In the week before Thanksgiving 2021, the annual rush to buy gifts turned the tablet aisle into a quiet lesson in what companies choose to discount and why. Amazon's own Fire tablets, cheap to begin with, were cut roughly in half, while Apple's iPads stayed stubbornly at full price, as if the most ordinary of household objects were being weighed against the ecosystems that sell them. Shoppers standing at that crossroads were being asked a familiar question: whether to act on the bargain in front of them or wait for the next one that the calendar promised.
Black Friday 2021 Tablet Deals: Half-Price Fire Tablets, Discounted Android and Windows Models
Half-price Fire tablets, while iPads barely budge
In the week before Thanksgiving 2021, the annual rush to buy gifts turned the tablet aisle into a quiet lesson in what companies choose to discount and why. Amazon's own Fire tablets, cheap to begin with, were cut roughly in half, while Apple's iPads stayed stubbornly at full price, as if the most ordinary of household objects were being weighed against the ecosystems that sell them. Shoppers standing at that crossroads were being asked a familiar question: whether to act on the bargain in front of them or wait for the next one that the calendar promised.
On the Monday before Thanksgiving 2021, Amazon's Fire HD 8 tablet, normally $90, was selling for $45 at both Amazon and Target. CNET's deals desk saw it as the lowest price it had recorded for that model, and it set the tone for a season where the deepest cuts belonged to Amazon's own hardware.
The Fire discounts spread across the line. The Fire HD 10 dropped from $150 to $75, and the HD Kids Edition, with its padded case and parental controls, was also half off. Fire tablets come with trade-offs: they run Amazon's own software and draw apps from its store rather than Google's, and their screens still fall short of an iPad's.
Apple was a different story. The 11-inch iPad Pro was out of stock at Staples, and the iPad Air's $50 discount at Amazon was the most notable iPad saving on offer.
Samsung, Lenovo and Microsoft offered real markdowns too. The Galaxy Tab S7 was $151 off, the Lenovo Tab P11 Pro came with an OLED screen and strong speakers, and the Surface Pro 7 was $199 off, though its keyboard was sold separately.
Some deals had already expired, including a Surface Pro discount and another iPad Air saving. CNET expected several to return as retailers rolled out more sales ahead of Black Friday on November 26, so shoppers hoping for an iPad or a new Surface may find that waiting pays off.
On the Monday before Thanksgiving 2021, Amazon's Fire HD 8 tablet, normally $90, was selling for $45 at both Amazon and Target. CNET's deals desk noted that this matched the lowest price it had seen for the 8-inch model, and it set the tone for a tablet market where the biggest markdowns were going to Amazon's own hardware.
The Fire discounts ran across the line. The Fire HD 8 Plus was also half price, and it adds wireless charging and 3GB of RAM instead of the standard model's 2GB. The Fire HD 10, Amazon's largest and most powerful tablet, normally starts at $150 and was down to $75. That model was revised in April 2021 with more RAM, a screen about 10% brighter and a slightly updated design. The Fire HD Kids Edition, a version of the HD 8 with a padded case, parental controls, a two-year warranty and a year of Kids Plus (formerly FreeTime Unlimited, normally $3 a month), was half off at Amazon and Target too.
There are trade-offs. Fire tablets run Amazon's Android-based Fire operating system and pull apps from the Amazon App Store rather than Google's. Google Play can still be installed by the user, which opens up mobile games. The HD 8's screen is sharper than the entry-level Fire 7's, but still well short of an iPad's. CNET also says the Kids Edition isn't really suited to remote learning, though it costs far less than handing a young child an iPad.
Apple's iPads, by contrast, were hard to find at a discount. The 11-inch iPad Pro with the M1 chip, which comes in capacities from 128GB to 2TB, was listed at $700 for the 128GB model at Staples, down from $799. It was out of stock, and CNET said it would watch whether the price returned that week. The 256GB iPad Air was $50 off at $699 on Amazon.
On the Android side, Samsung's premium 11-inch Galaxy Tab S7 was $151 off at Amazon, but only for the 128GB black model, and the keyboard cover is sold separately. It can run as a standard Android tablet or in DeX mode, which makes it behave more like a PC. Lenovo's Tab P11 Pro has an 11.5-inch OLED display, an aluminum-alloy body with four JBL speakers tuned for Dolby Atmos, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G chip aimed at better gaming performance. Its keyboard is also a separate purchase. A budget Samsung tablet with an 8.7-inch, 1,340x800-pixel display and a metal enclosure was pitched as a kid-friendly entertainment option, with no keyboard case included.
On the Windows side, CNET's Editors' Choice Microsoft Surface Pro 7, a generation behind the Surface Pro 8 that arrived with Windows 11 the month before, was $199 off at Amazon. That configuration has a 10th-gen Core i5, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and a 12.3-inch, 2,736x1,824-pixel touchscreen. The clip-on keyboard isn't included.
Some deals had already lapsed. Amazon's $50 discount on the 64GB, 10.9-inch iPad Air was not available, though CNET said it could return, and it called 64GB skimpy for most people. The same goes for a $100 discount on Microsoft's latest Surface Pro. Retailers including Amazon, Best Buy, Target and Walmart had started rolling out sales, with others planning to begin closer to Black Friday on Nov. 26. For shoppers eyeing an iPad or a new Surface, waiting may pay off, and CNET said it would keep updating the page as prices move.
Citações Notáveis
The Fire HD 8 price matches the lowest CNET has seen for it.— CNET
CNET says it is watching for Amazon's $50 iPad Air and $100 Surface Pro discounts to return.— CNET
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