21 early October Prime Day tech deals, hand-picked by our gadget-obsessed experts

The best early October Prime Day tech deals include discounts on the AirPods 4, Fire tablets, and a popular DJI vlogging camera.

Mashable's discerning reporters and editors are constantly testing the latest gadgets, from e-readers to headphones, laptops, phones, power stations, smart rings, and portable speakers. This year, many of our favorite products have been besieged by price hikes as a result of the ongoing memory crisis. Fortunately, Amazon is about to bring tech shoppers some relief in the form of Prime Big Deal Days, better known as October Prime Day.

Set for Oct. 6 and 7, Prime Big Deal Days is a 48-hour sale for members of Amazon's Prime program. Often referred to as "October Prime Day," it serves as Amazon's unofficial kickoff to the holiday shopping season. We've been covering the event since its inception in 2022, back when it was still called the Prime Early Access Sale. And this year, we'll be keeping an extra close eye on the best early Prime Day tech deals.

In the lead-up to the sale, Amazon is already offering some steep discounts on select devices from brands like Apple, TCL, Garmin, Beats, and Sony. After spending hours poring over these deals, we've identified the best early Prime Day deals that are so good, we'd buy them ourselves.

How do we pick these deals? We look for products we recommend at record-low prices (or close to them). We use price-tracking tools like camelcamelcamel to see if Amazon's discounts are actually better than usual, then cross-check them with other retailers' listings to make sure they're not cheaper elsewhere. (Walmart and Target are both gearing up to host their own October sales, FYI.) You can add our picks to your cart with confidence. And if we expect prices to drop lower in the days ahead, we'll be sure to tell you that.

So, without any further ado, these are the best early October Prime Day deals we've spotted so far.

$99 AirPods (a Prime Day classic)

It wouldn't be an Amazon Prime event without some $99 AirPods. But, ironically, before the sale officially begins, you can also grab these earbuds for $99 at Walmart. That could change come Oct. 6, as Amazon may be holding back some inventory for Prime Big Deal Days.

Apple's fourth-generation earbuds have excellent audio quality, a comfortable fit, and a five-hour battery life. The newer AirPods 5 sound even better and add ANC, but this pair is still a great option for iOS users on a budget. (Read Mashable's review.)

Note: The AirPods 4 dipped down to $69 last Black Friday, but $99 is their lowest price so far in 2026. Plus, they probably won't be in stock much longer now that their successors have launched.

Take $600 off Apple's most powerful laptop

If you're a professional creative, developer, or AI enthusiast who needs a compact new laptop for work, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better option than the 14-inch, M5 Max-powered MacBook Pro. (The M5 Max is Apple's most powerful laptop chip to date.) The "base" configuration with 36GB of RAM and 2TB of storage got a $500 price increase back in June, which bumped it from $3,599 to $4,099. But right now, Amazon has it on sale for just $3,499 — a $600 savings. It's even cheaper than before.

I should mention that Amazon's MacBook Pro discounts have capped out around $400 during its past Prime events. Suffice to say, this is a very good deal that probably won't last long.

Cheaper-than-ever Fire tablets

Two of Amazon's own Fire tablets are already on sale for record-low prices ahead of Prime Big Deal Days. Take your pick from the compact Fire HD 8 with 64GB of storage — our favorite Fire tablet overall — or the big-screened Fire HD 10 with 32GB of storage, nicer cameras, and a sharper display. (Both have 13-hour battery lives.) They're now up to 53% off for Prime members.

Get 46% off a 4K streaming stick

Amazon's Fire tablets have been safe from price hikes so far, but the retailer raised the prices of all its Fire TV streaming sticks by at least $5 in August. The 4K Plus model went from $49.99 to $69.99. Nevertheless, Amazon will sell it to you for just $37.99 right now. (You can also try the coupon code STREAM4K, as we've seen it work at times this week.)

FWIW, this is Amazon's cheapest media player with support for Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, Nvidia Geforce Now, and Alexa Home Theater (a surround sound feature that works with Echo devices).

A new all-time low on an Apple Watch alternative

Garmin's vívoactive 6 is a lightweight fitness smartwatch with an AMOLED display and an 11-day battery life. It supports features like constant heart rate readings, stress tracking, and sleep coaching. Our friends over at Lifehacker, one of our sister sites, gave it a stellar 4.5/5 review, calling it "a great watch for somebody who wants to track their steps and activity."

A huge discount on a huge QLED TV

The 65-inch TCL QM8L is the best QLED TV for most people, according to Leah Stodart, our former TV expert. She praised its "superb peak brightness, detailed picture quality, and fantastic glare handling." (QLED TVs in general "are ideal for people whose TV usage happens mostly in the daytime, especially watching sports," to quote her TV specs guide.)

Right now, the 85-inch QM8L is available for $2,797.99, which is a good price. However, we do expect this TV to go on sale for $2,497.99 or less once October Prime Day begins Oct. 6, so hold out if you can.

Affordable Fire TVs

The best early Prime Day tech deals always include savings on Amazon's own devices, like the affordable 40-inch Ember Fire TV. This TV has a high-definition HDR10+ display and doubles as an Alexa smart speaker for your home. The 28% discount drops the price to a very affordable $179.99, its lowest-ever price.

And if you're looking for a cheap TV with a little bit more oomph, the 50-inch QLED Ember Fire TV is currently $100 off.

Save $10 when you preorder the 'Ocarina of Time' remake

Nintendo's upcoming remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the Switch 2 will be one of the year's biggest gaming releases (after GTA 6, obviously). Preordering the physical edition will normally cost you $69.99 — it's $10 more than the digital version — but Amazon has it on sale for $59.88 ahead of its Nov. 5 launch. The first print run has special packaging with foil cover art, so don't dawdle.

DJI Osmo Pocket 3 Creator Combo

Our tech editor reviewed this classic DJI vlogging camera when it first came out. At the time, we called it the perfect camera for social creators, and we were right. Since then, this camera has become a very common sight at tech events, conferences, and anywhere else streamers and creators get together.

The new DJI Osmo Pocket 4 can be hard to find in the United States, but the previous-gen version is hardly out of date. This gimbal camera shoots gorgeous 4K vertical and horizontal video, and uses the built-in gimbal for tracking and motion stabilization.

Read our review of the DJI Osmo Pocket 3 camera.

Best deal under $50: Ugreen power bank

Whether you're on team Android or iOS, this power bank will give your smartphone a second life. This has not been a good year to buy a new phone, thanks to rising prices, so if your battery is holding on for dear life, just slip this power bank into your purse or backpack and avoid low-battery anxiety. It charges your phone via an included USB-C cable at a speedy 45W.

Best deal under $25: Apple AirTags

Apple released a new generation of AirTag trackers this year, the AirTag 2. The popular Apple tracker is already at an all-time low price, and we don't expect it to get any cheaper in the days ahead. You can also grab the 4-pack on sale for $89, though we're hoping that price drops to $79.99 soon.

Best deal under $15: Amazon smart plug

This little gadget always goes on sale during Amazon sales, and so we're hardly surprised that it's one of the retailer's early Prime Day deals for October 2026. You can add this smart plug to your cart for just $12.98, a nearly 50% discount. If you're trying to spend every last penny of an Amazon gift card, go ahead and add it to your shopping cart.

Deals on SanDisk memory products

The global memory crisis has led to rising costs for smartphones, laptops, and gaming consoles, but it's been a disaster for SD cards and hard drives. So, while the discounts aren't as huge as they were in past years, you can find savings on these memory products during October Prime Big Deal Days. We've found a bunch of early Prime Day deals on portable SSDs and hard drives, and we expect even more savings to come.

Case in point: The SanDisk Nintendo Switch 2 microSD Card Express is currently $40 off. Likewise, you can save $40 on the popular SanDisk Extreme portable SSD with 1TB of storage.

Best subscription deal

This exclusive deal is for Prime members only, and it's a good one. For a limited time, Prime members can sign up for four months of Audible for just $0.99. You'll also get a $20 Audible credit to spend as you like.

Our advice? Take advantage of this deal and set a calendar reminder three months and 29 days in the future.

Cheap wireless earbuds for under $25

If you're hoping to buy flagship-quality noise-cancelling earbuds, then wait for Prime Big Deal Days to begin, as we're expecting big discounts on Apple, Sony, and Bose earbuds. However, if you're prone to losing earbuds and just need something simple for everyday use, the popular Anker Soundcore P30i Earbuds are already at a record-low price of $24.99.

Deals to watch: Bose QuietComfort headphones and earbuds on sale

We've made no secret of the fact that we love Bose headphones and earbuds here at Mashable. The brand makes the most comfortable headphones we've ever tested, and the brand's popular QuietComfort line recently got refreshed.

Earlier this week, you could get the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (Gen 2) and the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (Gen 2) for $50 off, but this deal has ended. However, we are very confident these products will get even bigger discounts when the Prime Big Deal Days sale starts on Tuesday, Oct. 6

More Apple deals to watch

Some of the best early Prime Day tech deals so far are on Apple's iPads — or, at least, they were. As of this weekend, Apple's iPads are no longer on sale. That's the bad news. The good news is we fully expect the base iPad, the M4 iPad Air, and hopefully the M5 iPad Pro to get discounts in the coming days.

In the meantime, check out our guide to all of the October Prime Day iPad deals we expect this year.