Amazon is offering discounts on Kindle and Fire devices this holiday weekend. You can pick up an eReader for as little as $49, a tablet for $79, or an unlocked smartphone for $199. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Here are some of the best deals on Amazon hardware.
The latest Amazon Kindle has a 6 inch, E Ink touchscreen display and a $79 price tag… usually.
Right now you can pick one up for $49. In some ways this model is a step down from the Kindle Touch WiFi I bought a few years ago. It doesn’t have an audio jack, for one thing. But a basic eReader that offers several weeks of battery life for $49? That’s a pretty good deal.
Kindle + 6 month Kindle Unlimited subscription for $79
Want to get a Kindle, but not sure you want to buy a bunch of eBooks to put on it? Why not rent them… sort of.
Kindle Unlimited is Amazon’s Netflix-for-eBooks service. For$10 a month you get access to more than 700,000 digital books.
So a 6 month subscription would normally cost $60. Right now you can get a Kindle and a 6-month subscription for just $79.
Amazon is also knocking $20 off the price of a Kindle Paperwhite. This is the company’s mid-range eReader and the most affordable option that has an illuminated display for reading in the dark.
Kindle Paperwhite + 6 month Kindle Unlimited subscription for $129
Just like the Kindle deal above, this deal gets you a Paperwhite plus a Kindle Unlimited subscription for half the price a 6-month membership would normally cost.
Amazon Fire HD 6 tablet for $79
Amazon’s cheapest, smallest tablet isn’t much bigger than a smartphone (and it’s actually smaller than some). This model normally sells for $100, has a 6 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel display, a quad-core processor, and support for Amazon’s app, music, movie, and book stores, among other things.
Want a bundle with 6 months of Kindle Unlimited? That’ll be $109.
Amazon Fire HD 7 tablet for $109
Ordinarily priced at $139, the Fire HD 7 is a lot like the Fire HD 6… it’s just a little bigger thanks to the 7 inch screen. It also has stereo speakers (the smaller model has a mono speaker).
Those features might make this a better option if you’re looking for a portable media player.
Oh yeah, there’s a Kindle Unlimited bundle for this model too. It runs $139.
Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 for $179
This model’s actually a bit older than the tablets listed above, but it’s also more powerful thanks to a speedier processor and a higher-resolution 7 inch, 1920 x 1200 pixel display.
Amazon charged $229 and up for this tablet when it launched in 2013, before dropping the price to $199. Right now you can pick one up for $20 less.
Unlocked Amazon Fire Phone for $199
Speaking of price drops, this phone used to sell for $649… and that was just a few months ago.
There are probably better phones available — the Fire Phone has decent specs including 2GB of RAM, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, a 13MP camera, and a 4.7 inch, 720p display, but it also runs Amazon’s Fire OS instead of Android which means it doesn’t have come with the Google Play Store.
But for $199, this phone doesn’t look so bad: it’s kind of like a more powerful Fire HD 6 tablet, but it has a SIM card slot, supports unusual features like Amazon’s Dynamic Perspective 3D effects, and could make a decent phone for folks who are already heavily invested in Amazon’s ecosystem.
This isn’t so much a holiday sale as a “now available” announcement. Amazon charges $99 for its TV box which lets you stream internet music and video or play games. Now you can pick up a refurbished model from Amazon for $20 off the list price.
Since this is sold directly by Amazon, it comes with the same 1-year warranty as a new model.
Amazon Fire TV Stick for $25 – Best Buy
Looking for a cheaper media streamer? There are plenty of stores selling Google’s Chromecast for $25 or less this Black Friday weekend. But there’s at least one place where you can pick up Amazon’s Fire TV Stick for $25… and it’s not Amazon.com.
Best Buy continues to sell the tiny TV streaming device for just $25. You’ll have to pay for shipping if you don’t choose in-store pickup, but that’s still a pretty great price for a device that lets you do as much as the Fire TV Stick.
It’s not as powerful as the larger Fire TV, but it does a pretty good job of streaming content from Amazon, Netflix, YouTube, and other sources. You can even install XBMC on it.
I wish BlackBerry and Amazon would partner up and put BB OS 10.3 on the Amazon tablets and then they’d both have instant PlayBook v2 tablets. Add in the fact that the Amazon Store would be included and you’d have some instant followers. Same with the fact that BlackBerry can use most Android apps in their player. Not only that Amazon could maybe license their phones too. Anyhow, I think it would be a very positive thing for both BlackBerry and Amazon to do a joint venture.