After letting rival camera companies catch up for the last few years, Sony laid down a gauntlet with the 24.6-megapixel A9 III. It’s the world’s first mirrorless camera with a global shutter, a much-awaited holy grail feature. It completely eliminates rolling shutter distortion found on CMOS cameras by reading the entire sensor at once. It also boosts speed and removes the need for a mechanical shutter.

As a pioneering product, it’s not cheap at $6,000, but you can expect the technology to come down in price in the future. And there is a downside: Image quality is reduced compared to regular cameras, due to the nature of a global shutter.

Is it worth trading off image quality for extra speed and lack of distortion, especially compared to stacked sensor cameras that are already pretty quick? To find out, me and my pro photographer friends put a final production model through a variety of shooting scenarios.

Body and handling

The A9 III is Sony’s best handling-camera yet, borrowing all the latest features of recent models like the A7R V. It’s very light for a full-frame camera at just 617 grams. And the redesigned grip is more comfortable and secure, which is a big help to working pros, especially with heavy lenses. By comparison, Sony's A1 can be hard on one’s hands over a full day, according to my photographer pals.

There are three top control dials, making it easy to find primary settings in fully manual mode. It has a pair of dual dials, with one for video, photos and S&Q plus shooting modes, and the other controlling burst along with autofocus. You also get a rear joystick, control dial and no less than 5 custom buttons.

With everything well-placed, it’s a cinch to shoot manually. When you do need to delve into the menus, those are also well laid out. Settings are divided logically into categories, while the home menu shows key options (shutter speed, white balance, etc.) at a glance. Everything can be customized, and you can back up your settings to a memory card.

The high-resolution two million dot rear display is of course touch sensitive for focus and menu control. It flips out and tilts up or down to please both photographers and creators. The viewfinder is the best on any camera, with 9.44 million dots at 120Hz, or half that at 240Hz. That level of sharpness makes it easy to check focus and colors. Again, this is Sony flexing its tech muscles as the primary camera EVF supplier.

Battery life is a solid 500 shots, but you can double that with a new $400 vertical grip, which also gives you a better hold of the camera. It has a dual-card slot setup with both SD UHS II and CFexpress. As usual with Sony, the latter is the slower Type A variety, though. Those are less than half the speed of CFexpress type A, but their smaller size allows Sony to do the dual slot setup.

Other key features include headphone and mic ports, with the option to add Sony brand microphones or audio accessories to the hotshoe. There’s also a full-sized HDMI port, USB-C charging port, ethernet, live-streaming capability and more.

Performance

With the global shutter, dual Bionz processors and the same dedicated AI processor found on the A7R V,, Sony’s A9 III is the fastest full-frame camera in the world. Compressed RAW bursts can be shot at an incredible 120 fps with autofocus and auto-exposure, or you can dial that down to 60 fps or 30 fps.

Steve Dent for Engadget

A big caveat is that the 120 fps mode only works with supported Sony lenses, while third-party lenses are all limited to 15 fps. Hopefully the company will address that in a future firmware update.

The buffer holds 200 RAW frames, so it fills up in less than two seconds at maximum speed. It takes longer to clear the buffer than it should due to the CFexpress Type A cards. If you use SD UHS II cards instead, it takes about twice as long to clear.

In any case, shooting at 120 fps is major overkill most of the time unless you like wading through thousands of photos later on. Sony does have a solution, though. You can shoot at, say, a still-very-fast 30 fps, then press the C5 button to enable the top speed at key moments. That way, you’ll get the shot you want without wasting frames.

The A9 III is also the first Sony camera to use a pre-capture mode that saves a second of photos when you half-press the shutter button. After you fully press it, those photos are saved along with any taken after.

Nathanael Charpentier

Your photos will usually be sharp, too. The 759 phase-detect focus points allow for extremely rapid and accurate autofocus in most situations. For regular continuous AF, it can keep up with even the fastest action.

The AI-powered subject detection shines too. Face tracking works with subjects farther away and it follows someone tenaciously, even when they duck behind obstacles. Human tracking is fast and fluid, and you can easily see if it’s locked onto eyes, face or body.

It can detect birds, animals (or both), along with insects, cars and trains. You can also select any distinctive object and the system will usually track it reliably.

The bottom line is that it rarely misses focus, so it’s great for professional sports, wildlife, weddings and more. Of course it’s not infallible and can mix up subjects, but is better than any camera I’ve tried to date.

Nathanael Charpentier

The A9 III has no need for a mechanical shutter because there’s no rolling shutter distortion, meaning you can shoot in complete silence at all times. With that, it’s perfect for sports like golf, as you can shoot a player in mid-swing without disturbing them, and a club in motion won’t be distorted.

It also allows for extremely fast shutter speeds up to 1/80,000th and it can sync with supported flashes all the way up to that speed. It also eliminates the flicker and banding from venue lights, another big aid for sports photographers.

Sony has also improved its in-body stabilization significantly, boosting it to 8 stops with supported lenses. That allows shots down to a quarter second or less, matching Canon’s EOS R3 and besting the Nikon Z9 and Sony’s own A1.

Image quality

As mentioned, the primary issue with this camera is image quality. So is how much does it fall below regular CMOS cameras? To test that, I shot in situations including gymnasiums, night scenes, bird shooting, an airport and more.

There’s no question that dynamic range is reduced compared to Sony cameras like the A1, at least by a stop. The reason is that the sensor has less light capacity due to the space taken up by the extra electronics.

It also has a smaller ISO range, both on the high and low end. Minimum ISO is not great at 250 and at the high end, ISO is limited to 25,600, half that of the A9 II.

In general, there’s more noise and less dynamic range at any given ISO setting than the A9 II. At the same time, the resolution is lower than rivals like the Nikon Z9 and Sony’s own A7R V and A1. So for landscapes, portraits and other types of photography where dynamic range and resolution is important (and speed isn’t), the A9 III isn’t the best choice.

That said, you’d need to pixel peep to notice any major difference in image quality between rival 24-megapixel cameras up to about ISO 6400. For the intended audience of sports, action and wildlife shooters, it’s more than sufficient.

Beyond that, images are noisier, but still usable up to the maximum ISO 25,600 with noise reduction (Sony appears to have more aggressive noise reduction for JPEG images at higher ISOs). I had no difficulty extracting good shots in dark scenes at ISO 6400 or even ISO 12,800. And as mentioned, you have more control with a flash than any other camera on the market – so that’s a solid option in low light.

Otherwise, images are typical for Sony, with accurate colors and skin tones. The 14-bit RAW files are easy to work with and allow some pushing and pulling, particularly in highlights.

Video

Steve Dent for Engadget

Sony took advantage of the global shutter to make the A9 III its most capable mirrorless camera for video. 4K at up to 60 fps is supersampled using the full 6K sensor width, while 4K at 120 fps can also be shot using the full sensor, albeit with pixel binning. That mode supports full 120 fps playback as well, or slower playback modes via the slow and quick (S&Q) setting.

RAW 4K capture at 60 fps is also possible using an external recorder. All of those modes are available with 10-bit S-Log 3 recording to expand dynamic range in challenging lighting conditions.

That’s just the start of the A9 III’s video powers. Autofocus is as fast and accurate in video as stills mode and has all the same AI features. That means you’ll be sure to keep even fast-moving subjects sharp, whether they’re people, birds, animals or vehicles.

Those who prefer to shoot manually can employ Sony’s handy focus map feature. It has the auto-framing seen on previous Sony models like the ZV-E1 that lets YouTubers move around while filming themselves. You also get the digital zoom feature that reduces focus breathing for supported lenses, with some loss of quality.

Steve Dent

Airplane propeller distortion in video is a telltale sign of a rolling shutter camera, so naturally we had to test the A9 III at an airport against Sony’s stacked sensor A1. Our findings? While the A1 still produces bendy propellers, they’re of course dead straight on the A9 III. That trivial test has large implications. You can shoot things like whip pans or a fast moving train that you’d never try with a rolling shutter sensor. And since everything is exposed at once like a film camera, it’s more cinematic.

The A9 III does have some video competition, as RED just launched a pair of full-frame global shutter cinema cameras last month.

It has the same excellent video stabilization capabilities as the ZV-E1. Regular optical stabilization is good for handheld shots without much movement, or you can kick in the dynamic active mode for walking. That provides near gimbal levels of smoothness, though there’s a considerable zoom and loss of sharpness.

Much as with photos, video quality isn’t quite up to other full-frame cameras, with more noise in general. I shot in S-Log3 most of the time to maximize dynamic range and was satisfied with the results. In low light, I was forced to use some noise reduction.

Quality is still better than any APS-C mirrorless or cinema camera. I think the global shutter advantages, particularly the elimination of rolling shutter, will be worth the tradeoff in quality for a large number of videographers.

Wrap-up

Steve Dent for Engadget

Sony launched its first full-frame mirrorless camera, the A7, years before rivals, and was first to market with backside illuminated and stacked sensors. Lately though, rivals (especially Canon) have been catching up and the field has leveled. With the first global shutter camera, Sony has taken a leap ahead once again.

Image quality has held global sensor cameras back, but Sony clearly felt that the time was finally right. It was a wise calculation — the A9 III is far better than I expected for a first-gen product. It offers mind-blowing speeds and incredible video capabilities, with a relatively small cost in image quality..

Its primary rivals are the $4,800 Canon R3, Sony’s own $6,500 A1, the $5,650 Nikon Z9 and $3,800 Z8, all stacked sensor cameras. The latter three offer much higher resolution and better picture quality, plus shooting speeds that are still darn fast. They all have some rolling shutter, though, along with flicker and flash sync issues that don’t exist on the A9 III.

Whether it’s worth risking that kind of money on new and unproven stacked sensor tech depends on the buyer. Action photographers and videographers won’t blink at the cost if they advantages of global shutter will help them make money. Unless you really need those benefits, though, Nikon’s Z9 and Z8, along with Sony’s A1, are more versatile cameras — and the Z8 is significantly cheaper.

Amazon is ringing in Presidents' Day with big sales on its Echo devices, including its fourth-generation Amazon Echo. The smart speaker is currently down to $55 from $100 — a 45 percent discount. Though released in 2020, Amazon's 4th-gen Echo is still its latest iteration and has held its weight over the years. We even named it 2024's best smart speaker under $100. 

So, what makes the 4th-gen Amazon Echo so great? It stands above its competitors like the Google Nest Audio and HomePod mini thanks to features like two 0.8-inch tweeters combined with a three-inch woofer. It does a nice job of filling the room and has a solid bass thump while playing music. The 4th-gen Amazon Echo also supports lossless HD audio, allows you to call other people with an Echo device and offers voice control for lights, sensors and locks. 

While the 4th-gen Amazon Echo is a solid buy, there are a few Echo devices also on sale that have a bit more oomph. Take the Echo Studio, which is back to its all-time low of $155, down from $200. This speaker is a great option for anyone wanting excellent sound quality. It has a subwoofer, stereo speakers and room adaptation. 

Anyone who prefers a screen to just the speaker can enjoy the Echo Show 15's 29 percent discount. Down to $200 from $280, the 15.6-inch smart display is just $15 more than its record-low price. It has Amazon's Fire TV built-in and can be mounted to the wall for an easy viewing experience, whether in the kitchen or a playroom. Plus, it can provide recipes, space for to-do lists and a view of the home when everyone's away.

Then there's the third-generation Echo Show 10, on sale in charcoal for $195 from $250. The 10.1-inch HD device also has a screen but is still more of a speaker than a TV — though it is compatible with platforms like Netflix and Hulu. As for sound quality, the Echo Show 10 has two one-inch tweeters and a three-inch woofer. It offers many of the same things as the Echo Show 15, like a built-in camera (13MP compared to the 15's 5MP) and home monitoring. 

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Apple's second-generation Pencil aimed at artists and creators is on sale at close to the lowest price we've seen. You can now grab one for $79, a full 39 percent ($30) off the regular price. That makes it an easy buy if you have a compatible tablet and are looking for Apple's Pencil model with the widest array of features. 

Apple designed the second-generation Pencil specifically to work with the iPad, and it's the best stylus you can snap up for the company's tablets. It offer low latency, along with a double-tap feature that you can customize to switch between preferred tools. Other features include tilt sensitivity, pressure sensitivity and what Apple claims is "pixel-perfect precision."

One big advantage that the second-gen Apple Pencil has over its two siblings is wireless charging, as it attaches magnetically to the side of a compatible iPad while it recharges. You'll need a relatively recent iPad Air, iPad mini or iPad Pro, but the magnetic charger on the side of those tablets gives you an easy way to stow your stylus while powering it. You don't have to think about cables, or buy a case with a pen slot.

If you don't need all the second-gen model's features and want to spend a bit less, Apple's Pencil (USB-C) is also on sale for $70 (11 percent off), near it's all-time-low price. It offers the same precision and magnetic mount, but lacks pressure sensitivity, wireless charging and the double tap drawing tool feature.  

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When Honor's Magic V2 first showed up some seven months ago, we were left impressed with its sub-1cm folded thickness. The company has since picked up where Huawei left off and joined forces with Porsche Design, with the first result being a special edition foldable phone, the "Magic V2 RSR" ("RSR" stands for "RennSport Rennwagen," which translates to "racing sport racing car"). Porsche fans may recognize several attributes here that pay homage to the automotive brand, including the iconic agate gray along with a flyline running down the middle of the body — supposedly resembling the Porsche 911's hood. The rear camera island has also been upgraded with a dark titanium frame to go with its bolder trapezoidal redesign.

The Magic V2 RSR retains the same dimensions, measuring 9.9mm thick when folded and 4.7mm when opened, ensuring it remains the world's thinnest foldable phone. The extra decoration adds 3 grams over the base model, reaching 234 grams (about 8.25 oz) which still beats the likes of the OnePlus Open, Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Google's Pixel Fold, largely thanks to Honor's mix of titanium alloy and proprietary steel in its hinge design — this is apparently certified to last for at least 400,000 folds. As a bonus, the Magic V2 line's 5,000mAh battery capacity is larger than the competition, thanks to its more energy-dense silicon-carbon cells. The trade-off here is the missing wireless charging, but you do get 66W of wired fast charging, which takes around 50 minutes to go from zero to 100 percent.

The Magic V2 RSR is still powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, but with storage option limited to just 1TB to go with the 16GB of RAM. The rest of the spec sheet is identical for both Magic V2 variants. For displays, you get a 7.92-inch 2,344 x 2,156 foldable OLED screen (with a barely-noticeable crease) and a 6.43-inch 2,376 x 1,060 exterior OLED display, with their brightness going up to 1,600 nits and 2,500 nits, respectively. For audio, this Android phone comes equipped with "IMAX Enhanced" stereo speakers, whereas phone calls leverage the device's three-mic system for better voice reception. As is the case with most foldables, the fingerprint reader is integrated into the side-mounted power button.

The rear "Falcon Camera System" consists of a 50-megapixel main sensor, a 50-megapixel ultra-wide shooter and a 20-megapixel telephoto camera (2.5x zoom), whereas a 16-megapixel punch-hole selfie camera sits at the top of both screens. Both the rear and front cameras support up to 4K resolution for video recording.

It should come as no surprise that the Magic V2 RSR boxset packs some extra goodies, namely an active stylus, its own carrying case and a spare 66W charger. The special protection case is wrapped in a stitched dark gray vegan leather, though compared to the normal version, it's missing out on a kickstand — a feature I struggle to live without when it comes to foldable phones.

Photo by Richard Lai / Engadget

Like the base model, the Magic V2 RSR will also be headed to global markets, though the prices are under wraps until MWC later this month. For reference, the Magic V2 RSR retails for 15,999 yuan or about $2,220 in China, but expect a huge bump for international pricing. The regular Magic V2 — only available in 512GB flavor for international markets — is priced at £1,700 ($2,140) in the UK and €1,999 ($2,150) in Europe, but the China version and Hong Kong version (also international firmware) cost around $1,400 only. It's no wonder that some savvy consumers would rather import smartphones from overseas, despite the lack of local warranty services.

Apple may be facing a fine of roughly $539 million (500 million euros) from the EU and a ban on its alleged anti-competitive App Store practices for music streaming services, according to FT. The publication, which cites five unnamed sources with knowledge of the matter, reports that the European Commission will announce its ruling early next month.

The probe stems from a 2019 antitrust complaint filed by Spotify and is focused on App Store rules that at the time prevented developers from directing customers to alternative subscription options outside the app, which could be cheaper as they wouldn’t have to compensate for Apple’s 30 percent fee. Apple later loosened these restrictions. According to FT, the Commission will say Apple broke EU antitrust law and created “unfair trading conditions” for its rivals with the App Store’s “anti-steering obligations.”

Some Wyze camera owners have reported that they were suddenly given access to cameras that weren't theirs and even got notifications for events inside other people's homes. Wyze cofounder David Crosby has confirmed the issue to The Verge, telling the publications that "some users were able to see thumbnails of cameras that were not their own in the Events tab." Users started seeing strangers' camera feeds in their accounts after an outage that Wyze said was caused by an Amazon Web Services problem. 

Crosby wrote in a post on the Wyze forum that the company's servers got overloaded, which corrupted some user data, after the outage. The security issue that resulted from that event then allowed users to "see thumbnails of cameras that were not their own in the Events tab." Users couldn't view those videos and could only see their thumbnails, he clarified, and they were not able to view live streams from other people's cameras. Wyze was able to identify 14 incidents before taking down the Events tab altogether. 

The company said it's going to notify all affected users and that it has forcibly logged out everyone who've recently used the Wyze app in order to reset tokens. "We will explain in more detail once we finish investigating exactly how this happened and further steps we will take to make sure it doesn’t happen again," Crosby added. 

While the company doesn't have a detailed explanation for what happened yet, its swift confirmation of the incident is a huge departure from how it previously dealt with a security flaw. Back in 2022, cybersecurity firm Bitdefender revealed that in March 2019, it informed Wyze of a major security vulnerability in the Wyze Cam v1 model. The company didn't inform customers about the flaw, however, and didn't even issue a fix until three years later.

Update, February 20 2024, 9:08PM ET: In an email received by Engadget, Wyze admits to affected users that "about 13,000 Wyze users received thumbnails from cameras that were not their own and 1,504 users tapped on them. Most taps enlarged the thumbnail, but in some cases an Event Video was able to be viewed." 

The company went on to explain that this glitch was caused by a mix-up of device ID and user ID mapping, due to a new third-party caching client library struggling to cope with the "unprecedented" data load from client devices rebooting all at once. Wyze promises to prevent this from happening again by adding "a new layer of verification" for connections, and that it'll look for more reliable client libraries to cope with such incidents.

Some Wyze camera owners have reported that they were suddenly given access to cameras that weren't theirs and even got notifications for events inside other people's homes. Wyze cofounder David Crosby has confirmed the issue to The Verge, telling the publications that "some users were able to see thumbnails of cameras that were not their own in the Events tab." Users started seeing strangers' camera feeds in their accounts after an outage that Wyze said was caused by an Amazon Web Services problem. 

Crosby wrote in a post on the Wyze forum that the company's servers got overloaded, which corrupted some user data, after the outage. The security issue that resulted from that event then allowed users to "see thumbnails of cameras that were not their own in the Events tab." Users couldn't view those videos and could only see their thumbnails, he clarified, and they were not able to view live streams from other people's cameras. Wyze was able to identify 14 incidents before taking down the Events tab altogether. 

The company said it's going to notify all affected users and that it has forcibly logged out everyone who've recently used the Wyze app in order to reset tokens. "We will explain in more detail once we finish investigating exactly how this happened and further steps we will take to make sure it doesn’t happen again," Crosby added. 

While the company doesn't have a detailed explanation for what happened yet, its swift confirmation of the incident is a huge departure from how it previously dealt with a security flaw. Back in 2022, cybersecurity firm Bitdefender revealed that in March 2019, it informed Wyze of a major security vulnerability in the Wyze Cam v1 model. The company didn't inform customers about the flaw, however, and didn't even issue a fix until three years later.

Epic Games just announced that Apple has finally reinstated its iOS developer account in the European Union. This means that the developer plans to launch a digital storefront for iOS devices sometime this year. More importantly, this will allow users to easily download Fortnite on iPhones.

The company revealed that it would be bringing its games store and Fortnite to iOS back in January, but it wasn’t clear if Apple would grant it a developer account. This account makes it much easier for developers to distribute apps and content across Apple’s various platforms.

This is all thanks to the EU’s new Digital Markets Act, which officially goes into effect on March 7. The law designates large services as "gatekeepers," like Apple's App Store, and commands them to become interoperable with competing products to remain in compliance. As far as enforcement in this case, the DMA will all developers to take payments and distribute apps on iOS from outside of official App Store. Apps sold by a third-party sales platform still need to be approved by Apple, via the company’s Notarization process, to spot and remove potentially harmful content.

There’s been a lot of bad blood between Apple and Epic ever since the latter company began using its own in-app payment option in the iOS version of Fortnite. Using it's own payment processing, the 30 percent cut of cosmetic upgrades and power-ups it sold to Fortnite players was no longer landing in Apple's pockets. This launched a lengthy legal battle in the US over whether or not Apple’s walled-garden approach was anticompetitive. Epic sued Apple and Apple banned Epic from its platform. 

A judge recently issued a permanent injunction that gives developers a way to avoid the 30 percent cut of sales that Apple takes via its in-house payment system. This seemed to satisfy neither company. Apple wasn’t happy about being forced to allow third-party payment options on its platform. Epic was unhappy regarding the language of the injunction, in which it was decided that Apple did not have a monopoly on mobile gaming and did not violate antitrust law by banning competing app marketplaces.

Apple is also allowed to arrange fee structures to dissuade developers from using a third-party payment option. It's widely expected that the ruling, as it stands, will not reduce Apple's current 30 percent cut of App Store sales in any meaningful way. Both companies appealed. California’s Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court’s rulings. The companies took their appeals to the US Supreme Court, but the court refused to hear them. That’s where we stand right now.

As all of this was happening on this side of the pond, the EU passed the aforementioned Digital Markets Act, which also forced Apple’s hand into allowing third-party storefronts on iOS devices. There’s no ongoing legal battle in Europe between the two companies, so EU residents will get to play Fortnite again. Americans will have to rely on Xbox Cloud Gaming or GeForce Now to get the popular shooter running on their Apple device.

In any event, maybe things are cooling off a bit between the two companies. It’s worth noting that Disney recently bought an equity stake in Epic Games, to the tune of $1.5 billion. Apple and Disney are known to be particularly cozy.

8BitDo’s Nintendo-inspired wireless mechanical keyboard is currently on sale on Amazon for up to 15 percent off. Launched in 2023, the Retro Mechanical Keyboard is an ode to Nintendo’s consoles from the 1980s: the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Nintendo Famicom. Right now, you can order the Fami Edition (Famicom-inspired) keyboard for $85.49 or the N Edition (NES-inspired) model for $90. Both are record-low prices for the popular accessory.

The 8BitDo Retro Mechanical Keyboard has colors that match Nintendo’s 8-bit consoles nearly perfectly. The N Edition samples the NES’ familiar off-white, dark gray, black and red color scheme. Meanwhile, the Fami Edition draws from the Famicom’s white and crimson. The latter even honors the Famicom’s regional status with Japanese characters below the keys’ English markings.

The wireless keyboards include a separate “Super Buttons” accessory — two huge red or crimson buttons just begging to be mashed. They connect to the keyboard through its 3.5mm jack and are programmable through 8BitDo’s Ultimate Software.

8BitDo

The keyboard’s power indicator and dials fit the accessory’s old-school motif, and you can even customize the keys using Kailh Box White Switches V2. You can also swap out the Super Buttons, which use Gatreon Green Switches.

The keyboard has 87 keys and works in Bluetooth, 2.4GHz wireless and USB wired modes. Its 2,000mAh battery lasts an estimated 200 hours of use and takes about four hours to charge. Although the accessories are only advertised as working with Windows and Android, 8BitDo told Engadget last year that it works with macOS, too.

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While it's not quite on the level of Black Friday, there are often solid bargains to be found over President's Day weekend. Case in point: several iPad models are on sale. There's a particularly good deal on the 10th-gen iPad, which is $100 off to match a record low price of $349 at both Amazon and Best Buy.

We gave the 10th-gen iPad a score of 85 in our late-2022 review. This base variant does not include a cellular connection and it uses the A14 Bionic chip rather than one of Apple's more powerful silicon chipsets. It also has a relatively paltry 64GB of storage. Still, as an entry-level iPad for browsing the web, catching up on emails and watching video on that capable 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display, the 10th-gen model more than does the trick.

If you have a compatible router and decent internet plan, you should get fairly zippy connectivity from this iPad thanks to its Wi-Fi 6 support. The first-gen Apple Pencil works with the tablet as well to help you sketch or doodle on the screen.

If you don't mind making some tradeoffs to save some more cash, you can instead pick up the 9th-gen iPad for a near-record low of $249. This model still has a Home button (Apple moved Touch ID to the lock button on the 10th-gen tablet), meaning it has a smaller display of 10.2 inches. While it has a slower A13 bionic chip, the 9th-gen iPad is still a solid option for basic tasks.

Last but not least, the fifth-gen iPad Air is on sale too. The price has dropped to a record low of $449 if you opt for the purple variant. Although the storage remains at 64GB, the iPad Air offers a significant upgrade over the standard iPads, since it uses Apple's more powerful M1 chip. It supports the more feature-filled 2nd-gen Apple Pencil as well.

It's worth noting that Apple certainly has iPad upgrades in the pipeline. The company may refresh the lineup as soon as next month. But if you can't (or don't want to) wait, these are still good deals.

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