Amazon set the date for the next Prime Day – it starts on July 16 – but in the meantime, the retailer is running 4th of July deals. Best Buy has its own shopping holiday dubbed Member Deals Day, which offers additional savings for members of My Best Buy Plus or Total. The most interesting deals that we found from both retailers happen to be about tablets, so let’s have a look.
Samsung officially confirmed the July 10 date for the big Galaxy Unpacked event, which will bring the next generation of Galaxy Tab S flagship tablets. We haven’t heard much about them, but it looks like there won’t be major design changes. Also, the Tab S10+ was spotted on Geekbench with a Dimensity 9300+ chipset.
The Tab S9 generation is having a going away party with discounts on Amazon – the Galaxy Tab S9+ and S9 are up to $200 off. This generation is set to receive a total of 4 OS updates (ending with Android 17) and 5 years of security patches.
Amazon didn’t have a good offer on the Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra, so we switch over to Best Buy. By the way, Best Buy matches the Amazon prices on the Tab S9+ and Tab S9, but only if you have a Plus or Total membership.
Anyway, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra is $1,050 for the base 12/256GB Wi-Fi model. Plus and Total members can get an additional $100 discount, bringing the price down to $950.
All three slates have microSD slots, so unless you need fast storage, you shouldn’t feel pressured to get the higher capacity model. That said, note that the vanilla Tab S9 has 8GB of RAM on the base variant (128GB) and 12GB on the higher capacity options.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE and Tab S9 FE+ are the mid-range options. They use IPS LCD panels (90Hz) instead of OLED and an Exynos 1380 chipset instead of Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. They have the same IP68 water resistance rating so you don’t have to worry about accidental water damage. While they do support DeX, it’s only available on the tablet’s own display (the USB 2.0 port can’t do video out).
An even more affordable version is the Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite (2024). This is the third iteration of this model and features a 10.4” LCD, plus the same limited version of DeX as the FE slates (but there’s no water resistance, if that’s a consideration).
For Apple slates, we head back to Best Buy. The iPad Pro 12.9 and 11 from 2022, the ones with the Apple M2 chip, are $200 and $100 off, respectively. My Best Buy members can knock an additional $50 off the price. Both slates support Stage Manager, Apple’s take on tablet multitasking, including on external displays over video out.
My Best Buy members that want a keyboard with their iPad may want to use the link below instead. It takes you to an “offer builder” page that helps you combine the tablet with a matching Logitech keyboard and get a 25% discount on the keyboard.
Finally, if you’re looking to buy a tablet for gaming, you may want to consider something like the Asus ROG Ally X instead. This version uses the same Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU as the original Ally, but packs more RAM (24GB) and it’s faster (LPDDR5X-7500 instead of LPDDR5-6400), so there will be a performance boost. It also features a 1TB SSD, a (physically) larger M.2 2280 drive that will be easier to replace down the line if you need more storage.
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