Prime Day usually has some great deals and a whole lot of mediocre ones. Here’s how to sift through them and find the best picks for you.
Amazon Prime Day is coming, and that means there are some great deals to be had on top products, especially electronics, on July 12 and 13. It’s like Black Friday in July. For every quality device, however, there are a dozen items that aren’t nearly as compelling a bargain. There will be some bad deals, generic fluff, and outright mediocrity on offer for Prime Day. Like I said, Black Friday in July. Here are some tips for finding the best deals, and recognizing the worst ones, in the gigantic and shifting pile of products that is Prime Day.
1. Cut Out Distractions, Focus on the CategoryThe column on the left lets you narrow down your categories. Clicking on the Prime Day banner and going to the deals will open up a sprawling list of thousands of products from every corner of Amazon. By default, the list will prioritize “Featured” products, but that isn’t very useful and becomes even less helpful as you scroll down. Avoid impulse buys by focusing on the type of deals you’re actually shopping for. On the left side of the page (if you’re shopping on a web browser), look at the list of Departments. There are dozens, from first-party Amazon devices to headphones to books to musical instruments. Check only the departments you actually want to browse.2. First-Party Deals Will Be the Best Ones
Everyone who sells anything on Amazon will be trying to get some Prime Day attention, but the best discounts will probably be on Amazon’s own lineup of hardware products. The Amazon Devices department will have some of the most significant discounts on products we’ve reviewed and can actually recommend. Echo smart speakers and smart displays, Fire tablets, Fire TV media streamers, Kindle ereaders, most of which are excellent devices, will be on sale for much less than they usually retail for. One possible exception is TVs, which will likely include both Amazon’s own Fire TV televisions and Insignia, Pioneer, and Toshiba TVs that use the Fire TV platform. Fire TV is an excellent smart TV system with lots of features, but the TVs we’ve tested that use it, like the Amazon Fire TV Omni and Toshiba C350, generally show mediocre picture quality. It doesn’t mean they’re bad TVs, but they’ll probably deliver budget-level performance. To be fair, we haven’t tested all Fire TV televisions, but our experience with Amazon, Insignia, and Toshiba models leads us to advise you to be wary if you want the best viewing experience for the price.
