Gadget

The Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max is back down to $40, plus the rest of this week’s best tech deals

As another week winds to an end, we’ve put together another roundup of the best tech deals we could find on devices and gadgets Engadget has tried and recommends. Right now a Marshall Bluetooth speaker with good sound and an impressive waterproof rating is $64 cheaper. Our favorite budget robo vac, the Roomba 694 is 35 percent off. And early Mar10 sales have trimmed the prices of a few games staring Mario and his friends. Other deals include sale prices on Bluetooth trackers, a portable projector, a two-pack of Sonos speakers and an Backbone iPhone 14 gamepad. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today.

Amazon

The latest version of the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max is on sale for $40. That’s a 33 percent discount and matches the record-low it hit for Black Friday. It goes for $60 at full price, but regularly sells for $45, so this is about $5 less than that going rate. 

It’s Amazon’s more advanced stick, with support for 4K video, Dolby Vision, HDR10+ and Wi-Fi 6E. In addition to FireTV, it also lets you control your connected smart home devices via Alexa.

The sales comes as part of a larger sale on a number of Amazon streaming devices, from sticks to actual televisions. That includes the Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite which is now down to $20 at both Amazon and at Target. We named it the budget pick in our list of the best streaming devices.

$40 at Amazon

Marshall

The Marshall Middleton Bluetooth speaker is down to $236 at Amazon. That’s a 21 percent discount and even beats the previous low of $260 it hit last December. B&H Photo is also selling it at a discount, but at $250, it’s not a steep as Amazon’s savings. 

The Middleton made our list of the best bluetooth speakers because it combines good sound quality with a IP67 rating. It’s dust-tight and can survive a dip in a meter of water for up to 30 minutes. 

This is Marshall’s flagship Bluetooth speaker — and the company’s largest portable with a waterproof rating. It has a 20-hour run time and puts out sound forom two 15-watt woofers, two 10-watt tweeters and a pair of passive radiators. It also supports Stack Mode which lets you pair up with another Middleton, the smaller Willen or the Emberton II speaker, which is also named in our guide and is also on sale. It’s 21 percent off and down to $134. 

$236 at Amazon

Sonos

A two-pack of Sonos Era 100 speakers is currently $88 off at Woot. We saw the same deal a couple weeks ago. That makes the set just $410. That puts it close to the Black Friday price from last year, when they hit $199 individually. 

The Sonos Era 100 is our current pick for the best midrange smart speaker. The sound quality is impressive and the Trueplay uses built-in mics to tune itself for the optimal output wherever you happen to put it.

$410 at Woot

Nintendo

Each year, in honor of Mar10 Day, aka March 10, retailers sell many Mario games at a discount. And right now, Amazon, Best Buy and Nintendo itself are hosting sales on a few of the older titles for between 20 and 30 percent off. Most of the discounts aren’t new all-time lows, but if you’re looking to grab a few Mario games, like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, this could be a good time to save. Keep an eye out on Sunday when even more deals go live

$40 at Amazon

iRobot

The iRobot Roomba 694 is back down to $180 Amazon, which isn’t the lowest price we’ve tracked — it went down to $160 at the beginning of the year. But it’s still a decent 35 percent discount on the bot we named the best budget robot vacuum you can buy. 

It’s not the most fully featured vac on the market. It doesn’t self-empty or have mopping capabilities but we found it to excel at cleaning floors and its companion app is easy to navigate, especially for people new to these machines. 

$180 at Amazon

Sony Interactive Entertainment

Samsung

Photo by Mat Smith / Engadget

Backbone’s Lightning-based version of the One smartphone gamepad is down to $70 at Amazon, Best Buy, Target and its own online store. That’s not an all-time low, but it’s $30 off the going rate. The sale applies to the black and the PlayStation-branded white version. Either will work with the same with iPhones that have a Lightning port, letting you stream games from Xbox or PlayStation, or play games that have more complex controls than touchscreen inputs can handle. We named it one of the best gaming accessories you can buy for an iPhone. 

$70 at Amazon

Engadget

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 is on sale at Walmart for $229 right now. It’s been hovering at around $235 at various retailers for a while now, so this is a bit cheaper than that and $70 off the full retail price. This is the 40mm model with Bluetooth (not LTE) connectivity. 

It’s our pick for the best smartwatch watch for Android users and earned an 84 in our review when it came out last September. 

If you’re looking for the Galaxy Watch that brought back the spinning bezel, that’s the Galaxy Watch 6 Classic and it’s 15 percent off at Amazon and going for $340 in the 43mm, Bluetooth configuration. 

$229 at Walmart

Photo by Amy Skorheim / Engadget

The Chipolo ONE is our top pick in our guide to the best Bluetooth trackers and right now you can get a four-pack directly from Chipolo for $60. That’s 40 percent off the list price of $25 each.  

We like these keyring finders because they’re loud — far noisier than Apple’s AirTags. Plus these have a hole in them so you don’t need to buy an accessory to attach them to your stuff. These will also work with either Androids or iPhones, though they don’t have the largest community finding network. 

Still, they’ll help you find your keys, bag, jacket or whatever else you attach them to by ringing them through the app. And if you have the tracker, but not your phone, you can double squeeze it to make your phone ring. They also alert you when you’ve left your tagged items behind, making sure you never run out the door or leave the coffee shop without the items you’ve deemed important enough to tag.   

$60 at Chipolo

Sony

Sony’s WH-1000XM4 wireless headphones are $100 off right now at Amazon and from Adorama, making them just $248. These are the previous generation of our current top pick for wireless headphones, the WH-1000XM5, which currently retail for $400. 

We gave the WH-1000XM4 a score of 94 when they first came out in 2020. They’re comfortable enough to wear for many hours and the battery life will keep up, going for 30 hours on a single charge. 

The ANC is powerful enough to block out most of the noise around you so you can focus on the immersive sound these headphones offer.  

$248 at Amazon

Beats

The Beats Studio Buds + are back down to $130 after a 24 percent discount. That matches the price we saw last Black Friday. 

We gave the Beats Studio Buds + a score of 84 in our review last May. The audio and battery life are big improvements over the previous generation and the onboard controls are more reliable. Plus the transparent color option is eye-catching. Unfortunately the buds sound still isn’t as good as other buds in its class and the ambient mode, which lets you tune into the world around you as you listen to music, isn’t as impressive as it is on AirPods.

$130 at Amazon

NEBULA

The Anker Nebula Solar HD portable projector is seeing a 46 percent discount off its current list price at Amazon. That makes it $250 and matches the previous low. We mention the Nebula Solar in our buyer’s guide to projectors as a runner-up budget option because you get a lot of features for the price.

It’s reasonably bright at 400 lumens and the battery is included — some projectors make you buy the battery separately. It has built-in speaker and connects to Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. You can also plug things in via the HDMI and USB ports. It can also mirror content from your phone using Miracast. It’ll project an image of up to 120 inches and has a built-in stand to help you adjust the angle.

$250 at Amazon

Xbox

Right now the Dream Vapor special edition Xbox controller is on sale for $58 instead of the $70 list price. That’s a 17 percent discount and the lowest price we’ve seen since the bowling ball-inspired controller first came on the market this January

The wireless controller is basically the standard Xbox controller, but with cooler patterns. It should sqeeze about 40 hours of gameplay from two AA batteries and supports custom button mapping and textured trigger and bumpers. 

If all you need is an extra gamepad, the standard models in black and white are 25 percent off the list price and down to $45 at Microsoft and the white model is $45 at Amazon

$58 at Amazon

Blink

Prime members can get a five-pack of Blink Outdoor 4 cameras for $200. That’s a 50 percent discount and the lowest price we’ve seen for the set. If you just want one camera, you can grab a single Blink Outdoor 4 for $65, which is still a healthy 46 percent discount and a record-low. 

The Blink Outdoor 4 is our pick for the best wireless outdoor security camera. Compared with previous models, it has a wider field of view (at 143 degrees on the diagonal), enhanced motion detection and, according to Amazon, better image quality and low light functionality. There’s also person detection available to those who take out the Blink Subscription Plan, which includes features such as cloud storage for video clips. Otherwise, you can save video locally by buying a Sync Module 2 separately and connecting a USB storage drive.

Save $200 with Prime membership

$200 at Amazon

Samsung

Samsung’s 32-inch M80C smart monitor is on sale for 46 percent off, bringing it down to $300 from it’s $700 list price. That matches it’s lowest price ever, which we saw last December

The M80C combines a 4K monitor, smart TV, mini computer and smart home controller into one. Samsung’s Tizen OS gives you access to any streaming service you may have and Samsung TV Plus gives you access to more shows for free. You can also access on-demand gaming platforms, like Xbox Cloud Gaming and NVIDIA GeForce Now. 

As for productivity, you can access Microsoft Office 365 and the camera up top lets you take Zoom and Google Meet meetings. And finally, it puts all your smart home controls together with the Samsung SmartThings app, letting you turn off compatible lights and view feeds from connected cameras. Before you grab it for that purpose, however, just make sure your smart home equipment works with Samsungs IoT hub. 

$400 at Amazon

Sony

The Sony HT-A7000 usually sells for between $1,189 and $1,400. But now it’s dropped back to the low it hit for Black Friday last year. That’s a 29 percent discount on our favorite premium soundba

It’s a Dolby Atmos soundbar that puts out excellent 7.1.2 audio thanks to Sony’s 360 Sound Mapping, Sound Field Optimization, vertical surround technology and S-Force Pro front surround. That sounds like a lot of fancy terms, but we would just note that it all adds up to nuanced sound that feels immersive, making it a great option for gamers. It has a built in subwoofer, but if you need more deepth, any of Sony’s models pair up easily. 

$998 at Amazon

Engadget

Amazon’s smart plug is currently $5 off the list price. That’s not an all-time low — it went for $15 for Black Friday and $13 for October’s Prime Day. But if you’re looking for a way to control a lamp automatically or by asking Alexa, this one works well.

Of course, it only works with Alexa, so if you’ve already brought an Echo into your home, this makes a good addition. We named the plug the best pick for people invested in Amazon’s smart home ecosystem because it pairs more or less automatically, reliably follows the schedules you set and responds to commands. 

$20 at Amazon

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