When it comes to Amazon's summer sale, we can recommend all the best Prime Day Apple deals until we're blue in the face. But what you really want to know is what we'd actually buy, so we're putting our money where our mouths are with a roundup of the iMore team's top picks from this year's sale.
We've combined our years of Apple coverage experience and picked out two products each that we'd happily part with our own cash for. There's plenty of variety here and something for everyone, so take a look at our roundup below!
The best Prime Day deals according to the iMore team:
Gerald Lynch: Editor-in-Chief
My picks this Prime Day are all about having fun — not a new Mac, not a new productivity accessory. Just pixel-pushing perfection with a couple of excellent gaming devices.
The first is the Anbernic RG35XXSP, which will let me indulge in some retro gaming delights. This Linux-based handheld is like a Game Boy Advance SP for the modern age, with a neat clamshell design and enough power to run not just Game Boy games via its emulators, but even more modern PSP games, too. It’s down to just $72.
My second pick is something far more modern — the superb Meta Quest 3. Despite its high-powered internals and high-resolution better-than-4K display, this immersive wearable is almost as cheap as it’s ever been at $429.99, down from its usual $500 RRP. It’s a great escape for daily drudgery thanks to its great app library and AAA VR games.
Stephen Warwick: News Editor
My top pick this Prime Day is the Samsung ViewFinity S9. There’s a big Mac market for 5K displays because the resolution plays nicely with macOS, doubling the size of the OS while keeping everything in proportion. However, Apple’s own Studio Display is upstaged by this $899 option that comes with a better 4K webcam, AirPlay, and smart TV Functionality.
The M3 MacBook Air isn’t the cheapest Mac in the Amazon Prime Day sales, but at $849 it is the best value. Make sure you click on the coupon to get the best deal, and you’ll save $250 on Apple’s 13-inch MacBook Air, complete with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD storage.
Daryl Baxter: Features Editor
Why spend $24,000 on a new car with CarPlay when I can keep my reliable 2010 Vauxhall Corsa and spend only $99 on a CarPlay portable monitor for the same experience? That’s exactly what I’m doing. I can attach a 9-inch monitor that provides the full CarPlay experience, allowing me to use Apple Maps, Podcasts, and more without having to use my car’s retro dashboard.
Over the years, films and TV shows taught me how robots are bad and signal the end of the world. But the eufy X10 Pro has convinced me otherwise — they can help rather than hinder. Being able to control this robot vacuum with my iPhone has been revelatory. I can command it to vacuum or MOP my home whenever I want, and it even gives me a helpful map of its progress.
John-Anthony Disotto: How To Editor
The fact you can find a Mac for under $500 at all blows my mind, especially considering just how good the Mac mini M2 actually is. For $479 in the Prime Day sale, you can pick up a very competent desktop computer that will get almost all of your daily tasks done in the blink of an eye. I use mine every day for work and I can’t recommend Apple’s tiny desktop enough — grab one now!
I love hyperbole, but I can’t emphasize enough just how much the Ember Mug 2 is my favorite piece of technology in my home. On the outside it looks like a simple black mug for tea and coffee but inside it has a magical heating element and a Bluetooth chip that makes it the coolest mug around. Pick one up, you won’t regret it as you sip coffee at the perfect temperature that was brewed the day before yesterday.
Tammy Rogers: Deals and Reviews
Q Acoustics 3020i bookshelf speakers
While I pen the words you read, the music I listen to comes from one of two sources: a pair of headphones (which changes depending on my mood) or an old pair of Qacoustic 2010i speakers, hooked up to an external amp (which plays over a DAC, again changing by mood). Those speakers have been there since I popped the desk together, making the center of my loud desktop audio system. And now, as Meat Loaf sings All Revved Up With No Place To Go at top volume and my brain melts into a kind of Prime Day flavored soup, I’m reminded just how good Q Acoustics speakers are — and the 3020i speakers in this deal are just as epic as my older model, if not even better. Loud, compact, and good-looking — everything you could want. They are passive which means you can’t plug them straight into the side of your MacBook, but pop them into an amp or a desktop power amp and you’re away. A $100 discount is a very solid saving too, and when you’re pumping your tunes at top volume and singing along at the top of your lungs, I reckon you’ll agree with me.
Bang & Olufsen Beoplay EX
In-ear headphones aren’t traditionally my bag, but there are some spectacular options if you prefer your headphones with a more… invasive fit. The AirPods Pro 2 are a great option, or the ever-faithful options from the likes of Sony and Sennheiser. What if, however, you’ve got a bit more money to spend? What if you want something more luxury, more exclusive — that happen to sound really as well? Bang & Olufsen make some truly stunning audio gear already, and the Beoplay EX are the firm's foray into the in-ear headphones category, and I really really like them. They are comfortable, with what feels like 1 million different fitting options in the box, they’re filled with features like solid noise canceling and wireless charging, and the case is made of cold, cold metal. They’re also, at the moment, reduced by over $100 in the Prime Day sales, so you too can experience their brilliance without having to spend $400 on them. And so, when I go to bed tonight for my pre-bedtime reading ritual, it’ll be these that I slip into my ears so that I can destroy the insides of my noggin with pulverizing death metal. Bliss.
James Bentley: Staff Writer
Though I do love the unique experience of building and customizing a PC myself with specially chosen parts, the Alienware Aurora R15 makes a great pitch for itself. For just $2000, it comes with a Ryzen 9 7900x, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and an RT 4080. This seriously beefy rig will be able to handle pretty much anything I can throw at it, and it looks gorgeous too. Alienware seems to be the closest comparison to Apple in the PC Gaming space and, with rigs this tightly designed, it’s easy to see why.
At a whopping 59% off, the Blue Baby Bottle condenser microphone is one of the best deals I’ve found the entire weekend. Great for podcasters, streamers, and, most importantly for me, musicians, it has a fantastic look and incredibly range sound. It even comes with a shock mount and protective case, making it great for setting up at a venue.
