JBLs portable Charge 5 Bluetooth speaker is on sale for its best price yet – The Verge

JBL’s portable Charge 5 Bluetooth speaker is on sale for its best price yet – The Verge




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Plus, deals on phones, smart displays, and headphones

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JBL’s Charge 5 speaker is on sale for less than $150 on Amazon, which is a new record low.
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

With Memorial Day less than a week away, summer is officially just around the corner. And if your plans this year involve lounging by the pool or picnicking at the park with friends, why not make things more relaxing with the help of a portable Bluetooth speaker? JBL’s Charge 5 is one of the best despite its mono driver, offering up to 20 hours of battery life and perks like stereo pairing and IP67 water resistance. You also won’t need to fret about your phone or other devices running out of battery life using the Charge 5, since the speaker features a USB-A port for topping off your devices as you listen.

While it doesn’t sound as nice or as detailed as Bose’s SoundLink Flex, our favorite Bluetooth speaker, it’s still good; it’s also a great deal right now since it’s on sale in blue on Amazon for $146 ($34 off), which is a new all-time low. Thankfully, if blue isn’t your favorite shade, you can purchase it in other colorways for $149.95 at both Amazon and Best Buy. Read our Bluetooth speaker buying guide.

JBL Charge 5

JBL’s Charge 5 is a powerful Bluetooth speaker with a marathon battery life of up to 20 hours. It also lets you charge your phone through the built-in USB-A port.

Smartphones that come with a stylus and a big display like Samsung’s Galaxy S22 seem fun… until you realize you’d have to fork out over $800 for them. Perhaps that’s why Motorola’s new Moto G Stylus is one of the best budget-friendly phones you can buy. It’s one of the few budget options that features a built-in stylus, and won’t break the bank given it’s currently on sale in the 128GB configuration in either pink or blue at Amazon for $279.99 ($20 off). It’s a modest $20 discount, yes, but it’s also one of the best prices we’ve seen on the unlocked model and only $6 shy of its all-time low.

If you don’t mind that it lacks 5G connectivity, the Moto G offers good value for your money. It offers good battery life for the price, and performs well thanks to its MediaTek Helio G88 processor and 6GB of RAM. Plus, it comes equipped with a large, 6.8-inch 1080p display, which you can use in tandem with the included stylus to write notes on, doodle, and carry out a range of other actions. And while its 50MP camera won’t be taking the best photos, it’s competent and works just fine for a phone under $300. Read our review.

Motorola Moto G Stylus (2022)

Motorola’s new Moto G Stylus is one of our favorite budget-friendly smartphones and, unusually for this price bracket, comes with a built-in stylus. It also performs relatively well and offers a large 6.8-inch LCD display.

Motorola’s Moto G Stylus smartphone comes with a built-in stylus for less.
Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Still looking for a good graduation gift under $100? If you missed out on the Amazon Echo Show deals we saw during the run-up to Mother’s Day, Amazon is once again discounting many of its smart displays. Right now, for instance, you can buy the second-gen Echo Show 8 for $99.99 instead of $129.99 on Amazon, which isn’t the $89.99 all-time low we saw just a few weeks ago but is still pretty close. Several other retailers are also matching this price, including Best Buy, Target, Kohls, and Bed Bath & Beyond. As an added bonus, Amazon is offering a $50 discount on the Ring Video Doorbell or Ring Floodlight Cam Wired Plus when you buy the second-gen Show 8 and apply coupon code BUNDLESAVING at checkout.

Unlike its predecessor, this new model offers 13MP front-facing camera that’ll keep you centered in the frame as move across the room, which can come in handy while making video calls to family back home. Plus, it’s faster and offers full, robust sound. Read our second-gen Echo Show 8 review.

If the Echo Show 8 is out of your budget, however, you can also buy the second-gen Echo Show 5 for half the price. Typically $84.99, Amazon, Best Buy, and Target are all currently selling the 5.5-inch display for $49.99, which is $4 shy of its lowest price to date. It doesn’t support Zoom and offers a lackluster 2MP camera, though, if all you’re looking to do is watch videos, set alarms, listen to music, and control your smart home, it’s still a great buy. Read our 2021 Echo Show 5 review.

Amazon Echo Show 8 (second-gen)

The Echo Show 8 is the midsized smart display in Amazon’s current Echo lineup and can be used to display the weather, news, calendars, grocery lists, and more. You can also use it to control your smart home devices, watch streaming video, or listen to music. It even supports video calling via Zoom and Amazon’s Alexa calling service.

Amazon Echo Show 5 (second-gen)

Amazon’s Echo Show 5 is an ideal smart display for a nightstand. You can set alarms with Alexa using your voice, play music, control smart displays, get a weather report, and more. When the alarm goes off, you merely need to tap the top of the Echo Show 5 to snooze it.

If your Memorial Day plans involve a lot of lazing around and streaming shows, you might want to take advantage of this excellent Hulu deal before it ends in a few days. New and returning Hulu subscribers can get three months of Hulu’s ad-supported plan for just $1 per month until Saturday, May 28th, at 2:59AM ET. Normally $6.99 per month, that equates to a savings of about $18, but note returning customers must have canceled their subscriptions at least a month ago. If you don’t mind putting up with ads, this means you can watch all of Hulu’s TV shows and movies from multiple devices, ranging from your TV to your smartphone, for about the price of a coffee this summer.

Hulu subscription (three-months, ad-supported)

You can get three months of Hulu’s ad-supported service for just $1 per month and get access to all Hulu’s TV shows and movies on a TV, streaming media player, tablet, laptop, console, and other devices. Two people are also allowed to stream on this plan at the same time as well.

A good pair of noise-canceling headphones is incredibly useful, especially given how many people work from home these days and need to drown out kids, construction, and ambient noise. Thankfully, Sennheiser’s stylish Momentum 3 Wireless — which are currently on sale at Best Buy for $249.98 instead of $399.98 — can help you do exactly that.

Not only do the over-ears adequately cancel out noise, but they offer the best sound quality outside of Apple’s AirPods Max, emitting detailed, bass-rich sound. Sony and Bose offer better noise cancellation, sure, but the Momentum 3 Wireless are still some of the best noise-canceling headphones you can buy, despite having launched in 2019. They’re also comfortable, offer features like a customizable EQ and ambient passthrough so you can customize how much external noise you want to hear, and even integrate with the location tracking device, Tile. Read our review.

Sennheiser Momentum 3 Wireless

Sennheiser’s premium noise-canceling headphones offer lush comfort, rich sound with plenty of bass, and a timeless design.

More deals we’re digging today

  • If you prefer earbuds over headphones, you can currently pick up a pair of white OnePlus Buds Z earbuds for $39.99 from OnePlus, which is a $10 discount on one of our favorite budget-friendly earbuds. The OnePlus Buds Z offer good sound quality, an IP55 dust and water resistance rating, and features like auto-pause, which activates when you remove a bud from your ear.
  • Bluetooth trackers also make for a good graduation gift, and right now you can buy a four-pack of assorted Tile trackers for $68 instead of $79.99 on Amazon, its best price ever. The discounted set includes two of the newest Tile Mates, the rectangular Tile Slim, and a Tile Sticker. All are capable of locating items up to 250 feet away, work with both Android and iOS devices, and offer user-replaceable batteries.

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