Amazon UK Spring Deals: tablets, headphones and smartwatches

Amazon is doing a Spring sale – we already covered smartphones in a separate post, here we will focus on tablets and headphones (and a few watches too).

The entire Tab S9 range from Samsung is available with discounts ranging from 13% to 39%, though the higher end includes some freebies into the calculation.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9, Tab S9+ and Tab S9 Ultra come with free Galaxy Buds2 and a Slim Book Cover Keyboard. The latter is a QWERTY keyboard (no touchpad) that has a place to stash the S Pen that comes with the tablets. Also, note that DeX supports keyboard shortcuts. You can pick up the keyboard cover by itself for £70 (which is half off its regular price). It’s also compatible with the Galaxy Tab S9 FE, which will become relevant in a moment.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE and Tab S9 FE+ are on offer too, if you prefer IPS LCD over AMOLED or just don’t want to spend that much on a tablet. The prices are just for the tablets, however, no freebies here (they do come with an S Pen, as usual). If you want a keyboard case, the one we linked above is for the smaller model, the FE+ is compatible with the Tab S9+ case, which is £80 (50% off).

A cheaper tablet with IPS LCD, a 12.1” 120Hz panel with 2,560 x 1,600px resolution (16:10), is the Honor Pad 9. It’s powered by the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 chip and an 8,300mAh battery with 35W charging. There are 8 speakers on board, packed into the 7mm thick aluminum body.

Naturally, Amazon’s tablets are heavily discounted too, 30% or more. The best one is the Amazon Fire Max 11, another slate in the IPS LCD club, though this one has an 11” 2,000 x 1,200px (15:9) display. It supports a stylus, but it is sold separately. There is an optional keyboard cover as well.

The Amazon Fire HD 10 (2023) is a bit smaller and quite a bit cheaper. This version has an octa-core processor like the Max (though it’s slower) and only 3GB of RAM (instead of 4GB). It only comes with 32GB storage, but this is a streaming device by design. It will handle some light gaming too, as well as schoolwork.

Getting into the super cheap category, the Amazon Fire HD 8 is only £60. You get only 2GB of RAM for that price, but you can get the Plus model for £80. That one bumps the RAM to 3GB (both use a hexa-core processor) and supports a wireless charging dock (sold separately) that turns it into a smart display.

And, finally, there is the Amazon Fire 7. No “HD” for this one as the display resolution is under 720p (the HD 8 display is 1,280 x 800px). Still, it’s impressive that you can buy a brand new tablet for just £43.

The original Apple Watch Ultra (with an orange Alpine Loop band) is 17% off. The new Ultra 2 model brings a more efficient Apple S9 chipset and double the storage (64GB), plus a brighter display (3,000 nits, up from 2,000 nits). The differences aren’t huge, though.

Then there is the Samsung Galaxy Watch6 and Watch6 Classic. The Apple Watch works best with iPhones, these are best paired with a Samsung Galaxy (as this enables the ECG feature).

In the other post, we mentioned that the Galaxy S24 Ultra and S24+ come with a free pair of Galaxy Buds2 Pro. The buds themselves are £140 even after a 37% discount, so it’s a solid deal.

For half the price you can have the Samsung Galaxy Buds FE. These also have ANC, but these are rated only IPX2 (vs. IPX7 for the Pros) and are missing out on the more advanced features.

If money is no object, the Sony WF-1000XM5 are the better pick. They offer amazing sound, superb ANC and are fairly compact (especially compared to earlier generations).

For over-ear headphones, Sony’s WH-1000XM4 are £200, the newer WH-1000XM5 are £70 more. The newer model has better ANC, however, some find them less comfortable.

Here’s one for gaming – the Sony Pulse 3D. As the name suggests, these can deliver 3D Audio from a PS4 or PS5 straight to your ears. An included dongle enables a low-latency connection. They are solid general purpose Bluetooth headphones too with dual noise canceling mics.

And we’ll just throw this in quickly, the new PlayStation 5 slim is £70 off its regular price and you can get an additional £20 off if you are a Prime subscriber.