If you’re feeling stressed due to delays in your holiday shopping – and you missed out on shopping during Black Friday and Cyber Monday – we’ve got you covered. We’ve got a variety of gadgets on sale that would make great gifts, many of which will be shipping just in time for the holidays. One of the standouts is the current promo on Sony’s noise-canceling WH-1000XM5 headphones, which are on sale with a free pair of wireless earbuds. Other deals you may have missed include huge discounts on Amazon’s latest entry-level Kindle and the new Echo Dot Max.
Sony’s last generation WH-1000XM5 Its audio quality, active noise cancellation and comfort have consistently impressed us. And right now, Amazon is offering them a free pair of Sony WF-C700N Earbuds at $248 ($152 off). The headphones feature an updated design that includes a thinner headband, more memory foam in the ear pads, and repositioned mics that reduce wind noise when taking calls. These changes didn’t add much weight and the headphones still get 30 hours of playtime with ANC enabled.
The XM5 sounded “more refined, detailed, and spacious” in our tests, but we noticed less oomph when listening to EDM or hip-hop tracks with a lot of bass. The headphones have eight microphones, four of which are for voice, and their excellent noise reduction was immediately noticeable on calls, even in loud environments. The $89.99 WF-C700N, meanwhile, is a mid-range pair of noise-canceling earbuds with an IPX4 rating, up to seven and a half hours of battery life (with ANC enabled), and a slim design.
Amazon’s 11th generation kindle Our favorite budget-friendly e-reader, and you can buy an ad-supported version for $89.99 ($20 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target. The entry-level ebook reader has a six-inch 300ppi E Ink display that won’t glare in the sun like your phone or tablet. It has enough storage space to hold thousands of books, or Audible’s dozens of audiobooks, all of which you can play through Bluetooth headphones or speakers.
The Kindle’s built-in battery lasts up to six weeks, depending on how long you read per day and how dependent you are on its backlight, and recharges over USB-C. It has the same screen resolution and storage as the step-up Kindle Paperwhite, but it’s not waterproof, which may matter if you like to read on the beach or in the bath.
Amazon’s last-minute “Super Saturday” sale is ongoing, however, we’d argue that some of the better deals are actually some of the longer discounts we’re seeing on Amazon’s own devices, many of which have been in effect for several weeks. For example, right now you can get new echo dot max At Amazon, Best Buy, and Target for $79.99 ($20 off), which is the best price we’ve seen on a smart speaker since it launched.
Despite the name, the Dot Max is not a follow-up to the Echo Dot as it is the fourth-generation Echo from 2020. It has a compact knitwear design, simpler controls, an improved processor, and more smart home sensors and radios than the previous model (it offers support for Miter, Thread, and Zigbee protocols). However, it still looks great for its size, and like previous models, it can act as a Wi-Fi extender if you want an Eero mesh network. It’s one of the first devices to feature Amazon’s AI-powered Alexa Plus out of the box, which is still very much a work in progress, but it’s a step in the right direction.
<a href