You may have noticed that I didn’t write about Amazon’s “Big Deals” Prime Day that just passed. Over the last few years, I’d often write a post about all the things I’m buying. This year, two things were different:
- I don’t need much stuff. We’re actively trying to get rid of stuff.
- I didn’t see many good deals.
Even though we are trying to get rid of stuff, I was still on the lookout for a few things. I’ll get to those in a bit. I’d like to cover the second part first. It turns out that I wasn’t alone when I didn’t find many good deals. Washington Post’s Geoffrey Fowler wrote that we’ve been played by Amazon (gift article). He went through the last 50 non-grocery items he’s bought over the last six months and compared the prices of them to their Big Deal day pricing. He would have saved 0.6%. It’s important to note that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, so his harsh criticism speaks volumes to the Washington Post’s credibility in independent journalism.
Many people find that Amazon raises the prices before Prime Day, so that the discount will appear larger. He found this as well. However, he also noted that there were actually some deals. That’s another reason to be discriminating and use online tools that track pricing over time. For example, I use CamelCamelCamel to look at past prices. Even better, I have a Firefox plugin (Keepa that gives me a price history right on the Amazon page. (They have a plugin for every major browser, so no need to switch to Firefox.)
With that helpful information available to me, I kept an eye out for a few things. My wife wants a new phone and a new watch for her birthday/Christmas. Her current Samsung Galaxy (S22, maybe?) is acting up. Her Fitbit Charge decided that it would rename itself to Fitbit No Charge. Her birthday is too close to Black Friday to try to get things then, so if there was a good deal now, I was ready to pounce.
I had been eying the latest Google Pixel Watch 4 for her. She does a lot of running, and that’s supposed to be a strength for the watch. Google has systematically downgraded its Fitbit products over time. I think it is an attempt to push people to the Pixel Watch. One of the reasons why I wanted the latest Pixel watch is that it’s furthest removed from the original unmitigated disaster of the original Pixel watch. The battery life on that watch was about 6 hours – and that’s with power saving mode, even sleep mode. There was a runaway process that was eating GBs of data each day. It must be something related to my Google accounts because no one else seemed to report this issue, and their customer support couldn’t solve it.
The only problem is that the Pixel Watch 4 officially launched on October 9th – after Amazon’s Big Deals. They had the previous generation on sale for $170, just slightly less than half of the new model ($350). The new one is supposed to be better in a bunch of ways, but I don’t know if it’s worth twice the money. If she decides to upgrade, the trade-in program values the Pixel Watch 3 at $140. I saw that there was a Used – Like New one for $130 and decided that I’d take a chance on that for myself.
The Pixel 3 had been selling for $249 before the event. Now that the event is over, it is back up to $199. So the $30-70 savings for the brand new one was definitely a good deal.
I was tempted to get an updated Samsung S25 Galaxy, but the deal was on an S25+, which is physically bigger and has more storage. Neither of these things move the needle for my wife too much, so the “deal” wasn’t much of one. I’m also thinking of getting her a Pixel phone, which would pair a little better with the watch. There was a bit of a deal on the Pixel phone, but I think Google will offer something better on Black Friday. I’ll keep an eye on both the S25 and Pixel 10 pricing.
Here’s what else I got on the “Big Deal” days:
- A $50 Chipotle Gift Card – It came with a $10 Amazon credit
- V8 Energy Peach Mango Energy Drink – 24 cans – At $6 with a bunch of stackable coupons, this was a steal
- Four more food items that had great Subscribe and Save discounts
Finally, I got a HUION Kamvas 13 (Gen 3) Drawing Tablet for my 11-year-old. The MSRP is $249, and I got it for $199. After the event, the price was $224 when you clicked on a coupon. The reviews say that it is an entry-level device, but also good enough for a professional. He should get a lot of use out of it – if he uses it at all. I don’t think the technology on it changes too much, so it might take him all the way through high school. If it doesn’t, it’s because he’s using it so much that he’ll want a bigger tablet for more drawing space.
I keep telling myself that I should learn to draw. There are plenty of videos on YouTube. If he doesn’t use it, there’s a chance that I’ll use it.
The deal saved me about 10% and I paid with my Amazon credit card and chose the slow shipping option to get 7% back instead of the usual $5. That’s enough to counter the sales tax.
As you can see, the deals weren’t that great, but I never expected them to be. Amazon has done a great job at destroying most of the online shopping competition, so they don’t necessarily have to offer the best deals anymore.
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