As usual, the best deals on Prime Day sales tend to be (unsurprisingly) on Amazon’s own products and services. To take advantage of these deals you do need a Prime membership. If you haven’t already, you can just take up a free 30 day trial and the deals will be valid.
If you are looking to buy books and would rather support independent local bookstores, then it may be worth looking into Bookshop.org instead.
The links here, like elsewhere on my blog, are affiliate links where I get a small payment if you use them and buy something. Thanks.
Amazon hardware
Amazon’s own range of devices are frequently a solid choice for personal electronics. I use a few myself that are on sale for Prime Day 20222 and easy recommends.
Kindle Fire Tablets
Although these can be a bit annoying if you want to use apps that are not available in the Amazon app store, it is relatively straight forward to install the normal Google Play store onto the devices. These days you can basically convert them to just run as standard Android tablets. That said, they are excellent value for money specially if you wait for them to be on sale. As usual they are reduced for Prime Day.
I have used a couple of these, and one is still in use as my main tablet now. I don’t do any 3D gaming on it, but use it for watching all the main streaming services, reading comics & PDFs and for playing card and board games.
My preferred choices:
Fire HD 10 Plus
This is the latest ‘plus’ version of the largest kindle fire, I currently have the standard model of these. For reading digital comics, the 10″ screen means the whole page fits comfortably on screen and is as close as you can get to the experience of reading a physical comic. Mine gets used every Sunday during the American Football season as I stream Red Zone on it while watching the Dallas Cowboys game on the big screen. Not to mention watching NetFlix in the bath. While I only have the standard version, the extra RAM and improved battery life of the Plus seems well worth the slightly higher price. It is likely to be longer before you’ll want an upgrade. (Wondering if I need one myself)
Oh and if you go for the one with Special Offers / Ads to save a few quid, you can always pay the extra later to have them removed.
Fire HD 8 Plus
As with the plus edition above, this is the equivalent of the smaller 8% form factor.
Although reading comics is much more comfortable on the HD 10, if you’re going to carry the tablet around a lot the HD 8 is probably the sweet spot for display size vs portability.
Fire HD 8 Kids
I don’t have kids myself, but now know a few people using these as an option for small children, Amazon flag them as suitable for ages 3 – 7. They seem pretty robust and have plenty of options for parental control. There is also the slightly smaller HD 7 option which is a bit cheaper too. For older children (6 – 12) there is now a Fire HD 8 Kids Pro too.
Fire TV
Firestick 4K Max
Increasingly redundant as more people move to Smart TV’s or connect other set top boxes with media apps like Blu-ray Players & game consoles, the firestick is still one of the better options for accessing apps on your TV. I’ve gone for the 4k Max model here, as even if you don’t have a 4k display, that bit of extra performance in the device should make it a bit snappier to use, and it also supports WiFi 6 which will be useful if you find yourself with a WiFi 6 router in the near future.
If you’re a bit of a techie there are plenty of modding options for Firesticks too, but personally I just have one set up to access Netflix, Prime and Britbox on my aging bedroom TV.
Kindle E-Readers
Kindle
The original Amazon device. Earlier models of these didn’t have any kind of light, with the “e-ink” displays doing their best to replicate paper. These now have a built-in front light. Not quite as nice as the ones below but still a solid choice for getting started with ebooks if like me you don’t enjoy reading on your phone. Oh and the free trial of Kindle Unlimited is well worth it. You can read quite a bit in 3 months. Just remember to cancel if you don’t wish to keep the subscription after that period.
Kindle Paperwhite
This is the kindle I use myself, and is the e-reader I’d recommend. The latest model of it even boasts being waterproof. The kindle oasis is nice but I’m not convinced it’s worth the significant additional cost, but it does at least have a discount this year.
Alexa and Friends
If you’ve been following my adventures with this since earlier posts, you’ll know I’ve fallen into the Alexa life. Admittedly I mostly use it as a radio alarm and for her to lie to me about the weather. Personally I have an Echo Show 5 which replaced my old DAB radio in the bedroom. There is also the fancier Echo Show 8, probably worth a look if you’d like to have one of these for video calls.
I also have this Echo Dot in the kitchen, I discovered with 2 devices that the music nicely covers my whole flat using Spotify’s “Play everywhere”.
Otherwise, there are plenty of discounts across the whole range of Alexa enabled devices here.
Amazon subscription offers
Kindle Unlimited
Kindle Unlimited is a pretty good value proposition if you read a lot (and are not concerned about having books to keep on the shelf). Some of the included digital magazines are pretty nice too for reading on a tablet. New subscribers can currently get Three Months Free instead of the usual shorter trial.
Amazon Music Unlimited
I still struggle a bit with the way the music streaming industry treats artists, although I’m not sure Kindle Unlimited is much better for authors… However, they are a good way to discover new music, and listening to other people’s playlists is fun. Just remember if you want to support the bands you love, go see them live and buy their merch from them direct.
Prime Day has a free four months trial (instead of the usual 30 days) for new subscribers.
Audible via Amazon
The subscription model for audible is very odd. Rather than it giving you access to a library of books to just listen to (as you might expect) it is pretty much a subscription to get an audiobook a month to keep. If you are into audiobooks it’s certainly worth taking a trial and using it to claim the free books before cancelling. Given the high prices of audiobooks in general, the subscription is pretty good value anyway. The current offer should be three months for free, but I’ve had trouble getting it to work so far. If it does register, that translates to at least 3 free audiobooks during the period.
Prime Video Channels
Currently many of the various add-on Prime Channels for Prime Video can be had for 99p for the first month. This is decent if there are any you were considering trying, but in previous years the offer has been for the first three months, so a disappointing effort really.
The two channels I’ve used previously are Shudder and Starzplay, Shudder is a dedicated horror movie and TV show channel. Starzplay (not to be confused with the content from Starz that got added to Disney+) has a lot of current tv and its own content. Currently the only place to see the Power spin-offs, all of Black Sails and the surprisingly good TV spin-off of the Step Up franchise, Step Up: Highwater.
Other Deals
Xbox Series S/X Storage
The 2TB drive isn’t on offer, but the 1TB Seagate Storage Expansion upgrade for the Xbox Series consoles currently has a decent reduction. Currently £165 for Prime Day, best I could see elsewhere was £185 for the same drive.
Ninja Air-fryers etc
Seem to be quite a few people looking for these at the moment. There are a couple of models on sale, but as part of Prime Day the best deal is on this Amazon exclusive Copper coloured Ninja Foodi MAX 14-in-1. Currently £199, from an RRP of £279. The black model is available from a few places as low as £225 though.
LEGO
There are currently some really good deals across the LEGO range at the moment, including some of the cool tehnic and star wars sets.
This Friends set was popular and is a great price again.
Smart Watches
I personally moved over to Samsung for my smart watch, when I got one free with my Galaxy S10. The Galaxy Watch Active2 seems to be a good price for prime day. There are also discounts across the fitbit range if that’s more your scene. Including the Fitbit Versa 2 that I’ve heard good things about.
Amazon Warehouse
Amazon Warehouse is where they clear out items that have been returned, for whatever reason. For Prime Day there is an additional 20% off. If you don’t mind things being “nearly new” it is certainly worth browsing. The goods are still guaranteed and the descriptions will tell you what condition to expect. I purchased my PSVR setup from the Amazon Warehouse Black Friday sale a few years ago, for about £100 less than RRP. The outer box was ripped but inside it was all mint, and the device still had all the plastic covers on.