Best October Prime Day tech deals: TVs, laptops, monitors, and more

As shopping holidays go, the Prime Early Access Sale 2022 might not be able to match Black Friday’s scope, but bargain hunters are still likely to find a few sweet deals during this fall event. Just like the mid-year Prime Day, we expect Amazon devices to be a big part of the deals—look for sales on the Echo Show, Kindle Paperwhite, Ring alarm, and more, plus steep discounts on Fire TV-enabled smart TVs. But if the past predicts the future, you can safely expect solid price cuts on streaming devices, Bluetooth headsets, fitness trackers and smartwatches, mechanical keyboards, mice, and gaming headsets. Often there’s been at least a few nice buys for laptops, desktop PCs, and Chromebooks, too.

The Prime Early Access Sale 2022 starts at midnight Pacific Time on October 11 and ends on October 12, end of day.

If you refer to PCWorld’s articles pointing to the best Prime Early Access Sale 2022 deals, you can be assured that our editors have vetted the deals based on price history and the quality of the product. But it’s also possible for you to do background research that will help you find the best deals.

Like any retailer, Amazon mixes true deals with “sales” that are really just regular prices (or close to it) with a deal tag. To avoid that pitfall, look up historical prices before buying. We like Keepa.com for this—particularly price-history graphs that you can adjust on-the-fly. CamelCamelCamel.com is also a good alternative, though not quite as robust. Both services offer price watching for specific items, too.

For example, let’s say you see a deal on the Elgato Stream Deck. You’d type “Elgato Stream Deck” into Keepa, and find the historic pricing of that product.

Keepa says the best pricing on this macro board was $97 in January 2020, and that the highest was $190 about a year and a half ago. In the last three months, it’s hovered between $120 to $130. With that information, you have the tools to decide whether this streaming accessory is worth the current sale price.

If the sale price were $100, for example, that would be a good deal—you’d be getting close to the lowest price ever. A $110 price tag would also still be a pretty good deal, since it’s cheaper than recent prices, which were already in a low range. The graph also shows that deals in the last year have been standard discounts, rather than anything special like a limited-time lightning deal.

Lightning Deals are limited-time deals that can offer the steepest discounts. Accordingly, the more popular ones sell out fast—like hot-concert-tickets fast. For more information about Lightning Deals check out our guide on how to snag them during the Prime Early Access Sale 2022.

Amazon often teases its lightning deals in advance. If you visit the Prime Early Access Sale 2022 webpage, for example, you may see a carousel of Lightning Deals. Keep scrolling through those deals, and you’ll soon hit products that are on deck but haven’t yet started as deals.

If you find something in those upcoming Lightning Deals you’d like to buy, that’s the time to do historical price-checking. Then when the product goes on sale, you’ll know right away if Amazon’s limited-time price is worth it.

Speaking of which, you don’t have to wait around or keep an eye on the clock to know when your deals are going live. The Amazon app for Android and iOS lets you build a deals watch list and then get notifications when your deals are active.

Once you’ve installed the Amazon app and signed in, go to Settings > Notifications > Your Watched & Waitlisted Deals. Activate the slider in that section. You can now add an upcoming item to your watch list—go to the deals page in the app, find the upcoming deals you’re interested in, and tap Watch this deal.

Remember that Amazon isn’t the only merchant offering sales during Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale 2022. Third-party Amazon marketplace sellers are also eligible to sell items at low prices. Many of these sellers are great, but sometimes there are less-than-honest brokers pushing fake or low-quality products, as The Guardian reported in April 2018.

Before you buy—even with Lightning Deals—take a second to check that the seller and the product appear legitimate. We advise consumers to only buy products that come from, or are fulfilled by, Amazon. That won’t protect you from counterfeits, but if anything goes wrong, you’re 100-percent covered by Amazon’s excellent customer service. With independent third-party marketplace sellers, you have to deal with them directly and can appeal to Amazon only if that effort fails.

Be sure to check out the rest of the internet during the Prime Early Access Sale 2022. With Amazon building so much hype, other retailers are apt to offer their own sales to compete. It’s a long shot to find the exact same deals elsewhere, but it’s always worth checking online shops like Walmart, Newegg, Staples, and Best Buy for a close match.

Or better yet, check out PCWorld’s curated Prime Early Access Sale 2022 articles for the best deals across all retailers.