Amazon Discounts iPad Mini 5, Echo Speakers, And Fire HD Tablets For Back-to-School: COVID-19 Edition

by Brandon Hill — Monday, August 17, 2020, 11:36 AM EDT

Today is the day that many students are heading back to school across the United States. Whether those students are partaking in virtual learning from home, or doing in-person learning while practicing social distancing, chances are that they will probably need some new tech gear to start the school year off on the right foot.

Amazon is currently running some deals on tech gear that can be used for students either while doing their school work, or in their downtime. The first deal is on the Wi-Fi version of the Apple iPad Mini 5. The 7.9-inch tablet is typically priced at $399 for the 64GB version, but Amazon currently has it on sale for $349.99. Likewise, the 256GB SKU is discounted from $549.99 to $499.99. The iPad Mini 5 is powered by Apple's A12 Bionic SoC and will likely be supported by Apple for years to come in form of iOS updates.

Apple iPad Mini 5 Wi-Fi 64GB $349.99 @ Amazon

Apple iPad Mini 5 Wi-Fi 256GB $499.99 @ Amazon

If your kids need some soft music in the background while they're working at home, or if you'd rather than pester Alexa with questions every 5 minutes than rack your brain, Amazon also has some great deals on Echo speakers. The high-end Echo Studio complete with 3D audio has been discounted $30 to $169.99, while the Echo Plus is available for 50 percent off, bringing its cost to just $74.99.

Amazon Echo Studio Smart Speaker With Alexa And 3D Audio $169.99 @ Amazon

Amazon Echo Plus Smart Speaker With Built-in Smart Hub $74.99 @ Amazon

If you prefer to have an Echo smart speaker with display functionality, we’ve got you covered there as well. The Echo Show 5 and Echo Show 8 are discounted by $20 and $30 respectively.

Amazon Echo Show 5 With Alexa $69.99 @ Amazon

Amazon Echo Show 8 With Alexa $99.99 @ Amazon

Finally, if your kid needs a tablet for school, but you don’t want to fork out over $300 for an iPad Mini, you can get a nice $30 discount on the Fire HD 8. The tablet comes with a quad-core 2GHz CPU paired with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. The 8-inch display features a resolution of 1280x800 and the Fire HD 8 can last up to 12 hours per charge.

Amazon Fire HD 8 FireOS Tablet 32GB $59.99 @ Amazon

On a side note, we wish all of the kiddos going back to school this week good luck and safe learning!

Tags: deals, Amazon, Back to School, (NASDAQ:AMZN), Fire TV Stick, echo plus, ipad mini 5, covid-19

Brandon Hill

Brandon received his first PC, an IBM Aptiva 310, in 1994 and hasn’t looked back since. He cut his teeth on computer building/repair working at a mom and pop computer shop as a plucky teen in the mid 90s and went on to join AnandTech as the Senior News Editor in 1999. Brandon would later help to form DailyTech where he served as Editor-in-Chief from 2008 until 2014. Brandon is a tech geek at heart, and family members always know where to turn when they need free tech support. When he isn’t writing about the tech hardware or studying up on the latest in mobile gadgets, you’ll find him browsing forums that cater to his long-running passion: automobiles.

Opinions and content posted by HotHardware contributors are their own.

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