Amazon US Prime Day deals: Tablets and smartwatches

Amazon Prime Day continues – yesterday we focused on smartphones, today we’ll take a look at tablet and smartwatch deals. Naturally, you need an active Prime membership to get these prices.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE+ is a great mid-range tablet for IPS LCD fans – it has a 12.4″ 90Hz panel. The Exynos 1380 is fast enough for casual gaming (but don’t expect AAA titles to work on high settings) and you get DeX multitasking (but no video out).

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 costs $200 more and has a smaller 11-inch display, but this time it’s a 120Hz OLED. It has the more powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and can do wired and wireless video out with DeX.

If you want a larger 12.4-inch display but with flagship specs, the Galaxy Tab S9+ is $200 up.

For a cheap tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+ costs less than $150, but we’d pay $190 for the 8/128GB version – it has twice the storage and (most importantly) twice the RAM. It has an 11” 90Hz LCD and a Snapdragon 695 chipset.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite (2024) is being sold for roughly the same price as the Tab A9+. This third version of the slate has a 10.4” LCD (60Hz, 2,000 x 1,200px) and a 7,040mAh battery (15W charging). DeX is supported, but there’s no video out, so this is only for on-tablet multitasking. Note that storage is expandable.

The Google Pixel tablet is expensive, but comes with a speaker dock. It’s an interesting combo that turns the tablet into a smart display. The slate has a 10.95” IPS LCD (60Hz, 2,560 x 1,600px) and a Tensor G2 chipset, as well as a 7,020mAh battery that’s kept topped up by the speaker dock via a magnetic system with pogo pins (so there are no wires, but no wireless charging either).

Of course, Amazon has deep discounts on its own products. The Amazon Fire Max 11 is a great slate for media consumption with its 11” IPS LCD (60Hz, 2,000 x 1,200px) and stereo speakers. Note that the version with 64GB of storage has lockscreen ads, the one with 128GB (which is only $20 more) removes the ads.

The Amazon Fire HD 10 is a 10.1-inch tablet that costs less than $100. It’s not powerful by any means, but it now comes with 3GB of RAM as standard (earlier versions only had 2GB). It’s a 1,920 x 1,200px (16:10) display, so it’s great for streaming, too.

The Amazon Fire HD 8 is available in vanilla and Plus form, priced at $15. Both have 8” 1,280 x 800px displays and 6-core CPUs. The Plus model has more RAM (3GB vs 2GB) and a faster charger in the box (100% in 3 hours instead of 5 hours). Alternatively, the Plus can be charged from a wireless dock, so it can also be used as a smart display.

If you’re looking to buy a cheap tablet for your kid, check out the Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Pro. This tablet comes with a case to protect it from careless hands and (even better) has a 2-year worry-free warranty. The tablet also comes with a free year of Amazon Kids+ – a sort of streaming service that offers ad-free books, games, videos, and apps. A Kids+ subscription is normally $6 per month.

Apple iPhones are not part of Prime Day, but watches are. The Apple Watch Series 9 can be purchased for $280 for the 41mm version, $30 more for the 45mm version. This watch has ECG and is water resistant up to 50 meters.

The Apple Watch SE (2022) is a cheaper option – $100 less for the 44mm model too – but it doesn’t have things like ECG and an Always On Display mode.

Samsung’s Galaxy Watch7 and Watch Ultra haven’t even launched yet, so they’re not part of the promotion. The 2023 models are, however. The Samsung Galaxy Watch6 also has ECG and is rated to resist water up to 50 meters. Right now, it’s even cheaper than Apple’s SE Watch. Note that a Samsung phone is required for the ECG function to work.

Then there’s the Samsung Galaxy Watch6 Classic. This is the latest model with a rotating bezel – the Watch7 doesn’t have a Classic version, the Ultra doesn’t have a rotating bezel either.

Finally, this is not a smartwatch but a smart ring. The Oura Smart Ring 3rd gen has been on the market for quite some time, which has led to its price coming down. It tracks sleep, stress, heart rate, and more. Note that the Oura subscription is $6 per month. Also, the “plain” versions are cheaper than the silver and gold versions, but note that they don’t actually use precious metals.