Deals: The Galaxy S24 price is also dropping, and Best Buy has iPad deals this weekend

March 30, 2024

Last week we looked at deals on the flagship Galaxy S24 phones – the S24+ started at $850 and the S24 Ultra started at $1,150. By the way, these offers are still available, but they're missing from the vanilla Galaxy S24.

If you want to buy Samsung's smallest flagship, the Galaxy S24 starts at $750. Note that this is with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage (not 12/256GB like the other two). There's no 12GB RAM option, but you can get 256GB of storage for $810. But that's only $50 less than the 12/256GB S24+.

We found the same deal on Amazon and Best Buy, so choose your preferred retailer.

As we were browsing Best Buy, the iPad offerings caught our attention. 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 very fast, especially compared to Android tablets in this price range. The 10.9-inch 60Hz IPS LCD display supports the first-generation Apple Pencil.

If you find that the A14 isn't fast enough for your needs, you can get the Apple iPad Air (2022) with the M1 for $100 more. The rest of the tablet is pretty much the same, including the 60Hz refresh rate LCD screen (except it supports second-generation Pencils). Note that Apple doesn't offer a 128GB option, so if you need more than 64GB of storage (which many probably do), you'll have to pay up to the 256GB model.

Apple hasn't updated the iPad mini since 2021. That makes the $400 price tag for the 64GB model a tough pill to swallow, but small tablets are a dying genre and there aren't many other options.

Also from 2021 but this time at a more affordable price is the iPad 10.2. At $250 for the 64GB model, this is a good “first tablet for kids” or just a browsing and streaming device. The 256GB model isn't worth it for $400 — at this point you might as well pay an extra $100 to get the 2022 model. The 2021 model uses an older chip with less RAM and the now-old Lightning port.

If you think you'll be better served by a Windows tablet, the Microsoft Surface Go 3 is priced at $450 for the 8/128GB model. It is powered by an Intel Pentium Gold 6500Y (legacy 14nm node, 2 cores with 4 threads at 7W cTDP). It has a 10.5-inch LCD display with FHD+ (3:2) resolution, a 3.5mm headphone jack, one USB-C port, and a microSD slot.

Back to Apple, a few weeks ago we looked at MacBook deals. Now let's consider a stationary application – an Apple Mac mini with an M2 chip (10-core GPU). It is configured with 8GB of RAM and 256GB or 512GB of storage. There is an HDMI port, four Thunderbolt ports, and two USB ports.

The second-generation Apple Watch SE can be had for just $200 in the 40mm GPS version. The 44mm version is an additional $30, and if you want LTE connectivity, you can add an additional $50 to both versions.

Finally, if you don't spend a lot of time with VR, you can try out the old Meta Quest 2, which costs $200. The Quest 3 is more capable (with things like color pass-through for augmented reality apps), but it costs more than twice as much. The Apple Vision Pro is 17.5 times more expensive.

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