Spooky season is also savings season. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge
Spooky season may soon be coming to a close, but deals season is still in full swing. First off, you can buy the latest version of the Amazon Echo smart speaker for just $49.99 at Amazon, Best Buy, or Target. This $50 discount is the lowest price for the fourth generation of Amazon’s smart speaker. While it came out in 2020, and the smaller Echo Dot just got a fifth-gen release, the ponderous Echo just got a handy new feature added via firmware update. Now, if you have an Eero mesh Wi-Fi router you can use the fourth-gen Echo to extend its network.
But the Echo does a lot more than extend a Wi-Fi network, as it’s actually got a pretty formidable sound output for a small speaker. It can fill most rooms with music, and it even has some good bass, if just a tad overly processed-sounding. Plus, it’s one of the most well-rounded (wink) smart home speakers in Amazon’s selection, since it has a hub built in for connecting to other devices like Zigbee-powered smart bulbs. Read our review.
If you’re looking for a new phone from Google but don’t want to spend Pixel 7 money, the excellent bang-for-your-buck Pixel 6A is on a fresh sale for just $299 at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target. That’s $150 off the regular price of $449, which is kind of absurd considering how good this phone is even at full price. The Pixel 6A uses the same Tensor CPU as the Pixel 6 generation phones, and it pairs that with a much more modestly sized 6.1-inch OLED display. Sure, it doesn’t have a high-refresh-rate screen or the latest cameras with 50-megapixel sensors, but it’s fast, it’s got some AI-driven smarts like Google’s excellent Recorder app, and it’s cheap. The 6A is already running Android 13 and it’s promised to get software updates through July 2025 and security updates until July 2027. All that for $299? That’s hard to pass up. Read our review.
I’m just going to say it: the first-gen Apple Pencil needs to die and go away. Though, sadly, it’s here to stay and plague us for now. But thankfully, the much better second-gen Apple Pencil is on sale for its lowest price of $89 at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy. This $40 discount is as good as it gets for Apple’s best writing and drawing experience. If you own a compatible iPad and like to draw or take handwritten notes, you definitely want to snag this deal.
A big part of what makes this version of the Apple Pencil so great is how it charges. You just slap it on the designated side of your iPad (it attaches with magnets), and it immediately begins to charge. It’s also got improved sensitivity and pressure levels over the first-gen model, and supports some handy gesture shortcuts when you tap its side. Really, the main downside of it is the price, and today’s deal at least helps with that.
The plush and comfortable Bose QuietComfort 45 noise-canceling headphones are on sale for $249 at Amazon and Best Buy and $249.99 at Target. This $80 discount is just $20 away from the all-time low price we saw during the recent Amazon Prime Early Access Sale, and judging by Best Buy’s countdown timer, they’re only available at this price for today.
The QC45 are the latest addition to Bose’s line of excellent over-the-ear headphones, and feature some exceptional noise cancellation that’s perfect for traveling on a plane or isolating yourself from a noisy office when it’s heads-down working time. They also sport some great battery life and a helpful transparency mode for when you need to be aware of your surroundings. While they’re not a radical departure from the prior-gen QC35 II, they offer improvements to all the things Bose does right with this line — earning them a prominent spot in our headphone buying guide. Read our review.
Kick off the week with more deals:
We saw a bunch of exceptional deals on Google devices at Wellbots on Friday, and now those sale prices are more widely available — no coupon code required. These include bangers like the Nest Audio for just $49.99 ($50 off) at Best Buy, Walmart, and Target. The excellent noise-canceling Pixel Buds Pro are down to $149.99 ($50 off) at Amazon, Target, and Best Buy. And the Google Nest Hub Max with its 10-inch display that you can command by just looking at it and talking to it is down to $164 ($65 off) at Target, Walmart, and Best Buy.
If you want a great value on a larger Apple Watch, you can get the last-gen Series 7 in 45mm size for $309 ($120 off) in midnight or blue. The Series 8 isn’t the biggest upgrade over this model, so it’s a much more affordable way to get a larger watch without turning to older models. Read our review.
Are you an Xbox Series X owner who doesn’t subscribe to Xbox Game Pass? Well, then it’s a good time to buy Deathloop since it’s on sale for $29.99 ($30 off). That’s the lowest price on the Xbox version so far, and a great price for this 2021 GOTY-contender. Read our review.
Samsung’s latest The Frame TV is on sale for $997.99 (about $500 off) at Amazon and for $999.99 at Best Buy. This model has the much-improved matte display, so when you switch it to standby mode to display some fancy artwork, it looks more like the real thing and less like a TV.