\nArs Technica<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n<\/aside>\n<\/p>\n
It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time for another Dealmaster. Our latest roundup of the best tech deals from around the web includes another round of discounts on Amazon’s Fire HD tablets, with both the 10.1-inch Fire HD 10 and the 8-inch Fire HD 8 on sale for $100 and $50, respectively. While neither deal marks an all time<\/em> low\u2014these two slates were available for $75 and $45 during Amazon’s latest Prime Day sale, for instance\u2014they’re still a good ways below the usual street prices we’ve seen.<\/p>\nIn general, the song remains the same with Amazon’s tablet offerings: they can’t touch any iPad when it comes to build quality, app support, or future-proofed performance, and they’re all pretty aggressive about steering their users toward Amazon content and services. But if you can live with that and just need a tablet on the cheap, they still have their uses.<\/p>\n
The Fire HD 10 in particular offers good value at this deal price, with a serviceable 1080p display and enough in the performance and battery life departments to make casual video watching, ebook reading, and web browsing not too<\/em> frustrating The Fire HD 8 is a drop-off across the board, but at $50, it’s inexpensive enough to be justifiable if price is all that matters. Both models here come with lock-screen ads and 32GB of storage, though you can remove the former for an extra $15 and upgrade the latter with a microSD card if needed.<\/p>\nBesides tablets, our roundup also includes the lowest prices we’ve tracked on Google’s Pixel 6 phones: the base model is currently down to $499, while the larger Pixel 6 Pro is down to $649, beating the deal we spotlighted last week. As we noted then, these discounts are likely hitting so Google can clear the way for the forthcoming Pixel 7, but if you need an Android phone right now, the current generation’s powerful cameras, reliable performance, and guaranteed software updates through fall 2026 should keep them viable for the next few years. At $499, the base Pixel 6 should be a better buy than the $449 Pixel 6a, which we generally recommend as the best value of the bunch when each phone is at their standard MSRP. Just be absolutely sure you can’t wait a couple more months if you decide to pull the trigger.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, we have lower-than-usual prices on Wingspan<\/em>, a bird-themed board game we like; Apple’s new and improved M2 MacBook Air; a selection of game controllers from accessory-maker 8BitDo, including the Pro 2 pad we’ve previously recommended to Nintendo Switch and PC players; Microsoft’s Xbox Series S game console; the ever-popular (and recently updated) Mario Kart 8 Deluxe<\/em> for the Switch, and much more. You can find our full curated list of deals below.<\/p>\n