It’s time to start shopping for those holiday gifts. So many gadgets are hard to get right now due to supply chain issues, and buying them later might mean they won’t arrive on time. This weekend, we’ve got a collection of deals on some of our favorite headphones, digital games, and even an electric scooter. If you’re running out of space on your devices, we’ve also got some discounts that can help.
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One of Our Favorite Escooters Is on Sale
Apollo Ghost
Photograph: ApolloThis is a spendy electric scooter, even on sale, but the Apollo Ghost (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is ideal for anyone that needs power to climb steep hills. It has dual motors that let you easily fly past 30 miles per hour, the option of disc or hydraulic brakes, a roomy deck, plus plenty of lighting options to keep you visible in the dark. It folds down for easy storage too. The only problems? The displays are a bit dim, and it weighs 64 pounds.
Storage Deals
Crucial X6
Photograph: CrucialWe rounded up more storage-related deals earlier this week, including SD cards, USB sticks, and SSDs. And if you need a new laptop, we’ve got more deals here.
Of all the portable solid-state drives (SSDs) we’ve tested, the Crucial X6 is our favorite. It’s lightweight and incredibly fast. If you need high-speed data access for things like video editing, this is a great option. For less than $200, it’s a downright steal.
If you want to make your computer faster, the best way to do it is to upgrade to an SSD. This 2-terabyte drive can be plugged directly into your motherboard’s PCIe NVMe Gen 3 slot. Once installed, it’ll bring a massive speed boost to the load times of any apps or games you put on it.
For most people, a 16-terabyte external drive is overkill. But if you’re a video editor, have a huge movie collection, or just haven’t deleted a file since 1996, this massive HDD might be roomy enough for you. It has ample space to store project files, raw media files, and anything else you can throw at it.
Video Game Deals
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This week, Nintendo revealed the last Super Smash Bros. Ultimate fighter, and it’s none other than Sora, from the Kingdom Hearts franchise. This rounds out the largest roster in Smash history, which includes everyone from Banjo and Kazooie to Persona 5‘s Joker. If you’ve been waiting to get in on the battle, now’s a perfect time. It rarely goes on sale, but this deal is on the physical copy of the game.
Skyward Sword is widely held as a top-tier Zelda game, but the mandatory motion controls it featured on the Wii U when it first came out were polarizing, to say the least. If you were one of those people put off by this choice—or, more likely, if you skipped the Wii U entirely—then the remake for the Switch may be up your alley. Thankfully, this time the motion controls are optional.
Take a break from making your Pokémon fight one another and go on a relaxing photo cruise in this sequel to the classic 1999 Nintendo 64 game. Just like the first one, this is a surprisingly engaging tour of gorgeous landscapes, where you use fruit, songs, and other tools to lure Pokémon into the perfect shot.
This third-person looter-shooter is explosive fun. You explore alien worlds with fellow stranded colonists, and it’s so beautiful you’ll find yourself just enjoying the view—until a giant creature attacks you.
An outstanding breakout game that’s worth playing with headphones on, Hellblade follows the story of a Norse warrior named Senua on her way to Helheim. It’s a deeply atmospheric game with unique gameplay that encourages the player to question their experience. PlayStation Plus subscribers can take an extra 5 percent off to bring the total down to $6.
Before game director Hideo Kojima went independent to pursue his dreams of making enthralling walking simulators about package delivery and whales, he made a name for himself on the Metal Gear: Solid franchise. The final installment in that series, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, is an open-world stealth game. That is, if anything Kojima does fits into genre definitions.
This classic, chaotic hack-and-slash title from PlatinumGames has been around for years, but with the third game in the trilogy finally set to come out in 2022, it’s a good time to get into the series if you haven’t already. You play a shape-shifting witch who can summon demons with her hair, has high-heel guns … you’ve already left to buy it, haven’t you?
Miscellaneous Deals
When your kids are old enough to start asking questions, you can pass some of those off to Alexa. The Echo Dot Kids is not only a little cuter than other Echo Dots, it comes with a suite of parental controls that can help you make sure your child doesn’t stumble onto explicit songs or spend too much time chatting with their bot. It’s dipped to $30 during big sale events, but this is still one of the lowest prices in a few months.
Use code BUDS20 at checkout to see the full discount. OnePlus made a name for itself as a company that delivers high-quality products at lower prices than the competition. That reputation for value has waned in recent years, but it’s managed to put out solid competitors like these OnePlus Buds Pro. They work best with OnePlus phones, but you can use them with any phone or Bluetooth-enabled screen.
Arguably, smart speakers are more useful when they have a touchscreen. On top of setting timers, playing music, and controlling smart home gadgets, the display lets you place video calls, watch Netflix, see the weather, and follow recipes all from a single device.
Make sure you choose unlocked, and if you don’t have a device to trade in, you can grab the A52 5G (7/10, WIRED Recommends) for $100 off. That’s a solid price on a phone that offers decent performance, a 120-Hz AMOLED screen, 5G connectivity, IP67 water resistance, and a promise of three OS upgrades and four years of security patches.
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