. On average Canadians use about 9 GB in 30 daysand as a huge nerd, I could use an average of 15 GB per month.

I will also say that Google has habit of discounting Pixels on Black Fridayso there's a good chance that if you want a Pixel 10 Pro, you can probably find it for a few hundred dollars cheaper than retail if you wait.

Moving forward, Bell's iPhone deal has become even more transparent. The Black Friday deal applies to last year's iPhone 16, but to be eligible, you'll need to return it after two years and trade it in for the iPhone 14. This deal is also only available in stores, but when I called a store near me, I was told it was also tied to the $115 Ultimate plan. This means you'll spend $2,820 on a phone/plan over two years and, again, you won't have a phone at the end of that period.

What's more, you'll have to pay a connection fee whether you go in-store or online. Bell now charges an $80 connection fee, and unlike in past years when Bell waived the full connection fee for online orders, the company is only offering a $55 credit that can be applied “within 60 days.”

You can buy Apple's iPhone 16 for $999 (or finance it with zero interest). Then, if you combine that with the same $50 Virgin Plus plan I mentioned earlier, you get a two-year cost of $2,200. Apple rarely discounts its phones, but it usually offers a $50 gift card if you're shopping on Black Friday and want to wait.

Speaking of waiting, Black Friday is still a couple of weeks away, so it's probably worth waiting and seeing if the deals get any better.

If you are looking for more technical suggestions, check out our roundup of all the current Black Friday coverage.

Source: Bell