10 Great Deals on Laptops, Routers, and Apple Watch

Next week, the gadget world will be focused on the Consumer Electronics Show, better known as CES, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Gadget makers will showcase their latest wares, some of which will later become actual products. Maybe. Whatever the case, retailers are clearing out old stock at the moment, which means there are plenty of deals to be had on tech.

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Tablet and Laptop Deals

We’re expecting to see some new laptops and tablets at CES next week, but don’t let that stop you from upgrading to these discounted devices, which are still great. Read our guide Best Laptops and Best Cheap Laptops guides for more options.

Apple’s basic iPad (7/10, WIRED Review) is a bit slicker and more powerful than previous models, but it’s also pricier, so we’re not huge fans. This deal brings the price back down to the usual levels though, making this iPad a more appealing prospect. There’s finally a USB-C port instead of Lightning, and it’s powered by Apple’s A14 Bionic chip—the same that’s in the iPhone 12—which Apple claims delivers 20 percent faster performance.

Looking for a tablet that can replace your laptop now and then? One that still works great as an entertainment slate, and is not an iPad? Have a look at the OnePlus Pad (8/10, WIRED Recommends). It’s the first-ever tablet from the phone maker, and there are a lot of improvements in making the Android experience on a tablet great. We did see this one drop another $30 on Black Friday, but you’re unlikely to see that again any time soon. If you buy it from OnePlus.com, you can snag a free stylus or folio cover.

This isn’t a huge discount, but it’s a chance to save a few bucks on one of our favorite budget laptops. The IdeaPad 5 uses a Ryzen 7 processor, which gives you plenty of power, and there’s a nice 16-inch IPS display, 16 GB of RAM, and a 512-GB SSD. The 360-degree hinge converts it to tablet mode or stand mode for watching movies.

Asus’ Zenbook 14 offers a combination of good performance, great battery life, and an OLED display. This is the more expensive model linked in our Best Laptops guide. You get an AMD Ryzen 7 7730U CPU, with 16 GB of RAM and a 512-GB SSD. We were impressed with the performance, especially given the price tag. Gaming isn’t the best, but battery life is outstanding, clocking in at 12.5 hours.

This Lenovo Legion 5 is a solid gaming machine with an AMD Ryzen 7 7735H chip, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 graphics, 16 GB of RAM, and a 512-gigabyte SSD. The 165-Hz refresh rate on the 15-inch WQHD screen should make for smooth graphics.

We haven’t tested this Asus gaming rig, but we’re fans of the ROG line of laptops. With an AMD Ryzen 7 6800HS chip, a GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card, and 8 GB of RAM, this is going to be the middle of the road for gaming performance, but it should still be plenty speedy for most things.

Watch and Fitness Tracker Deals

Getting your fitness on in the new year? A tracking device can help you set and meet goals. We did a whole post earlier this week on the best fitness tracker deals, but here are a couple of highlights.

Apple Watch Series 9 smartwatches are back on sale again. The Series 9 (7/10, WIRED Recommends) is Apple’s top-of-the-line model with all the fitness and health-tracking bells and whistles you could want. We did see this one go down to $329 during Black Friday, but this is still a solid deal.

The entry-level Fitbit has most of the company’s best features at an affordable price. Battery life is excellent at 10 days and you get an AMOLED touchscreen that’s noticeably easier to see. You can track everything from breathing rate, skin temperature, and “stress management” scores.

Router Deals

Our guide on how to choose a router will help you answer all your router questions and figure out what features you need. Read our Best Routers and Best Mesh Routers guides for more.

If you’re looking for a dead-simple mesh router system, we recommend the Nest Wi-Fi Pro (7/10, WIRED recommends). It’s easy to set up thanks to the Google Home app, which you might already have installed if you use Google Assistant–powered smart home devices. These shiny pill-shaped routers come in packs of one, two, or three. Coverage and performance were solid and consistent in our testing.

Gaming? This is the router you want. The loud design complete with RGB lighting screams gamer, and in our tests, it served up speedy, unbroken Wi-Fi throughout the home. Do you have four simultaneous online gaming sessions going? Not a problem with the Rapture GT.