Month: November 2020

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Amazon’s Black Friday Kindle Deals Are Awesome

I love my Kindle. I’m not joking or putting on an act here, I’m completely serious. The Kindle might be my favorite non-gaming electronic device. I’ve had a few over the years, and right off the bat I noticed how much more I was reading than I was before.

My love for Kindle makes it easy for me to recommend getting one for your own use, and the full gamut of Kindle deals are now live during Amazon’s Black Friday week event.

Amazon Kindle Best Black Friday Deals

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Personally, I recommend getting the entry-level Kindle Black Friday deal, but the new waterproof Kindles are pretty sweet, too. The Kindle Oasis is probably the model I’ll get to replace my current Kindle Paperwhite when I eventually break it (my previous Kindle only stopped working after I managed to knock it off my nightstand in the middle of the night and step on it in the morning).

Black Friday Amazon Echo Deals

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Black Friday: Oculus Quest 2 is in stock, game bundles are on sale

You wouldn’t know it among all the next-gen console launches, but virtual reality is still an awesome way to play games. The Oculus Quest 2 is the latest headset of choice for those who prefer to ditch the cords and keep things simple and clean. That is…if you can find one. Thankfully, Walmart and Amazon have restocked their Oculus Quest 2 inventory, meaning you can have VR perfection by Christmas.

The hottest item would be the 256GB version, which vastly defeats the smaller 64GB version. You’ll pay a bit more, but it’s worth it considering the Quest 2 is meant to be played on the go, and VR game file sizes are often pretty huge.

Oculus is also running some great deals on VR game bundles, which is an easy way to experience some classic titles without digging through a storefront. Check those deals out further below. Don’t forget to check out all the best Black Friday deals as well.

Where to buy Oculus Quest 2

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Oculus Quest and Rift Game Bundle Deals

Oculus is offering some solid bundle deals on many of its most popular games. They’re sort of organized into varying tastes and scope, so if you’re in the mood for short but replayable stuff, or longer narrative-focused games, there’s options.

I particularly recommend the Quest Black Collection, which includes Superhot VR, Robo Recall Unplugged, Moss, and other great games. If you have an Oculust Rift or any other Oculus PC-connected headset, the Diamond Collection includes the fantastic Lone Echo.

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More Black Friday Deals

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Save Big on Gaming Chairs in These Black Friday Sales

Black Friday deals are in full swing, and right now you can save on everything from Instant Pots to now current-gen video games for the Xbox Series X/S and PS5.

Having a comfortable place to sit is incredibly valuable, whether you are kicking back to watch a movie or playing ultra-competitive multiplayer games on console or PC. Luckily for you, there are tons of great deals on some of the best gaming chairs around.

SecretLab has discounts on the entire OMEGA line of chairs, which each come with both lower back support and headrest pillows, and GTRacing has discounted several lines of their best chairs, so you’ll be sure to get a perfect chair for your setup.

Amazon, Best Buy, Newegg, and Walmart also have quite a few gaming chairs discounted, from premium models in the $300-$400 range to much more affordable offerings around $60. Whatever your budget, we’ve got you covered.

For more of the best discounts, be sure to check out our round up of Black Friday best deals, as well as our focused posts, like the best PlayStation deals, where you can find a PS5, and much more.

Black Friday Gaming Chair Deals

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Newegg Black Friday Gaming Chair and Desk Deals

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Amazon Black Friday Gaming Chair and Desk Deals

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Best Buy Black Friday Gaming Chair and Desk Deals

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Walmart Black Friday Gaming Chair and Desk Deals

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Brian Barnett writes wiki guides, deals posts, features, and much more for IGN. You can get your fix of Brian’s antics on Twitter (@Ribnax).

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Save Up To 40% on Select Tile Bluetooth Devices in Amazon’s Black Friday Sale

Amazon’s Black Friday has arrived for 2020 and it features discounts on everything from video games to movies to household items and so much more. One of the bigger discounts this year are for Tile Bluetooth devices. These help you keep track of your car keys, backpacks, luggage, and so much more. All you have to do is connect them to your account, attach them or place them securely in your item, and you can rest easy knowing you won’t every lose your possessions again.

For more great deals, be sure to check out our Best Black Friday Deals mega-post, as well as smaller articles focused on the Best Video Game Deals, the best Walmart laptop deals for less than $1,000, the best Nintendo Switch deals, and much more.

The Best Retailer Deals

Amazon Black Friday Tile Bluetooth Sale

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Get a MacBook Air for $799 with This Black Friday Deal

The Black Friday deals are finally live at all retailers, dropping prices to appealingly low ranges on items of all kinds. And now that Apple’s new M1 MacBook Airs are in stock, laptop sellers are dropping prices on the Intel models released earlier this year by up to $250. So if you’ve been eyeing a new Apple laptop lately, now is a fantastic time to buy.

Before we dive into the MacBook Air Black Friday discount details, though, you should know we’re covering the deals from all angles this year. You can see all our top picks for the best Black Friday deals in our mega-post. Or if you’re more interested in specific items, you can check our Black Friday video game deals article. Now on with the MacBook discounts.

Save Up to $250 on MacBook Air

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The discounts apply to both early-2020 MacBook Air models Amazon sells. For the 256GB model with an Intel Core i3, you can save $200, bringing the price down to an extremely agreeable $799. The 512GB model with an Intel Core i5 has the same $200 off deal, plus you get an extra $49.01 taken off at checkout, bringing the price down from its usual $1299 all the way to $1049.

Both deals are pretty killer discounts on items you don’t normally see for those kinds of prices. It is Black Friday, after all, and Apple has just released a newer model of the MacBook Air, but one that uses Apple-made chips instead of Intel-made ones. If you prefer Intel, or you just like the discounted price point, grab up one of these machines. They may well sell out before long.

These MacBook Airs both sport speedy 10th-generation Icy Lake Intel Core processors (Y-Series) and batteries that last up to 11 hours between charges. They have pixel-dense Retina screens with True Tone technology. They also have football field-sized trackpads and way better keyboards compared to previous models.

About that keyboard. For years, Apple’s butterfly-switch keyboards have been getting dragged in the press for keys ceasing to work just because a speck of dust drifted underneath and got stuck. Also, the tall left and right arrow keys looked nice, but they were much harder to use by touch than the previous “inverted T” arrow keys were. The new “Magic Keyboard” features deeper travel for a much better feel while typing. The short left and right arrow keys are back, which are great for navigating by feel. You also still have a TouchID in the upper corner to replace entering passwords.

More Black Friday Deals

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Chris Reed is a commerce editor and bonafide deals expert at IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.

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One of the Best Black Friday Deals Is On One of the Best 4K TVs

Technically it’s Thanksgiving, which means Black Friday is still a day away. But retailers don’t care about dates anymore: Black Friday is an event now, not just a single day of savings. One of the best Black Friday deals is a slight modification of one of the best 4K TV deals of 2020.

Right now, Amazon is offering the LG CX OLED 4K TV, which is one of our absolute favorite 4K TVs, for a discounted price. But the deal is made all the sweeter by the addition of a $47-off coupon on the item page

Best Black Friday 4K TV Deal

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When you add in the savings from the coupon, the 65″ LG CX 4K TV is at its lowest price, ever, on Amazon, making it one of the best Black Friday deals on anything.

Our Picks for More of the Best Black Friday 4K TV Deals

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Don’t Miss 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim While It’s 50% Off At Amazon (PS4/PS5)

Black Friday 2020 has brought an onslaught of game deals across PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC, and while we spend a ton of time talking about the discounts on AAA titles, Black Friday is a great opportunity to pick up some lesser-known games for your winter backlog. One such game is 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, which launched in Japan last year but released worldwide this past September. If you’re a fan of narrative-driven games, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is a must-play, and it’s on sale for 50% off during Black Friday.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

$30 (was $60) | PS4, PS5

Both Amazon and GameStop have 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim for $30 during Black Friday, down from its list price of $60. This is a physical PS4 game that you can also play on PS5 if you have the version with a disc drive.

I started playing 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim a little over a week ago, and it already ranks in my personal top five games of 2020. It’s a cross-genre title, combining visual novel-esque dialogue scenes with realtime strategy combat that takes place in a post-apocalyptic future. The premise: 13 high-schoolers are drawn into war against violent kaiju, which are destroying cities and threatening mankind’s existence. The kids fight back using giant mechs, or sentinels, and the realtime battles cover their time in the war. However, the narrative in Aegis Rim is anything but linear, and the game also includes adventure side-scrolling segments where you play as one of the teens and slowly put together their story. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is nominated for Best Narrative at this year’s Game Awards for good reason–its story is gripping, and though the battle sequences are fun, I’m most eager to see how all of these story threads interlink by the end.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

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Microsoft Working on Why PS5 Outperforms Xbox Series X on Certain Games

While Microsoft has been touting that the Xbox Series X is the “world’s most powerful console,” the PS5 is outperforming it in early game tests, and Microsoft is working on why.

As reported by The Verge, Digital Foundry has been analyzing some of the new games across both the PS5 – which is capable of 10.28 teraflops of GPU performance – and Xbox Series X – which is capable of 12 teraflops – and it’s not as one-sided as it initially appeared.

In Devil May Cry 5, the Xbox Series X has better performance in 4K and ray tracing modes, but the higher frame rate option runs better on PS5, with the frame rate gaps being more than 40fps in some cases.

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“The dips look really strange to me, and it kind of suggests to me some kind of API limitation on the Xbox side where the GPU is being held back by something,” suggests Digital Foundry editor Richard Leadbetter.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, which has been heavily promoted by Microsoft, also runs a bit smoother on PS5, with the Xbox Series X version showing screen tearing and regular frame rate dips below 60fps.

The same story plays out in Dirt 5, where image quality and resolution go in PS5’s favor. Dirt’s developer Codemasters has acknowledged this peformance gap, and has already said it has a fix in the works.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War does run better in ray tracing performance mode on Xbox Series X, but PS5 performs better in 120fps mode.

Why is this occurring in multiple games? Certain developers have spoken to The Verge and have said that some of the issues stem from the fact that Microsoft only allowed developers to submit games for Xbox Series X certification in June, whereas developers had access to PS5 dev kits far in advance.

So, it appears that this issue is not necessarily a platform issue, but an issue with developers not having ample time to optimize their titles for the Xbox Series X. Microsoft has acknowledged this issue, and promises it is working with developers to solve any complications.

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“We are aware of performance issues in a handful of optimized titles on Xbox Series X|S and are actively working with our partners to identify and resolve the issues to ensure an optimal experience,” says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. “As we begin a new console generation, our partners are just now scratching the surface of what next-gen consoles can do and minor bug fixes are expected as they learn how to take full advantage of our new platform. We are eager to continue working with developers to further explore the capability of Xbox Series X|S in the future.”

The Xbox Series X does have certain advantages over the PS5, on paper, like variable refresh rate and full AMD RDNA2 support, but many developers still need time to take advantage of all the power the Xbox Series X offers.

For more on Xbox Series X, check out our Xbox Series X review and accessibility review, the best games to play on Xbox Series X/S right now, and the best things to do first with your Series X.

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Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.