Let’s be honest, it’s been a bit of a slow week for tech deals. Many of the deals you’ll see this Friday are leftovers from last week’s Labor Day sales. Still, there are some discounts worth checking out. For example, Apple’s four-pack of tiny AirTag trackers is $24 off Apple’s list price, and Keychron’s C3 Pro, a budget-friendly mechanical keyboard, remains at its lowest price ever at $25. Other products from our guides to the best microSD cards and affordable wireless earbuds are also on sale. Sonos’s bag-fitting Roam 2 speaker and Elgato’s new Stream Deck Neo control panel are also on sale. Here are this week’s best tech deals you can still buy today.
apple
A four-pack of Apple’s AirTag trackers has been reduced to $75 on Amazon. We’ve seen this sale a few times before, and while it’s a bit higher than the lowest price ever, it’s still $5-10 cheaper than the bundle’s usual sale price over the past few months, and $24 cheaper than buying it directly from Apple.
Not surprisingly, our buying guide calls AirTags the best Bluetooth tracker for iPhone owners. AirTags use a vast network of Apple devices in the field and ultra-wideband wireless technology to pinpoint the location of items with amazing accuracy. The waterproof design and replaceable battery also help. There are unfortunately some side effects to AirTags’ effectiveness, but if used as intended, they can provide some peace of mind. We don’t expect any new models to be announced at next week’s iPhone 16 event; they should be announced sometime next year.
$75 on Amazon
Photo: Nathan Ingraham/Engadget
You can still buy the 9th-gen iPad at its lowest price ever at Amazon, Target, and Best Buy. That’s $50 less than the tablet’s usual selling price over the past year, but it’s worth remembering that Apple stopped making the model when it introduced the new iPad Air and iPad Pro in May of this year. In fact, the new 10th-gen iPad is still a good deal for most people, with a more modern design, a larger display, a USB-C port, a faster chip, a better camera, louder speakers, and better accessory support.
But that tablet is currently $100 more expensive. If you just want the cheapest Apple tablet possible that’s good enough for general web browsing or to give to your kids, the 9th generation model should remain fast enough for basic use for at least another two years, and iPadOS has a better library of tablet-specific apps than Android. It has larger bezels and requires a Lightning cable, but at under $200 it’s more bearable. If you still use wired headphones, this is also the last iPad with a 3.5mm jack.
$199 on Amazon
Photo credit: Jeff Dunn/Engadget
The Keychron C3 Pro is down to $25 on Amazon, making it the cheapest price ever. This keyboard normally retails for $37 (ignore the list price above). The C3 Pro is the top budget choice in our guide to the best mechanical keyboards, and it delivers a comfortable typing experience for the price. Lubricated switches, gasketed mounting deck, and a layer of internal foam give your keystrokes a soft, springy feel and a pleasant clicking sound.
The downsides are that this model only has red backlighting and the ABS keycaps aren’t as high-quality as the caps on more expensive boards. Keychron sells another version with full RGB and hot-swappable switches for $20 more, but if you’re looking to spend as little as possible on your first decent mechanical keyboard, this version is great value for the price.
$25 on Amazon
Photo credit: Jeff Dunn/Engadget
The Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 NC is back on sale for $70, which is a $30 discount and within a dollar of the lowest price we’ve seen. The offer is available at several retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, and Anker’s online store.
The Liberty 4 NC are our runner-up in our best value wireless earphones guide. Like our top pick, the Soundcore Space A40, they offer great features, including effective active noise cancellation (ANC), a comfortable fit, 8-9 hours of battery life, wireless charging support, and the ability to connect to two devices simultaneously. They have strong bass by default, which some people may find fatiguing, but may be enjoyable for genres like rap and EDM. You can also tweak the sound using the EQ tools in Anker’s companion app. However, call quality is not great, and the auto-pause of music when you remove the earbuds can be slow.
The Space A40 is cheaper, so if you prefer the AirPods-like design with its bulkier but easier-to-grasp “stem,” the Liberty 4 NC is the way to go. If so, this is a great buy.
$70 on Amazon
Sound Core
Meanwhile, if you’re looking for budget-friendly over-ear noise-canceling headphones, the Anker Soundcore Space Q45 have been marked down to $100 on Amazon and Soundcore.com , and while that’s not the lowest price we’ve tracked, it’s still $50 cheaper than the headphones’ usual sale price.
At this price, the Q45s are a bargain, with above-average ANC, a soft-padded design, multi-point connectivity, and solid battery life. The V-shaped sound isn’t the best at reproducing fine detail, but it does give pop music plenty of energy, and you can customize the EQ with the Soundcore app. Call quality is mediocre, though. If you’re looking to save a bit more money, the excellent-sounding Audio-Technica ATH-M20xBT is our budget pick in the wireless headphones buying guide, but this pair lacks ANC and isn’t as comfortable.
$100 on Amazon
Photo credit: Jeff Dunn/Engadget
The 1TB model of Samsung’s Pro Plus microSD card is on sale for $100 at Samsung.com, B&H, and Amazon, which is a discount of $20. The sale has been running since last week, but it’s the lowest price yet for the 1TB model that Samsung released a few months ago.
The Pro Plus ranks top in our guide to the best microSD cards. If you’re just looking to add more storage space to a device like the Nintendo Switch, cheaper options will likely suffice. But if you plan to regularly move files around, record high-resolution video, or perform other tasks where a performance upgrade could save you more specifically time, the Pro Plus offers the best balance of speed and value of any we tested. This 1TB model performs the same as the other capacity models we benchmarked, and worst of all, it’s backed by a 10-year limited warranty.
$100 at Samsung
Photo credit: Jeff Dunn/Engadget
If you don’t need quite as much storage, the 128GB Kingston Canvas Go Plus is down to $12 at B&H. That’s a $5 discount and the lowest price we’ve tracked. Our buying guide features this card as a strong alternative to the Samsung Pro Plus. Its sequential and random read speeds are among the fastest in our benchmark tests, but sequential reads are a bit slower, so copying files from one place to another isn’t as fast. Still, the difference isn’t that big, so it’s worth buying if you can get it for less than the Samsung model. With the 128GB Pro Plus on sale for $18 as of this writing, that’s certainly the case.
$12 at B&H Photo Video
Sonos
The Sonos Roam 2 is still available for $143 left over from the Labor Day sale, a $36 discount that matches the portable speaker’s lowest price ever. The sale is available at several stores, including Sonos.com, Amazon, B&H, and Best Buy.
We haven’t officially reviewed the Roam 2, but it’s the sequel to the original Roam speaker, which we reviewed a few years ago and scored an 87. It still has the same beautiful IP67-rated design, slips easily into a bag, and delivers smooth sound that you’d expect from its compact size. It works over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, and its main selling point is the ability to sync and play with other Sonos speakers you already own. This latest model separates the Bluetooth and power buttons for a bit more convenience, but otherwise works similarly.
A few key points to mention: Admittedly, the Sonos app is a bit of a mess right now after a recent update. The speaker also no longer supports Google Assistant (it still works with Alexa), and even with this discount, there are cheaper Bluetooth-only speakers with richer sound and longer lasting (Sonos rates this battery life at about 10 hours on a single charge). But if you’re already invested in a Sonos system or just want an ultra-portable smart speaker with clean sound quality, the Roam 2 even with this discount is a better buy.
$143 at Sonos
apple
If you have an older iPad that you plan to keep for a while and want a stylus for drawing and taking notes, the original Apple Pencil is still worth considering at its current sale price of $69. This discount has been on for a few weeks now, but it’s still $10 less than the average sale price of the device and $30 less than Apple’s suggested retail price. This offer is available on Amazon and Walmart.
The original Pencil is almost a decade old and is clearly outdated. It uses a Lightning port for charging, doesn’t attach magnetically to your iPad, and its shiny, round design tends to roll on flat surfaces. Most people who just want a stylus for their iPad for quick doodling will probably be better off with the new USB-C Pencil. That model doesn’t support pressure sensitivity, though, so you can’t create darker marks when you press harder, for example. The older Pencil does support that feature, so if you have a compatible iPad and want a stylus for more intricate drawing, it might be worth buying the older Pencil. But if you want to use it with a current entry-level iPad, you’ll need to be prepared to live with the dongle.
$69 on Amazon
Elgato
The Elgato Stream Deck Neo is back at an all-time low of $85 at Amazon, Target, Best Buy, and Elgato.com. That’s a discount of $15. We’ve long recommended Elgato’s Stream Deck MK.2 in our guides to the best live streaming equipment, and the Neo is essentially a smaller, more affordable version of that Control Center, with eight customizable LCD keys instead of 15.
These are especially popular among Twitch and YouTube fans, but you don’t have to be a streamer to use them. For example, if you have esoteric tasks that you often repeat throughout the day, like opening a specific group of websites or typing in a specific command string, you can assign them to the Neo’s buttons so you can access them with a single press. You can also use it to control smart lights. This is definitely a niche device, and Elgato’s software could be a bit more streamlined. But if you’ve got a bit of cash to spare and want to dive into the world of macros, it could be useful.
$85 on Amazon
Larian Studio
Now, for this week’s video game deals. Baldur’s Gate 3 PC is on sale for $48 on GOG and Steam. That’s a $12 discount, and it’s tied for the lowest price ever. We praised BG3 in our best PC games guide. It’s huge, yet incredibly flexible, for a narrative-driven CRPG. A big part of the fun is seeing how your (many) decisions shape the world around you. Meanwhile, the endearing characters and playful turn-based combat system are compelling from start to finish. It’s probably too long, but it’s the closest a game can get to recreating the feel of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. It’s also fun to play co-op. This offer comes in conjunction with the game’s latest update, which adds official mod support.
$48 on GOG
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