Get a year of PlayStation Plus Essential for just $40 for a limited time

Our readers can buy a year of PlayStation Plus Essential for just $40 from Eneba today. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

If you’re one of the lucky ones who have managed to nab a PlayStation 5, you’ll be pleased to hear that luck is once again working in your favor. Right now, Verge readers can buy a year of PlayStation Plus Essential service from Eneba for around $40 instead of $59.99 when they use promo code VERGEssentials at checkout. Note that the price might fluctuate by a few dollars and cents on Eneba’s website, but the final sale price at checkout should be under $40.

PlayStation Plus Essential grants access to online multiplayer and monthly PS4 and PS5 titles, which you can download at no additional cost. It also comes with PlayStation Store discounts, exclusive add-on content, and 100GB of cloud storage for saved games. Even better, PS5 owners can access the PlayStation Plus Collection, which includes God of War, Control, and a wealth of other great, last-gen titles. These are all perks that should make playing on your new PS5 — or your PS4 — even more enjoyable, but you’ll have to hurry: this deal will last for a limited time only.

Google’s new Pixel 6A just came out, yet we’re already seeing some good deals on the excellent, budget-friendly smartphone. Now through 11:59PM PT on August 7th, you can get a $50 Amazon gift card when you buy an unlocked Pixel 6A on Amazon for $449, the phone’s full retail price. To receive the credit, scroll down to where it says “Special offers and product promotions” on the product page and click the “Add both to cart” button. Best Buy is also offering nearly the same deal through August 7th, albeit throwing in a $50 Best Buy gift card, while Google’s current promotion nets you $50 worth of Google Store credit.

We recently gave the Pixel 6A a good review. True, the phone’s 6.1-inch OLED screen is smaller than the more expensive Pixel 6 and offers a slower, 60Hz refresh rate. However, for the price, it offers good value, especially since it performs well, captures great photos, and shares the same snappy Tensor processor as the rest of the Pixel 6 lineup. Read our review.

If you’re looking for a good pair of noise-canceling headphones to help you focus while working remotely or studying in your dorm room (just to name some of the many instances when ANC is nice to have), Microsoft’s Surface Headphones 2 are an excellent pair that will do the job quite nicely. Not only do they sound good and effectively cancel out noise, but they also come with productivity-enhancing features like multipoint Bluetooth support. That’s great for multitaskers, given it means you can easily pair them to and switch back and forth between multiple devices while working. Other niceties include intuitive dial controls for both volume and noise cancellation, as well as improved battery life when compared to their predecessor.

While their noise-canceling capabilities aren’t quite as impressive as Sony’s and Bose’s, they’re still one of our favorite pairs of headphones. Normally $249.99, Amazon and Target are selling them in black right now for just $189.99, which is the cheapest they’ve been all year. The current price is also just $28 shy of their best price to date, which we last saw during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Read our review.

If you haven’t already heard the news, Meta will be increasing the price of its popular Meta Quest 2 virtual reality headset by $100 next week. That makes today a good time to buy it, especially since Meta is still discounting a refurbished Quest 2 by $50. Right now, you can buy the 128GB model — which comes with two Touch controllers, a glasses spacer, a pair of AA batteries, a USB-C cable, and a power adapter — for $249, a cool $50 off the current price of a new model. The headset is certified refurbished by Meta, too, which means the company has inspected, cleaned, and tested it to make sure it works and looks like it’s new. Plus, the device comes with a one-year warranty, a 30-day return period, and free delivery.

The Quest 2 offers a variety of features we like, including 120Hz refresh rate support for certain games, the ability to connect wirelessly to gaming PCs, and a sharp display. Plus, you no longer need to sign up with your Facebook account in order to use it, which was something we weren’t big fans of when we first reviewed in headset in 2020. Read our review.

Even more great deals before we wrap up the week

Nintendo is taking up to 30 percent off of select Nintendo Switch games until August 7th. The current promotion includes digital titles like Tetris Effect Connected on sale for $23.99 ($16 off) and Monster Hunter Rise on sale for $30.59 ($29.40 off), as well nostalgic hits like Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 + 2 for $20 ($20 off).

Amazon and Nanoleaf are still offering 58 percent off the Nanoleaf Shapes Mini Triangles, which are still available as part of a five-panel starter kit for just $49.99. The colorful lights aren’t particularly big, but they can easily expand to create larger geometric shapes.
If you can’t wait to find out what happens next in Denis Villeneuve’s continuing film adaption of Dune, you can buy the first three ebooks in Frank Herbert’s Dune series on Amazon and the Google Play Store for just $1.99 (about $29 off).

Yeedi’s budget-friendly Vac 2 Pro is on sale at Amazon for $327.99 ($123 off) when you clip on the on-page coupon during this Lightning Deal. It’s a good robot vacuum that rarely gets stuck and benefits from some high-end features — including oscillating mopping — but it’s not quite on par with higher-end end models when it comes to navigation and mapping. Read our review.