Last week we looked at offers on unlocked Galaxy S24 flagships – the S24+ started at $850 and the S24 Ultra was $1,150. Those offers are still available, by the way, but they lacked the vanilla Galaxy S24.
If you have your heart set on the smallest Samsung flagship, the Galaxy S24 starts at $750. Note that this is with 8GB of RAM and 128GB storage (not 12/256GB like the other two). There’s no option for 12GB of RAM, but you could get 256GB storage for $810. But that’s just $50 less than a 12/256GB S24+.
We found the same offer on Amazon and Best Buy, so pick the retailer you prefer.
And while were were browsing Best Buy, iPad offers caught our eye. The Apple iPad (2022) may use the relatively old Apple A14 chipset, but it has a modern USB-C port (with DisplayPort). And the chip is plenty fast, especially compared to Android tablets in this price range. The 10.9” 60Hz IPS LCD supports a 1st gen Apple Pencil.
If you do find that the A14 is not fast enough for your needs, for $100 more you can get the Apple iPad Air (2022) with the M1. The rest of the tablet is pretty much the same, including the 60Hz LCD (except that it supports 2nd gen Pencils). Note that Apple doesn’t offer 128GB option, so if you need more than 64GB storage (which many probably do), then you have to pay up to the 256GB model.
Apple has not updated the iPad mini since 2021. That makes the $400 price tag of the 64GB model a hard pill to swallow, but small tablets are a dying genre and there aren’t too many other options.
Also from 2021 but this time reasonably priced is the iPad 10.2. At $250 for the 64GB model, this makes a fine “kid’s first tablet” or just a casual browsing and streaming machine. The 256GB model just isn’t worth it for $400 – at that point you may as well pay the $100 extra to get the 2022 model. The 2021 model uses an even older chip with less RAM and the now outdated Lightning port.
If you think that you would be better served by a Windows tablet, the Microsoft Surface Go 3 is $450 for an 8/128GB model. It is powered by the Intel Pentium Gold 6500Y (ancient 14nm node, 2 cores with 4 threads at 7W cTDP). It has a 10.5” LCD with FHD+ resolution (3:2), a 3.5mm headphone jack, 1x USB-C and a microSD slot.
Going back to Apple, a couple of weeks ago we looked at MacBook deals. Let’s now consider a stationary application – the Apple Mac mini with an M2 chip (10-core GPU). It’s configured with 8GB of RAM and 256GB or 512GB storage. There is one HDMI, four Thunderbolt ports and two USB ports.
The second generation Apple Watch SE can be had for as little as $200 in its 40mm GPS version. The 44mm version is $30 more and if you want LTE connectivity, you can add $50 more to both versions.
Finally, if you’ve never spent much time with VR, you can dip your toes with the old Meta Quest 2, which is down to $200. The Quest 3 is more capable (with things like color passthrough for AR applications), but it costs more than double. And the Apple Vision Pro is 17.5x more expensive.
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