While most of the Presidents’ Day sales happening today are more focused on appliances and home goods than tech, we’ve still found a few gadget deals worth noting. If you need a new set of headphones, for example, the excellent Anker Soundcore Space A40 earbuds are on sale for $59, while Apple’s noise-canceling AirPods Max are $69 off at $480. An Xbox Series S console bundle is $30 off, while the ASUS ROG Ally is down to a low of $600 for those interested in a more portable gaming machine. We’re also seeing deals on Samsung OLED TVs, the Apple Pencil and 8BitDo’s Retro Mechanical Keyboard. Here are all of the best Presidents’ Day 2024 sales on tech we could find, updated for the holiday itself.
Best Presidents’ Day sales on headphones
Photo by Jeff Dunn / Engadget
The Soundcore Space A40 is back down to $59 at Amazon, which is $5 more than these earphones’ all-time low but $20 off their typical street price. The Space A40 is the top pick in our guide to the best budget wireless earbuds, as it offers strong active noise cancellation (ANC), a lightweight design, multi-device pairing and wireless charging at a bargain price. While it’s not as detailed as the absolute best true wireless earbuds we’ve tested, its mildly bass-boosted profile should sound pleasant to most. Reliable touch controls and a solid eight hours of battery life also help, though there’s no wear detection and the built-in mic isn’t great.
Photo by Billy Steele / Engadget
The Apple AirPods Max are on sale for $480 at Amazon and Best Buy. That’s not an all-time low, and it’s $30 above the price we saw earlier in Presidents’ Day weekend. Still, it’s about $20 off the wireless headphones’ average street price over the past month and $69 less than buying from Apple directly.
The AirPods Max isn’t an official pick in our wireless headphone buying guide, as even with this discount it’s too expensive to recommend widely. That said, it’s one of the cleaner sounding wireless headphones we’ve tested, its aluminum frame looks and feels premium and its ANC is still among the strongest available. It has all the usual AirPods conveniences, too: fast pairing with other Apple devices, Find My tracking, hands-free Siri and so on. It’s heavier than most over-ear pairs, however, and its included case is barely protective. Nevertheless, if you’re an Apple diehard who is willing to pay a premium, they may be worthwhile. We gave the AirPods Max a review score of 84 back in late 2020.
Bose
If you want a slightly more affordable set of noise-canceling over-ears, the Bose QuietComfort Headphones are back down to $249 at Amazon, Walmart and other retailers. That equals their all-time low and comes in $100 below Bose’s list price. While we haven’t formally reviewed this pair, it’s a very close follow-up to the older Bose QuietComfort 45, which we generally liked. That means it should feel light and cushy to wear and provide effective ANC for most use cases. Unlike many pairs, you can adjust the intensity of that ANC, and the design uses physical control buttons instead of touch inputs. It can also pair with two devices at once. Some reviews suggest that it has a more bass-heavy sound than the older model, however. Sony’s WH-1000XM5 will still be a better choice for most, but that pair is currently available for $328, which isn’t significantly cheaper than the usual prices we’ve seen over the last few months.
Best Presidents’ Day sales on TVs
Samsung
The 55-inch Samsung S90C OLED TV is down to $1,298 at Amazon, tying the price we saw for much of the holiday season last year. Best Buy has it for $2 more. Either way, this is $200 to $300 less than the set’s typical street price since December. It’s still pricey, but the S90C has earned widespread praise from reviewers for offering a premium image. Its QD-OLED panel provides the high contrast and wide viewing angles you’d expect from an upper-end OLED TV but includes a layer of quantum dots improve brightness and color performance. This means it should hold up better than most traditional OLEDs in a room with the lights on. It has four HDMI 2.1 ports that can reach a 144Hz refresh rate, so its picture should be responsive for gaming as well. The big downside is that there’s no Dolby Vision, which is generally regarded as the best-looking HDR format, though content using HDR10, HDR10+ or HLG should still come off well.
Photo by Amy Skorheim / Engadget
Amazon subsidiary Woot has discounted Samsung’s The Frame TV in various sizes. The 65-inch model, for instance, is down to $1,398, which is about $475 below its average street price over the last few months. The 50-inch version is also on sale for $868, or roughly $200 off its recent going rate.
The Frame TV’s QLED panel lacks full-array local dimming or mini-LED backlights, so it can’t match the best sets in its price range when it comes to contrast and HDR performance. It’s also limited to one HDMI 2.1 port. But you’d mainly buy it for the aesthetic: Its design looks a mountable piece of wall art, and you can have it display different works and photos when you’re not watching something. Samsung has announced a new variant of the Frame for later this year, but if you’re particular about how your TV fits into your home decor, the current model is worth considering at these prices.
Best Presidents’ Day sales on gaming gear
8BitDo
The 8BitDo Retro Mechanical Keyboard is down to $80 at Woot, which is a new low and $20 off its typical price. We previously highlighted this tenkeyless keyboard in our retro gaming gift guide. This deal applies to the “Fami” edition of the board, which looks like it could slot in right next to Nintendo’s old Famicom console. Another version that’s more in line with the North American NES is available for $95.
That vintage styling is the main appeal here, but the keyboard itself is perfectly solid. Though it’s made from plastic, it neither looks nor feels cheap, and its PBT keycaps are crisp. It can connect over Bluetooth, a 2.4GHz wireless dongle or a detachable USB-C cable, plus it comes with a fun pair of macro-programmable “Super Buttons” that resemble a jumbo NES pad. The main negative is that it’s only available with one switch type (the clicky Kailh Box White V2), which is generally comfortable but makes a higher-pitched sound that won’t be pleasant to everyone. (Those switches are hot-swappable, however.) 8BitDo’s app doesn’t work on macOS, either, and there are more featured options for gaming. As a whole, though, this is a nice value for those seeking a blast of nostalgia.
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
The ASUS ROG Ally is down to $600 at Best Buy, a $100 discount that matches the all-time low for this configuration with AMD’s Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor. This is the top Windows pick in our guide to the best gaming handhelds. If offers higher performance modes than the Steam Deck, so it’s a bit more capable with graphically demanding games, and it provides easier access to non-Steam storefronts like the Xbox app and Epic Games Store. And while it doesn’t have an OLED display, its LCD panel has a variable refresh rate up to 120Hz, which keeps games looking smooth.
We still think the Deck is better for most, as Valve’s software experience is much better-suited to a handheld design than Windows 11. The Ally has worse battery life, too — expect it to tap out after a couple of hours, if not fewer. But if you can put up with some UI quirks and want to play PC games from stores besides Steam on the go, there’s fun to be had here.
Photo by Aaron Souppouris / Engadget
Target has the Xbox Series S “Starter Bundle” on sale for $270. We’ve seen a handful of deals on Microsoft’s entry-level game console over the past year, and this discount isn’t as low as the one we saw earlier in the weekend, but it’s still $30 off. The bundle pairs the 512GB version of the device with a three-month subscription to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which normally goes for $17 per month on its own.
As a reminder, the Series S is the weaker of the two current Xbox consoles, so it’s meant for gaming on 1440p or 1080p displays rather than large 4K TVs. It also lacks a disc drive, and you can’t fully expand its storage without a pricey expansion card. It can play all the same games as the brawnier Xbox Series X (if not all the same modes), however, and the device itself is much smaller. As a cheap secondary console for playing Forza Horizon 5, Halo Infinite and other Xbox games, it’s still a decent value. It’s worth noting that Xbox last week confirmed plans to bring four of its exclusive games to other consoles, though the company reiterated that it has no plans to make all of its first-party titles multi-platform anytime soon.
Photo by Jeff Dunn / Engadget
The Corsair Virtuoso Pro is on sale for $141 at Amazon and Best Buy, which is a $59 discount and a new low. This is an honorable mention in our guide to the best gaming headsets. It stands out for having an open-back design, which gives it a more open and spacious sound than most gaming-specific pairs we’ve tested. It has a better boom mic than our top pick, the also-open-back Astro A40, so it’ll make your voice sound clearer in party chat. The A40 still has a slight edge in terms of sound quality, and like all open-back pairs the Virtuoso Pro does a poor job of blocking outside noise, so it’s not ideal in a noisy room. If you don’t need a built-in mic, a good set of traditional wired headphones will sound better as well. But if you want an all-in-one option for gaming, this is one of the better headsets we’ve tried, and it’s a much easier sell when it’s discounted to this extent.
Best Presidents’ Day sales on other tech
Photo by Valentina Palladino / Engadget
The second-gen Apple Pencil is down to $79 at Amazon, Walmart and Best Buy, a $50 discount that ties the lowest price we’ve tracked. We recommend this stylus in our guide to the best iPad accessories, as it’s consistently accurate for note-taking and sketching. It’s also pressure-sensitive, unlike Apple’s other Pencil models, so it can respond to lighter or deeper presses. It can attach magnetically to a compatible iPad, too, and it’ll automatically charge and pair when connected. It’s worth noting that Apple may release a new Pencil in the coming weeks, but we’d expect current model to remain a decent value when it’s discounted to this extent.
Amazon
The 64GB version of Amazon’s Fire HD 10 tablet is on sale for $105, which is $75 off Amazon’s list price. We’ve seen this deal for the much of the last few weeks, but it still represents an all-time low. If you just want a competent tablet for as little cash as possible, this slate might suffice. Its 10.1-inch 1080p display is decently sharp and bright, it gets around 10 hours of battery life and it runs quickly enough for basic streaming and web browsing. You don’t want to push it for much beyond the basics, however, and its plastic chassis is a far cry from an iPad. Plus, Amazon’s Fire OS still saddles you with a limited app selection, lock screen ads and frequent nudges to use Amazon services like Prime Video. If you often use apps like Prime Video or Kindle anyway, though, that may not matter.
It’s worth noting that the 32GB version of the Fire HD 10 is currently available for $10 less, but that’s $15 more than that model’s lowest price. You can expand either device’s storage with a microSD card, but if you don’t want to deal with that, this should be a decent value.
Photo by Sam Rutherford / Engadget
The Google Pixel Fold is still down to $1,399 at Amazon and Best Buy, which ties the largest discount we’ve seen for the unlocked 256GB model. While not cheap, that’s $400 off the foldable phone’s list price. The 512GB model is also $400 off and down to $1,519 at Google’s online store.
We gave the Pixel Fold a score of 85 in our review last June, and it’s now the runner up in our foldable phone buying guide. It has a thinner frame than Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 5, its chief rival, and its 5.8-inch cover display has a shorter and wider aspect ratio, which makes it easier to use like a normal phone when folded. It takes better photos than the Galaxy and OnePlus Open, plus it offers a relatively streamlined version of Android. Both the Galaxy and Open are faster, though, and the former has more vibrant displays. Samsung’s UI is better for multitasking as well, and all foldable phones carry a higher durability risk than traditional handsets. Still, if you’re a Pixel fan who has been thinking about taking the foldable plunge, this deal makes diving in a little more manageable.
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