34 Products on Deep Discount in December

These superb-sounding noise-canceling earbuds are a worthy successor to Sony’s popular WF-1000XM4 model. They’re smaller, lighter, and sleeker, and come packed with plenty of features, including variable noise cancellation, an ambient sound mode to actively pipe in audio from your surroundings, and Speak-to-Chat, which can automatically pause your music when you start talking. But most importantly, the sound quality of the XM5s is state-of-the-art for earbuds and the noise cancellation is top-notch.

Walmart still has the same price we saw for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Audio-Technica ATH-SQ1TW earbuds provide nice audio quality at a very attractive price. While this model doesn’t have active noise cancellation, the silicone ear tips deliver quite a lot of passive isolation, and there’s an ambient sound mode for when you want to keep an ear on your environment. They also offer convenient USB-C charging and easy-to-use touch controls for volume and playback and skipping tracks.

This is the same price we saw during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

The good news is that the top-performing Bose Noise Cancelling 700 headphones are now significantly discounted. The bad news? The reason they’re on sale is because the 700s are being discontinued. And our testers found that the Bose model that replaces them—the Quiet Comfort Ultra headphone—doesn’t perform nearly as well. They reported that the Ultras lack the clarity and detail of the 700s. Or to put it another way, the new models sounded a bit like the older ones ... if you put a layer of cheesecloth over them. The Ultras don’t sound exactly bad, but they do sound dull.

The 43-inch Amazon B09N6LRBTR is a new Omni-series set that—unlike older, smaller Omni TVs—supports Dolby Vision HDR. This set does well in our tests, especially for 4K UHD picture quality, but like most of the Omni TVs we’ve tested, it lacks sufficient peak brightness to produce a compelling HDR experience. This model supports Amazon’s new “ambient” feature, which lets the TV display artwork and photos when you’re not watching TV programming. The price is now just $10 higher than during Black Friday.

The Insignia NS-32F201NA23 is a 32-inch 720p set that uses the Fire TV smart system. It’s only a decent performer, so it’s not the best choice for most people’s main TV. But it could be an okay set if you’re looking for a low-cost smart TV that has Amazon Alexa built in, especially for a secondary room in your home. And the price this week is $20 higher than during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

This Café coffee maker stands out for its sleek look and a thermal carafe that matches the rest of the machine. Plus, it has WiFi technology, which allows you to program it to brew coffee using your phone or even your voice if you have Alexa or Google Home. In our tests, it brewed well and was easy to use and clean, though our testers found that the carafe wasn’t the easiest to handle. But it has all of the handy features you’d expect from a good drip coffee maker and then some. Besides its programming capabilities, there’s auto-shutoff, a permanent cone-type filter, and a water filter.

If you’re looking for a pod coffee maker that’s versatile but not too fussy, the Keurig K-Elite is a strong option. It brews five cup sizes (and features a height-adjustable drip tray), has an iced coffee setting, a strong-brew button, and a hot-water button. In our tests, the first cup took a little while to brew, but subsequent cups went faster. It’s also pretty intuitive to operate and clean. Its large water reservoir means you can brew up to 8 cups before you need to refill it.

Shark’s robot vacuums are the only ones that score the highest possible rating for predicted reliability based on CR member surveys, though owners aren’t overly satisfied with them. The Shark AI Ultra RV2610WA uses AI-powered navigational smarts to cover rooms efficiently, and while it rates among the best for picking up pet hair and cleaning bare floors in our tests, it’s only average at sucking dirt from carpet and cleaning edges, with a tendency to scatter debris. It has a pretty small dirt bin, but you won’t have to empty it much; the self-emptying base minimizes your trash pickup duties. This robot vacuum is also on the bulkier side and may have trouble sliding under some furniture.

This powerful, high-end Dyson V15 Detect vac features a laser light on its soft roller powerhead that reveals the dust in its path. The laser feature works best in low light or on dark flooring. A sensor detects the size of particles that are picked up, and a chart on the display shows the particle count size. In CR’s tests, the vacuum ran for about 70 minutes per charge on low mode and 8 minutes on high mode.

Our top-performing canister vacuum, the Miele Complete C3 Marin, earns perfect marks in almost every test we throw its way. It’s a champ at bare floors and embedded pet hair, and excels at capturing dust particles. Powerful airflow makes its attachments especially effective. It’s also noticeably quieter than many models. It gets dinged a bit in our handling test, but that’s true of most canister vacuums, which trail behind you at the end of the hose and power head.

This isn’t the new Apple Watch Series 9, but the Series 8 GPS performed well in our labs, delivering the ease of use and functionality consumers have come to expect from Apple watches. It features body temperature sensors for retrospective estimates of ovulation and a high-g-force sensor for car crash detection. It also has an ECG function designed to detect unusual heart rhythms.

The Fitbit Sense 2 may be a great choice if you’ve had a Fitbit in the past and enjoyed the experience. This smartwatch works with both Android phones and iPhones. It has built-in GPS to track your workouts even if you leave your phone at home. Its blood oxygen sensor enhances its sleep-tracking capabilities, and it can even monitor your stress levels. It scored above average for step counting and ease of use, and it has a claimed six-day battery life.

MSI is best known for its PC gaming products, from laptops like this one to accessories like motherboards and graphics cards. For the price, this 15-inch model makes a nice first gaming laptop for someone on your wish list. It has an Intel Core i5 processor, 512GB of solid-state storage, 16GB of memory, and an Nvidia RTX 3050 graphics card. Those are somewhat modest specs for a gaming laptop (we tested a model with a Core i7), but they’ll let you run popular modern titles like Fortnite, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Apex Legends without a problem. And at this price, it’s hard to complain.

Lenovo makes a range of laptops, and this 15-inch IdeaPad offers good value for the money. It has an AMD Ryzen 3 processor, 8GB of memory, and 256GB of solid-state storage. We rated a similar model (ours had a more powerful Ryzen 7 processor) and found it to be a solid overall performer. One tip: The model ships with Windows 11 in S Mode, which is a simplified version of Windows that only lets you download apps from the Microsoft app store. To get the most out of the laptop, you can upgrade to regular Windows 11 free (via the Settings app).

Apple’s entry-level iPad provides plenty of bang for your buck, especially when you consider the number of high-quality apps and services available for the iPad operating system. The model features a 10.9-inch display, 64GB of storage space, and a refreshed design that resembles that of the higher-end iPad Air, and it comes in a wide range of colors. The Amazon price applies only to the pink version and the Walmart price only to the blue and yellow options.

The Roam, the smallest and most portable model in Sonos’s lineup, has got that Sonos look and feel, but our testers say you can get similar sound and overall performance in cheaper speakers from other manufacturers. If you’ve already invested in a Sonos multiroom system, the model allows you to bring Bluetooth functionality to all your Sonos gear. And Sonos devices are rarely discounted, so you probably won’t find a better price than this one.

The Echo Show 8 offers a lot of device for the money. The voice-enabled touchscreen can be useful in a kitchen when you want to follow a recipe while your hands are messy. The sound quality does have flaws; our testers found the treble to be strident and heard echoes in the all-important midrange. The Show 8 also lacks the Zigbee smart home hub found on the latest-generation Echo.

An internet sensation, this Caraway ceramic-coated cookware set turned out to be a sensation in our tests, too, rising to the top of our ratings for nonstick sets. It comes with 14 pieces, but only half of them are pots or lids. The rest are various racks, hooks, trivets, and things you might not want or have space for. But if this is your first cookware set—and you have the storage space—why not? It excels in all four of our key cooking tests (cooking evenness, simmering, nonstick food release, and speed of heating), and the handles are sturdy and stay cool to the touch while you’re cooking.

The Made In brand is a forerunner in direct-to-consumer cookware, and this 10-inch frying pan is no exception, earning excellent scores for cooking evenness. Not to mention that you can use it on any range or cooktop, including induction. And as it’s one of the most expensive pans we’ve tested, the holiday discount definitely makes it worth it. 

The Bose Revolve II is a good-sounding, easy-to-use, and very stylish portable wireless speaker. It’s not a stretch to call it a classic, and because Bose products don’t go on sale very often, this is a solid buy.

The JBL Pulse 4 has a transparent dome that covers an array of LED lights, so you can watch it as well as listen. You can adjust the model’s colors or make the LEDs pulse to the music to pump up a light show on Saturday night or tone it down to accent-lamp levels after the guests have gone home. The sound quality is more than adequate, with solid but slightly boomy bass, a clear midrange that doesn’t distort vocals, and enough volume to fill a midsized room. That said, you’re paying a lot for the Pulse 4’s visual effects, so you might consider buying the Flip 5 instead and having enough money left over for a nice lamp.