Black Friday is mere weeks away, which means the Christmas shopping season is basically here. To help you fill out your tech gadget wish list — or to make someone else’s Christmas dreams come true — we rounded up the best electronics that were launched in 2026. Which ones are you grabbing?
There’s no way around it. Gadgets are expensive — even more than usual, thanks to the ongoing RAM shortage. According to a survey conducted by CNET, families are prepared to spend less on tech Christmas gifts this year. That means the money you do spend needs to stretch as far as possible.
This is just the first half of our Christmas gift wish list.
With Black Friday and Cyber Monday coming up fast, the best gadgets are sure to go on sale, bringing their prices down close to where they used to be before the RAM crisis, or possibly even lower. While we can’t predict which products will get a price cut, we do know the hottest items launched in 2026 that you should watch.
Foldable smartphones
This was the year for foldables. Technically, these have been around in the mainstream limelight since Samsung introduced the original Galaxy Fold in 2019. Other smartphone manufacturers jumped into the fray over time, while one major player stayed away — until now.
After years of watching the competition and refining its own spin on the form factor, Apple introduced iPhone Duo, the company’s first foldable smartphone this fall. It features a squat 5.4-inch outer screen that opens up into a more expansive 7.6-inch tablet-like inner display, virtually turning it into an iPad Mini that fits into your pocket.
Under the hood sits Apple’s latest exceptionally powerful A20 Pro chip built for the new Siri AI. It also excels at playing high-performance games, like Genshin Impact, Roblox, and No Man’s Sky, which just debuted on iOS and iPadOS.
The downside is that iPhone Duo is expensive, starting at $1,999 for the 256 GB model and topping out at $3,199 for the 2 TB version. On top of that, it is hard to get. If you go on Apple’s website, some iPhone Duos aren’t shipping until January, so if you happen to find one elsewhere and you want it, get it. Otherwise, you could be waiting for months.
Not to be outdone, Samsung also launched a new foldable in a wide form factor this year. The Galaxy Z Fold8 comes with a slightly larger 5.5-inch outer display that opens into a 7.6-inch tablet. It is powered by a worthy Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 built especially for Galaxy phones that is great for daily tasks, AI, and gaming.
Unlike iPhone Duo, the Z Fold8 is widely available with no major shipping delays, though it is also quite expensive, starting at $1,899.99 for 256 GB of storage and $2,499.99 for the 1 TB version. The Z Fold8 was already on sale during Prime Day in October, so chances are high that it will dip again during the Christmas season.
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Conventional smartphones
On the conventional smartphone front, both Samsung and Apple stepped up their flagship devices in notable ways.
The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra features a new privacy display that dims some of the pixels on the screen to block visibility to anyone standing beside you. This ensures that only you can see the content on your screen as you look directly at it. Privacy display works for the entire screen, or you can set it to only block sensitive details, like banking information or passwords. Sadly, the extra feature will cost you, as Samsung recently raised the price of its Galaxy S26 Ultra to $1,399.99, though that number may temporarily dip back down based on current sales and offers.
As for the iPhone 18 Pro series, these devices come with Apple’s first 2nm chip, the A20 Pro. It is built to handle demanding on-device AI workloads, and it also excels at graphically intensive tasks, like playing premium games for an extended period of time. The 18 Pro phones also feature a new vapor chamber to keep the devices cooler under load. The only downside is that the iPhone 18 Pro series is $100 more expensive than last year, starting at $1,199.
As for Google Pixel, it is getting harder to recommend this device, largely due to Google’s in-house Tensor chip. Generation after generation, Google prioritizes Tensor’s on-device AI processes while falling behind in graphics and CPU performance. This year, the Tensor G6 made only marginal improvements, with performance benchmarking on par with an iPhone 15 from 2023. At a premium price of $1,099, the Pixel 11 Pro series isn’t worth the full amount. Instead, wait for a sale or opt for the cheaper Pixel 11 at $899.
RELATED: Not all new iPhones are worth it. This one blows them all away.
Top laptops
Laptops got way more interesting this year, thanks to two major tech giants injecting some excitement into the well-established category.
First, gaming phenom and AI tech giant Nvidia shocked the market when it announced a brand-new line of Windows laptops featuring its own Nvidia Spark RTX chips, made in partnership with MediaTek.
The RTX Spark N1X is an ARM-based chip designed to run local open source AI models. It comes in two different configurations, maxing out with a 6,144-core CUDA GPU and a 20-core CPU. Although it is made with AI creators in mind, these laptops can also play some optimized games from storefronts like Steam, complete with ray tracing support and DLSS 5 on board.
Nvidia partnered with six Windows hardware OEMs to launch laptop options from Microsoft, Dell, ASUS, HP, Lenovo, and MSI. Unfortunately, they’re all very expensive, starting at $2,599 and jumping all the way past $4,000 for premium-configured models.
Apple also stunned users with two new MacBooks that both gained popularity for very different reasons.
The MacBook Neo is the company’s new budget-friendly option. It offers a 13-inch display mated to an aluminum body that comes in several fun colors. Under the hood, it hides a paltry 8 GB of memory and up to 512 GB of storage, all powered by an Apple A18 Pro chip — the same one found in the iPhone 16 Pro series. On paper, the computer isn’t nearly as powerful as some of the other Macs in Apple’s lineup, but starting at only $699, it makes a great laptop for students and leisurely use around the house.
At the other end of the spectrum, Apple just launched its first-ever touch-screen-enabled MacBook, dubbed the MacBook Pro with a PROLED XDR display. Packed with Apple’s most premium hardware, it features your choice of a 14-inch or 16-inch display, a performant M5 Pro or M5 Max chip, 24 GB to 128 GB of memory depending on your configuration, and 1 TB to 16 TB of storage.
As expected, the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR display is pricey, starting at $2,899 for the base 14-inch model and topping out at $14,549 — yes, a solid down payment for a new home — for the maxed-out 16-inch model. Luckily, there’s a lot of price variation between those two points, so you can still get a well-specced model for slightly less than an entire arm or leg.
More to come
This is just the first half of our Christmas gift wish list. Come back to see the hottest tablets, wearables, and accessories of 2026 that you’ll want to mark down for Black Friday and beyond.
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