Amazon Prime Day, our favourite mid-summer shopping holiday, has arrived in the UK, kicking off earlier today at 12 noon. For our American friends, Prime Day 2018 is expected to begin in the early afternoon in the US: 3PM Eastern, 2PM Central and 12PM Pacific to be exact. Prime Day runs for 36 hours, concluding in the UK at the stroke of midnight on Tuesday 17th of July.
As in the past, Amazon has negotiated hard with manufacturers to ensure deep discounts for Amazon Prime customers (or those on a free 30-day trial – sign up if you like, you’re free to cancel at any time). There are a staggering number of items on offer of potential interest to Digital Foundry readers, including electronics, PC components, 4K HDR TVs and more. What follows is our curated roundup of the best deals available – the stuff we’d consider buying with our own money. As this is a curated selection rather than a straight list of deals, feel free to check back later – we’re still filtering through and adding stuff that catches our eye. Also note that prices may change at any given point (it looks like early SSD deals have already been snapped up). One more thing: sometimes, the price isn’t immediately revealed upon clicking through, requiring you to press a ‘view deal’ button on the top-right of the page.
You can also head directly to Amazon’s Prime Day 2018 hub pages if you want to wade through the offers yourself. You can find the UK Prime Day Hub here, and the US Prime Day Hub here. On top of that, there’s also 20 per cent off purchases from the discounted Amazon Warehouse, so click through for that to see if you can track down any truly outrageous bargains – we spotted a Razer Blade 14 for £1035, for example…
Recommended 4K TV Prime Day 2018 deals
While there’s a lack of genuinely outstanding Prime Day 4K TV bargains this year in terms of the top-end premium models, that’s not to say that you can’t grab a very large flat panel that still produces great gaming results. And yes, there is an OLED! We recommend the LG’s UK6300 as a decent entry-level screen with extremely low (under 12ms) input lag when running in game mode. Alongside that is the even cheaper Sony XE70, which again features excellent input lag, this time in the region of 20ms – and a 55-inch screen for under £500 can’t be sniffed at.
Unfortunately, the LG B7 OLED isn’t on sale for Prime Day, but there is an extremely well-priced OLED offering – Philips’ Ambilight model, the 55POS9002. It’s received some phenomenal reviews, and in common with many OLED offerings, the panel is from LG itself. Latency around 30ms isn’t outstanding, but picture quality is – and unlike the cheaper screens, it can deliver a proper HDR experience. Both the Sony and LG screens highlighted here simply don’t compare in this regard.
Best SSD Prime Day 2018 deals
A solid state drive (SSD) is an essential part of any modern gaming PC, so it’s worth switching over if you’re still using a mechanical HDD or getting another drive with more capacity if you’re starting to run low on space. While SSDs vary in their specifications, all of the recent releases from the major brands – Crucial, Samsung, Sandisk – will be mostly equivalent when it comes to gaming, usually offering sequential read speeds of at least 500MB/s.
Recommended gaming mice for Prime Day 2018
Logitech G402 Hyperion Fury: This gaming mouse is one of the most popular models available thanks to its comfortable shape, plethora of programmable buttons and dependable AM010 sensor. At 109 grams, it’s light enough for fast flicks, and its Omron switches should ensure the buttons last for years and years. The mouse also comes with RGB lighting, if you’re into that, and a reduced sub-£20 price that’s sure to impress.
HyperX Pulsefire: This gaming mouse is expressly designed for FPS gaming. It uses the highly respected Pixart 3310 optical sensor and weighs just 95 grams, making it one of the best choices for flicking quickly and accurately at low dpi settings. The Pulsefire also includes six buttons, textured side grips, a braided cable and extra-large skates. All in all, it’s an excellent deal at just a penny over £33.
Logitech MX Master: The MX Master is a wireless gaming mouse with a comfortable and stylish design. Its high weight makes it less suited for the quick flicks of FPS gameplay, but its broad shape works extremely well for office work, MMOs and strategy titles where comfort and endurance is key. It also features Logitech’s dual-mode scroll wheel, allowing you to switch between infinite scrolling and tactile steps. It normally costs £80, so the £38 Prime Day price is impressive.
Logitech G502 Proteus Spectrum: Another Logitech mouse with a funny long name, the G502 is a larger mouse with more buttons, an improved infinite scroll wheel and an adjustable weight that bottoms out at 125 grams. The G502 has many of the same features as its younger brother, including programmable buttons, gorgeous RGB lighting and a sophisticated software control centre. At £36, this full-featured mouse could be worth the extra pennies.
Best SD and Micro SD card Prime Day 2018 offers
Micro and full-size SD cards have been heavily discounted this year, making it a good time to upgrade the memory of your Nintendo Switch, DSLR, action camera, smartphone or drone. Note that Micro SD cards can be used in devices that take SD cards with an adapter, which is normally provided, but full-size SD cards won’t fit in a device that takes only Micro SD cards.
Best of the rest: more Prime Day 2018 deals
PlayStation Plus: If you’ve got a PlayStation then this is a great time to grab PlayStation Plus at a deep discount – right now, you can get 15 months of Plus for £35. That means online multiplayer access, exclusive discounts and – most importantly – a selection of free games each month from Sony’s back catalogue.
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