Another Friday, another roundup of the best tech deals we could find. Our latest selection includes the iPad Air for $500, which is $99 off Apple’s list price and a good value for a tablet we’ve called the best iPad for most people. Beyond that, the 55-inch LG C2 OLED TV is down to a near-low of $1,067, Google’s Nest Thermostat is $50 off at $80, and the 128GB Samsung Evo Select microSD card is on sale for a new low of $12. GameStop is still running a buy-one-get-one-free sale on several video games of note, plus various picks from our Bluetooth speaker, gaming mouse, air fryer and gaming laptop buying guides are also on sale. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today.
Apple iPad Air
Apple’s iPad Air is back on sale for $500, which matches the lowest price we’ve seen outside of a very brief drop to $479 last year. Apple normally sells the 10.9-inch tablet for $599, though it’s often available around $550 on Amazon. The Air is the top pick in our guide to the best iPads and earned a review score of 90 when it launched last year. While it lacks the M2 chip, higher 120Hz refresh rate and improved speakers of the iPad Pro, it provides a similarly elegant design at a much lower price, with a better display, faster processor and wider accessory support than Apple’s lower-end tablets.
Instant Vortex Mini Air Fryer
The top budget pick in our guide to the best air fryers, Instant’s Vortex Mini is down to $40 at Amazon. This is a two-quart model, so it’s not ideal if you want to cook for several people, but we’ve found it effective for smaller servings and side dishes like french fries, tofu, wings and the like. Its dial controls and four preprogrammed settings (air fry, bake, roast, reheat) are simple to use, and the whole thing takes up little countertop space. This deal is $5 more than the device’s all-time low but roughly $10 less than its typical street price. Just note that the discount only applies to the aqua blue model.
Samsung Evo Select
The 128GB model of Samsung’s Evo Select microSD card is down to $12, which is a new all-time low. On average, the U3- and V30-rated card has typically retailed for $15 over the last few months. This isn’t the fastest option on the market, but it’s still fast enough for most things you’d do with a Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck, GoPro or Raspberry Pi. It’s also backed by a 10-year warranty. If you more storage space, the 256GB and 512GB models are down to $21 and $40, respectively.
Google Nest Thermostat
The Google Nest Thermostat is on sale for $80 at B&H, which is $50 off its typical going rate. Note that this is not the Nest Learning Thermostat, which is Google’s higher-end model. By comparison, the standard Nest Thermostat has a less premium design and can’t learn your heating and cooling habits to make automatic adjustments. It also doesn’t support remote temperature sensors, so it’s less convenient for fine-tuning the temperature in specific rooms.
That said, it still lets you control your home’s climate remotely and can help you save on energy costs. It carries over features like HVAC system monitoring and voice assistant control as well, and unlike the pricier model, it supports the new Matter smart home standard. Google rolled out the latter for the Nest Thermostat just this week, allowing it to work with more platforms such as Apple HomeKit and Siri. We’ve highlighted the Nest Thermostat in past roundups.
Razer DeathAdder V3 Pro
Amazon has the white Razer DeathAdder V3 Pro on sale for $120, which is a new low and $30 below its usual price. The device is also available for $2 more at Best Buy. This is the “best premium” pick in our guide to the best gaming mice, as it offers exceptionally responsive performance in a comfortable and ultralight (63g) design. It lacks bells and whistles like RGB lighting and support for multiple control profiles, and most people still don’t need to pay this much to get a good gaming mouse, but it’s tailor-made for competitive-minded players who spend most of their time in twitchy FPS games.
SK Hynix Gold P31
SK Hynix’s Gold P31 is a well-reviewed, power-efficient SSD that should represent a nice upgrade for anyone looking to boost the storage performance of their laptop. Its 2TB model is down to a new all-time low of $108, which is about $60 below the drive’s average street price in recent months. If you don’t need that much capacity, the 1TB model is available for $65. This is a PCI Express 3.0 drive, so it’s not as performant as a higher-end PCIe 4.0 model, nor will it work with a PS5. But it’s still fast enough for most people looking to load up games or transfer large files on the go, and at this price it offers a better cost-per-gigabyte ratio than most of its peers. It also comes with a five-year warranty.
Anker 715 USB-C Charger
If you’re looking for a compact USB-C charger, the Anker 715 Charger is a nice value at its current deal price of $35. We’ve seen this discount a few times before, but it represents a roughly $10 drop from the device’s average street price in recent months. This is a travel-friendly GaN charger (1.65 x 1.42 x 1.74 in.) that can deliver up to 65W of power, which is enough to charge many smartphones, tablets and smaller laptops at full speed. It only has one port, though; if you need something that can top up multiple devices at once, consider some of the alternatives in our guide to the best fast chargers.
Anker Soundcore Motion+
The Anker Soundcore Motion+ is down to $80, which is about $20 below its usual going rate. This is a recommendation from our guide to the best Bluetooth speakers: It can easily supply enough volume to fill a room, and compared to other portable speakers in this price range, it gives tracks an impressive sense of space. It’s not the smallest device, and it can lack some detail in the treble, but it’s well-built and sounds smooth on the whole. Beyond that, it’s water-resistant with an IPX7 rating, so you can safely take it in the pool or shower, and it has a 3.5mm input for wired connections.
Asus ROG Zephyrus G14
Best Buy has a version of Asus’ ROG Zephyrus G14 with a Ryzen 9 6900HS CPU, Radeon RX 6700S GPU, 14-inch 120Hz display, 1TB SSD and 16GB of RAM down to $1,000, which is a new low. The G14 is the top pick in our guide to the best gaming laptops and earned a review score of 85 last year.
Note that this is the 2022 model; if you’re willing to pay more for a brawnier Ryzen 7000 series CPU and Nvidia RTX 40-series GPU, Asus has refreshed models on the way (which likely explains the deal here). Nevertheless, the older Zephyrus G14 is a good value at $1,000, as it can still deliver perfectly playable frame rates with many modern games in 1440p. Relative to other gaming notebooks, it’s also decent for everyday use, with a comfortable keyboard and trackpad, plenty of ports and roughly 7-10 hours of battery life when you aren’t gaming. Its 3.6-pound chassis isn’t a complete anchor, either.
Apple Mac Mini
Apple’s latest Mac Mini is back down to an all-time low of $500. This deal applies to the entry-level version of the compact PC, which includes Apple’s M2 chip, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. With those specs, you’ll want to stick to lighter workloads, especially since you can’t upgrade the Mini’s memory or storage over time. But if that’s all you need, this is the most affordable way into a competent Mac desktop. If you want more storage space, a model with a 512GB SSD is on sale for $690, which is another all-time low. We gave the version of the Mac Mini with Apple’s faster M2 Pro chip a score of 86 in January, but the two devices are similar outside of that processor bump and a couple extra Thunderbolt ports. As of this writing, Amazon’s listing says the device won’t ship until the end of May.
Apple Watch SE
The Apple Watch SE is once again on sale for $219. This is a deal we’ve seen on-and-off for the past few months, but it falls within $10 of the smartwatch’s all-time low and $30 below Apple’s list price. We gave the latest SE a review score of 89 last September and call it a standout option for first-time buyers in our best smartwatches guide. Compared to the Apple Watch Series 8 (our top pick), it lacks an always-on display mode, fast charging and advanced health features like an ECG monitor, skin temperature sensor and blood oxygen sensor. However, it still provides most of the core Apple Watch feature set and the same processor as the Series 8 at a far lower cost.
If you’re willing to pay for the most rugged and longest-lasting Apple Watch, meanwhile, the Apple Watch Ultra is more modestly discounted at $749. That’s about $30 below its usual street price.
LG C2 OLED TV
The 55-inch LG C2 OLED TV is on sale for $1,067, which is about $200 off the average street price we’ve seen in recent months and only $30 more than the lowest price we’ve tracked. The 65-inch version is also down to one of the best prices we’ve seen at $1,397. LG has replaced this 2022 model with this year’s C3 OLED TV, which looks to be a marginal upgrade on the whole but promises improved image processing. This is also a step down from the Samsung S95B and newer S95C in terms of brightness and color saturation; those should be better for brightly-lit rooms.
That said, the C2 is still excellent, offering the kind of deep contrast, smooth motion, low input lag and wide viewing angles you’d expect from a good OLED panel. And at this price, it costs far less than the C3 and Samsung’s models. We previously recommended the C2 in our gaming TV buying guide.
GameStop BOGO sale
If you’ve been looking for games to play before the new Zelda drops, GameStop is running a buy-one-get-one-free sale that includes 40 different titles. Not every game in the sale is a winner, but the selection includes the PS4 version of the giant action-RPG Elden Ring, recent releases like the Yakuza spin-off Like a Dragon: Ishin! and the turn-based RPG Octopath Traveler II, plus Switch exclusives like Bayonetta 3, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD, among others. Just note that the discount will only apply to the cheapest game you add to your cart.
PlayStation and Nintendo Switch game deals
Outside of GameStop’s sale, we’re seeing good prices on a number of recommended PlayStation and Nintendo Switch games. On the PlayStation side, the colorful action game Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and challenging roguelike Returnal are each down to $29, while the brutal sequel The Last of Us Part II is back down to $10. For Switch, several notable indie games are at or near all-time lows, including Celeste and Golf Story for $5 each, Hollow Knight and Spiritfarer for $7.50 each, Untitled Goose Game for $10, Hades for $12 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge for $20. We highlight many of these titles in our guides to the best couch co-op games, best PS5 games and best Switch games.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
Read More
Jeff Dunn