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An Amazon Prime subscription costs $99 per year, and covers the cost of free shipping on millions of items, access to online music, TV show, and video streaming, and a handful of other benefits. But if you buy Amazon’s Fire Phone you get a 1-year Prime membership at no additional cost once you activate the phone.
Amazon used to sell the phone for $449, which might have been a tough sell for a device that gets mixed reviews, at best. Recently the price dropped to $199, and right now Amazon is offering the Fire Phone for $169.
But we can do better — because you can pick up a Fire Phone from QualityCellz for just $140. That’s like paying $99 for a Prime membership and getting a phone that you can use as a media player, if nothing else, for just $41.
You can also install CyanogenMod on the phone if you hate Amazon’s software.
Here are some of the day’s best deals.
Smartphones
- Amazon Fire Phone + 1 year Prime membership for $140 – QualityCellz (via eBay)
- Google Nexus 4 smartphone for $120 – Pangea Deals (via eBay)
Laptops and tablets
- Acer Aspire E11 Windows notebook for $160 – TigerDirect
- Refurb HP Stream 13″ touchscreen laptop for $190 – Groupon
- Refurb Asus Transformer Book T100 for $150 after rebate – Newegg
- Dell Venue 8 Pro 3000 Series Windows tablet for $90 – Dell (coupon:Â 4DPTKJ11F523L?)
- Refurb Dell XPS 12 2-in-1 w/Core i5 Haswell for $600 – Woot
- Lenovo ThinkPad S1 Yoga 12.5″ 2-in-1 w/Core i5 Haswell for $650 – Woot
Desktops and more
- Save up to $80 on Dell laptops and desktops – Dell
- Refurb HP Stream mini desktop for $150 – Woot
- New HP Stream Mini + $25 Windows Store credit for $179 – Microsoft Store
Other
- Crucial 250GB mSATA SSD for $93 – Newegg (coupon:Â EMCAWAT26)
- Sony Bluetooth over-ear headphones for $100 and up – Woot
You can find more bargains in our daily deals section.
The value of the Fire Phone assumes you take advantage of
the Amazon ecosystem. Otherwise, the Prime membership is
a wasted expense.
Also, the Fire Phone has significant shortcomings including
no microSD storage, awful user interface, lack of Google
Play store access. For now, its biggest draw to me is
its many LTE bands, although the new Moto X
appears to surpass it (and even equal the Apple iPhone 6) in
flexibility (the 2015 gen 3 Moto X, which comes unlocked,
appears to work with all 4 major US carriers, just like the
iPhone 6, and may even work globally). Plus, the Moto X
has real Android and the Google Play store, even if it
lacks a microSD slot.
As the Fire Phone ages, you’ll likely see it offered on deal
web sites, at fire sale prices (pun intended), without the
baggage/”benefit” of the Prime subscription.
Offered at $99 new, the Fire Phone may sell out just like the
HP Palm OS tablet. At that price, I may still not be interested.