Prime Day - anything worthwhile?

[Jim Mackell]

For the umteenth year I see absolutely nothing worth even considering at their infamous Prime Day sale. You?

[Jim Becker]

Echo Dots are under $19...and I'm considering it. But like any sale...if it's something you want or need, then the sale is great. If it's something to buy just to buy something...not such a good idea. So a good approach is to consider things that you use, like and buy consistently or something you've been considering acquiring but have held back because the price wasn't compelling enough.

[eugene thomas]

not prime deal but amazon has 1 festool ro90 for $300.

[Erik Loza]

I've been needing dual monitors for my WFH situation since the pandemic began and saved about $100 on a couple of Dell monitors and an articulated mount. Wouldn't have had any idea it was prime day until my wife mentioned it last night. Was like, "Gee, been needing these things for a while".

Erik

[Jim Becker]

This one is a good buy if you want/need a jump battery for in your vehicle:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B015TKUPIC/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Jim Becker]

I've been needing dual monitors for my WFH situation since the pandemic began and saved about $100 on a couple of Dell monitors and an articulated mount. Wouldn't have had any idea it was prime day until my wife mentioned it last night. Was like, "Gee, been needing these things for a while".

Erik
That will be a really great setup...I'm "this close" to wanting to add a second 27" Dell monitor to my setup as it would be more comfortable for me than bouncing between the 27" primary screen and the 15" on my MacBook Pro off to the side, especially with the state of my eyes.

Edit...thanks for costing me money, Erik. LOL Second monitor and dual stand on the way at excellent cost. While I was planning on this anyway...you put the bug out. :D

[Erik Loza]

That will be a really great setup...I'm "this close" to wanting to add a second 27" Dell monitor to my setup as it would be more comfortable for me than bouncing between the 27" primary screen and the 15" on my MacBook Pro off to the side, especially with the state of my eyes.

Edit...thanks for costing me money, Erik. LOL Second monitor and dual stand on the way at excellent cost. While I was planning on this anyway...you put the bug out. :D

LOL, Jim. I have been needing to do this since it all started. Seems like I spend at least a third of my time minimizing and maximizing windows. Super awkward work flow. Can't wait to get it all set up.

Erik

[Jim Becker]

Yea, when I moved Professor Dr. SWMBO into her new home office a few months ago, I set things up for her with dual monitor (although it uses her laptop as one of them) as that made it a whole lot easier for her when teaching via Zoom and recorded lectures. Her eyesight on a good day is worse than mine is on a bad day, so she's benefitting from that, too. I want to take advantage of a greater workspace more at this point myself and having two larger ones will be very helpful to me when I'm doing design and programming for my CNC work, etc. I should have done this years ago prior to retirement, too, given I was working from home for 21 years as it was and moved to BYOD in 2012, too. You really will benefit from that setup for both your work and your personal pursuits, too.

Who knew that a top quality 27" 4K monitor could be so reasonably priced these days, either...

[Erik Loza]

Jim, I actually ordered a three-monitor mount. Going to fit a VESA tablet holder onto the third arm for my ipad pro, which I use for zoom meetings because it's built-in camera is so good and I can pair with ipods. Working basically 100% from home for the last six months, you find out how "inadequate" your setup really is. It was sufficient when I was mostly on the road but not any longer. Things you don't even think about. For example, the sun comes through one of my windows during certain hours of the morning and creates all sorts of glare on my screen. Never noticed before, because I was always out of the house by then. My (one) monitor has no range of motion, so I am living with it but with an articulated mount, I could angle the screens to get rid of the glare. I think, at least. This sent me on a kick of researching people's WFH setups as far as productivity goes and looking at some of them, wonder how I have been getting by for so long.


Erik

[mike stenson]

That will be a really great setup...I'm "this close" to wanting to add a second 27" Dell monitor to my setup as it would be more comfortable for me than bouncing between the 27" primary screen and the 15" on my MacBook Pro off to the side, especially with the state of my eyes.

Edit...thanks for costing me money, Erik. LOL Second monitor and dual stand on the way at excellent cost. While I was planning on this anyway...you put the bug out. :D

Leave the laptop in the mix. It's a third panel that becomes very useful. I use it for slack, it's always open.. but easily ignored ;)

[Jim Becker]

Leave the laptop in the mix. It's a third panel that becomes very useful. I use it for slack, it's always open.. but easily ignored ;)

Yes, I'd like to do that, but "desk logistics" may make that more difficult...my desk is a corner style, not a straight space. I'll see how things work out.

[Brian Elfert]

My employer has gotten silly with monitors. We had shelves full of extra 22" monitors mostly from massive layoffs. Anyone who wanted two 22" monitors could have them and 90% ended up with dual monitors.

It came time to start replacing the 22" monitors because we were losing a few per month and our stock was down to a few really dirty monitors. My former boss decides to buy $300+ Dell 27" 4K monitors for everyone, but only one monitor instead of dual monitors. Our workforce skews pretty old and most can't read the text at 4K native resolution so most users scale up the text size. The 4K monitors are a waste of money for most. Many would rather have dual lower resolution monitors instead. One department complained enough that they got dual 24" 1080P monitors instead which cost slightly less than a single 27" 4K monitor. (Our furniture came with dual monitor mounts.)

[roger wiegand]

Happy to say that Prime Day once again passed me by without me even noticing. I have to go to some length to avoid "black Friday", but prime day seems quite easy to ignore.

[Brian Tymchak]

I get tired of having to scroll through endless pages of stuff not being able to sort or filter in any meaningful way. So, I turn off pretty quickly.

[Brian Elfert]

The only thing I would have bought would have a been a good brand name webcam. Nothing like that was in the Prime Day sale because good brand name webcams are harder to find than a unicorn right now. This prompted me to check again and Best Buy actually has the Logitech C920s in stock today. For some reason it is ship to store only instead of ship to home.

[William Chain]

Prime days were pretty underwhelming. We bought a few items, but strangely we found products that were better brands than on prime special, and better prices. We bought those instead. There were only 2 TVs on offer, and those got sucked up in seconds, and then the stuff like webcams were non-existent. We found something at Best Buy like others on the thread. We're festooned in monitors working at home, so no specials there were attractive. Monitor stands also seem to be made of unobtanium these days.

[Bert Kemp]

Prime Day? Whats that? Never had any use for duel monitors or web cams:D That battery charger someone mentioned for a 100 bucks I bought last year for $56 dollars. awesome device saved my butt a couple times.

[Bert Kemp]

[Qhttps://www.stealthangelsurvival.com/products/sa-cpb400-portable-car-battery-jump-starter-12v-12-000mah-400a-and-usb-power-bank-w-led-flashlight?utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=Facebook&utm_campaign=FB%20Dynamic%20Re-marketingUOTE=Jim Becker;3063048]This one is a good buy if you want/need a jump battery for in your vehicle:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B015TKUPIC/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1[/QUOTE]

[mike stenson]

well, I did actually order something on prime day. I decided I needed to replace my copy of The Blues Brothers.. so I looked .. reasonably cheap copy, 40% off as prime day deal and it seems I had a certificate for prime day items. So, I paid $0 for a 4k blu-ray that'll be here by lunch.

I wonder how much my prime day purchase cost Amazon?

[Doug Dawson]

That battery charger someone mentioned for a 100 bucks I bought last year for $56 dollars. awesome device saved my butt a couple times.

It was $69 yesterday, and even at that price it was a good score. There are much bigger ones, though, I wouldn’t rely on jumping a truck with it.

I’m also not sure about keeping it in the vehicle. Lithium ion batteries, burn like napalm.

[Rod Sheridan]

I purchased a Klipsch RP-404CW center channel speaker, saved $200..........Rod.

[William Chain]

Nice. I was looking in home theatre but noted that most of what was on sale was 2019 or 2018 models. Speaker probably wouldn't matter, but the TVs were outdated.


I purchased a Klipsch RP-404CW center channel speaker, saved $200..........Rod.

[Bert Kemp]

I buy most everything refurbished or a couple years old, I don't need the latest and greatest :cool:
Nice. I was looking in home theatre but noted that most of what was on sale was 2019 or 2018 models. Speaker probably wouldn't matter, but the TVs were outdated.

[Doug Dawson]

Nice. I was looking in home theatre but noted that most of what was on sale was 2019 or 2018 models. Speaker probably wouldn't matter, but the TVs were outdated.

How do you define an outdated tv. Something that was offered initially for 10k can be 5k six months later. What does that mean. And when “similar” tech gets offered the next year at a chain store for $599, what are you getting.

[Jeff Body]

I got an amazon smart plug for a whopping $0 if I asked Alexa nicely to place it in my shopping cart.

Yes it was 100% completely free and it was delivered 15 hours later.

[Rod Sheridan]

Nice. I was looking in home theatre but noted that most of what was on sale was 2019 or 2018 models. Speaker probably wouldn't matter, but the TVs were outdated.

Hi William, yes with speakers it won't matter, especially since the center channel speaker will be sitting between 2 1981 Klipsch Lascala's:D

Regards, Rod.

[Jim Becker]

I got an amazon smart plug for a whopping $0 if I asked Alexa nicely to place it in my shopping cart.

Yes it was 100% completely free and it was delivered 15 hours later.

I missed that one...nice deal.

[William Chain]

For example - the 2018/2019 models have slower processors, fewer apps, outdated firmware that may or may not be updatable, older hdmi standards, non hdr, slower or noisier 4K upconversion, etc.. I tend to buy at the end of the cycle, when that price drop you mention usually happens but the deals I saw were 2018’s. We’re nearing the end of the 2020 product cycle, those should be coming down any time now.


How do you define an outdated tv. Something that was offered initially for 10k can be 5k six months later. What does that mean. And when “similar” tech gets offered the next year at a chain store for $599, what are you getting.

[Doug Dawson]

For example - the 2018/2019 models have slower processors, fewer apps, outdated firmware that may or may not be updatable, older hdmi standards, non hdr, slower or noisier 4K upconversion, etc.. I tend to buy at the end of the cycle, when that price drop you mention usually happens but the deals I saw were 2018’s. We’re nearing the end of the 2020 product cycle, those should be coming down any time now.

I prefer to buy after a unit has been out for a year or so. But if you buy top-end stuff, the specs are usually sufficiently high that you wouldn't notice. E.g. my Sony 940D is still as good as anything else I've seen in that category, four years later. It seems that video performance has plateaued (8k etc is just a fantasy.)