Best Amazon Prime Day Deals on TVs and Other Electronics
James K. Willcox
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After more than a week of lead-up promotions, Amazon Prime Day has now kicked off. The big question for consumers is how good the deals will be.
Based on what we've seen so far, it looks like Amazon Prime Day 2017 will fall somewhere between 2015's disappointing event, which some web commenters compared to a bad garage sale, and the explosive Black Friday-like event Amazon was promising for this year.
Given the way Amazon presents its deals, it can be hard to come up with a comprehensive list of specials. "Lightning" deals, for example, last only for short periods of time, and new deals can pop up as frequently as every five minutes.
Last week we offered several Amazon Prime Day shopping tips to help you get the best deals as they become available. They include signing up for alerts for when new deals appear, and waitlisting items that are out of stock in case they again become available. The bottom line, though: You'll need to visit—and revisit—the site if you want to see all the sale items.
This year Amazon is placing special emphasis on Alexa, the company's voice-powered digital assistant, with special deals and early shopping access for those who own an Alexa-powered device. And the best Prime deals we've seen are for the Amazon Echo, Amazon Echo Tap, and Amazon Dot devices.
There will also be good deals on other Amazon products, including several varieties of the Kindle.
Based on the initial Amazon Prime Day deals we've seen, Amazon may also be offering solid savings on PCs and on certain TVs. (Just be sure check our TV ratings to see if the sets Amazon lists are decent performers, and do some comparison shopping: We've seen lower prices elsewhere for some of these "specials.")
Here's our quick assessment of some of the Amazon Prime Day deals we've seen.
Amazon Echo, Dot, and Tap
Not surprisingly, many of the best Amazon Prime Day deals are on Amazon's own devices. For example, the Alexa-powered Amazon Echo speaker is just $100, representing an $80 break from its everyday price.
The Amazon Tap, a portable Bluetooth speaker with Alexa, is sale-priced at $80. The Tap usually sells for about $130.
Those looking to spend a bit less could consider the Amazon Echo Dot, a small Bluetooth speaker that can also be connected to a stereo system. The Dot is priced at $35 now, about $15 off its regular price. That may not sound like a lot of money, but it represents a 30 percent discount from the regular price.
Amazon Fire and Kindle Tablets
There are too many deals on Amazon Fire and Kindle tablets for us to include them all. But, generally, price cuts are in the $25 to $45 range on the Fire HD 8, the Fire 7, and the kids' versions of these tablets.
For example, there's a $30 price cut on the new Fire HD 8, now $68, and $20 off the new Fire 7, which has a sale price of $43. The Fire HD 8-inch Kids Edition Tablet is being priced at $90, which is about $40 cheaper than usual.
Amazon Fire tablets have earned only middling scores in Consumer Reports testing, but several of the company's Kindle e-readers have performed extremely well, and the company is offering lots of deals on these products, too.
A standard Kindle will be $60, down from $80. Kindle Paperwhites will be discounted about the same amount, and Amazon is dropping the price of the top e-reader in CR ratings, the Kindle Voyage. The sale price is $195, down from from the official price of $220—though we saw it selling on Amazon for just $200 the day before the sale. And the Kindle Paperwhite Travel Bundle is on sale for $170, for $30 off the presale price.
If you already have a Kindle or Fire tablet and need a case, several are being offered starting at about $15.
TVs, Phones, and PCs
Amazon says it will be offering several deals on TVs and phones, but not much information was available by the time the event kicked off Monday night.
Leading up to the event, Amazon was teasing a special deal on an Element 4K UHD Smart LED TV—Amazon Fire TV Edition. We now know it's the 55-inch EL4KAMZ5517, selling for $400 as a special Deal of the Day. This set was selling for $650 just a day ago, so this is a good price.
Unfortunately, the Element is not a high-performing TV. We just finished testing this set, and its overall score places it near the bottom of all the 55-inch models we’ve evaluated in the Consumer Reports TV lab. (The television's 4K performance wasn't bad, but the TV didn't stack up well against other 55-inch sets when it came to ordinary high-def picture quality.) We'd recommend it mainly as secondary set, not your primary TV if you're a discriminating viewer.
As for phones, Amazon says you can save up to 40 percent on the 64GB version of Moto G5 Plus. Calling the sale a "Prime Exclusive," the company is offering the phone for $180, down from $240 regularly.
We expect more intriguing deals on both phones and televisions—including some from major brands—to be revealed as the event progresses. That has happened in previous sales.
Gaming and Low-Price PCs
Amazon has promised good deals on both gaming PCs and all-in-one (AIO) computers. However, the company declined to announce the sale prices ahead of the sale.
Below, we're listing the regular prices at both Amazon and its competitors, but consumers will have to check the Amazon listings once the event begins to see if the sale prices offer real value. (Consumer Reports has not tested any of these computers.)
The ASUS ROG Core i7 Compact Gaming Desktop (G20CB-DB71) sells for about $1,500 elsewhere, but Amazon had it for $1,400 right before Prime Day. It has impressive specs: a fast 3.5GHz Intel i7 processor, a GeForce GTX 1070 graphics processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB hard drive.
The CyberpowerPC Gamer Panzer PVP3020LQ is an even higher-powered gaming PC that was $1,760 at Amazon and about $1,900 at other retailers. This model is a 4.2GHz Intel i7-powered PC with an NVidia GTX 1080 graphics card, 32GB of RAM, and both a 2TB hard drive and 256GB SSD storage. (The solid-state disc allows for fast startups and loading of applications.)
If you like your gaming on the go, you can go to the site to see the sale price of the MSI GS63VR Stealth Pro-422 gaming laptop. Before Prime Day, it was priced at $1,150 on Amazon, and from $1,400 to $1,500 elsewhere. It's a 15.6-inch Intel i7 notebook computer with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive.
If less expensive all-in-ones are more your speed, Amazon says it is cutting the price on the Acer Aspire AIO desktop, which was $670 before the sale. It has a 24-inch 1920x1080 display, a 2.2GHz Intel i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 1TB hard drive. Are computers at this level suiting for gaming or video editing? Not really. School work and Netflix bingeing? You bet.
Another even lower-priced option is the Dell i3265 A643WHT PUS Inspiron Desktop Display, listed for $450 before Prime Day, with 6GB of RAM, a 1TB hard drive, and a 21.5-inch 1920 x 1080 display. While we haven't tested the computer, those specs promise all the performance many computer users would demand.
Miscellaneous Deals
Among the other assorted deals we saw are the NVidia Shield game system/streaming media player, which is being offered for $180 instead of the regular $200.
Last year Amazon sold more 200,000 headphones on Prime Day, so we expect to see a lot more deals on headphones of all types. One early deal we saw is on the Sony XB950B1 Extra Bass Wireless Headphones, an over-the-ear model that usually costs about $200. Amazon will have them at half price during the event.
Amazon also promises discounts of up to 70 percent on assorted wireless Bludeio Bluetooth headphones and wireless speakers. Prices weren't yet revealed when we checked.
Editor's Note: Consumer Reports collects fees from Amazon for referring users. We use 100 percent of these fees to fund our testing programs.
