OPINION: Prime Day 2022 has come and gone with Amazon having formally ended the sale at midnight on Wednesday.
During the event there were a number of brilliant discounts on everything from Amazon’s own Echo and Fire devices to healthy savings on robot vacuum cleaners. But for us, the more curious part of the event that’s often overlooked is what didn’t make an appearance during Prime Day.
It’s this key factor that offers a few hints about what to expect from other retailers during the year’s next big (and debatably grander) sales bonanza: Black Friday. Here are the two biggest takeaways Prime Day has given us about what to expect from Black Friday.
Gamers will have been better off waiting
This Prime Day, it’s fair to say, wasn’t the best for gamers. Unlike previous years where we saw huge savings on the Nintendo Switch, the only real deals we saw were a few moderate discounts on games and refurbished Xbox Series X/S bundles.
The ongoing GPU shortage also meant the PC gamers didn’t see any big discounts on Nvidia’s RTX 30-series or AMD’s 6000-series graphics cards. This is a shame as during this time of the year, with the newer models set to come out, you’d traditionally see savings on the older cards or, at the very least, a few good gaming bundles on Prime Day. We didn’t enjoy any major PS5 deals this Prime Day for the same reason.
However, with big name companies including Qualcomm, Samsung and more estimating that the global chip supply shortage will “ease” in the second half of the year, there is light at the end of the tunnel.
As well as more stock potentially being available during Black Friday (which happens in November), with reports suggesting Nvidia has recently over-ordered/stocked up on GPUs for the period, we could see a fresh wave of brilliant gaming discounts during the sale. Here’s hoping at least.
The best TV deals are yet to come
Prime Day did bring with it a number of brilliant discounts, we saw savings on several LCD mid-range sets from Hisense, Panasonic, Philips, LG and more. But in that sea of mid-range deals we only saw a smattering of really good OLED offers. One such deal saw the Sony Bravia KE65A8 for just £1199. That’s £500 off its usual £1699 price.
This was a shame for the team of experts at Trusted Reviews as we’ve been waiting for OLEDs to come down in price since fresh competition from competing technologies, such as Samsung’s Neo QLED and mini LED.
However, once again, if you look at the timing then this makes a bit more sense. Most companies have only just started rolling out their 2022 flagship sets so it would make sense for them to be holding fire on clearing stock of their older models. As a result, we’re expecting the proper flagship TV deals to start appearing later, towards the end of the year, around the same time as Black Friday.
You might like…
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
