Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days opened on October 6, and in the first hours of the event eight of the best-selling projectors on Amazon were carrying a red Prime Big Deal Days badge. The badges advertise savings of 15 to 41 percent. Measured against what the same listings cost on the afternoon of October 5, four of those eight came down by exactly 5 percent.
We re-checked the live price of every projector on Amazon’s category best-seller list early on October 6, Pacific time. Two of the 24 slots are taken by plug-in Christmas light projectors, which we left out. Of the other 22 we got a clean reading on 20, and one of those, a Google TV model that sold for $349.99 on Monday, had no Amazon buy box this morning, only third-party offers. That leaves 19 machines with a before-and-after price. Their median fell overnight from $75.99 to $67.99.
That is a real move, and it is also exactly where the median stood on September 16, when we checked the list three weeks ahead of the event and found that prices had risen since Labor Day. Some of the ground lost in late September has been recovered. Not much more than that.
Nine of the 19 got at least 1 percent cheaper overnight, eight did not move, and two went up. The nine that fell split cleanly into two groups.
The first group is the round 5 percent. The Aurzen Roku TV D1R air went from $149.99 to $142.47, under a badge reading 41 percent off a $239.99 list price. The Aurzen Roku TV E1R went from $89.99 to $85.48 (badged 39 percent off $139.99). The ELEPHAS Roku TV projector went from $99.98 to $94.98, and HAPPRUN’s 30W outdoor model from $159.96 to $151.96. Philoent’s Wi-Fi 6 mini (ASIN B0H93MFZ34) went from $79.99 to $75.99 without a deal badge, though its price block now shows 31 percent off a $109.99 list price. All five land within a cent or two of 95 percent of Monday’s figure.
The second group cut harder. The number-one seller, a YGSKK mini (B0F7RR3YC6), dropped from $75.99 to $67.19, 11.6 percent. The original Aurzen Roku TV D1R fell from $139.99 to $123.48, also just under 12 percent. The TMY 1080p mini went from $79.99 to $67.99, and the Thunrlge HY300 Pro from $53.99 to $42.49, the largest proportional cut on the list at 21 percent.
Every one of the eight badged machines is now below the lowest price we have logged for it since late July. The margins are thin. The D1R air had never read below $149.97 in eleven checks; it is now $142.47. The TMY’s previous low was $69.98, two dollars above today. Shoppers who were waiting for the first real markdown on these models have it. Shoppers who took the badge’s 41 percent at face value have been given a list price that this listing has not charged on any day we looked.
The more curious labels are on prices that did not move at all. HAPPRUN’s 1080p outdoor projector shows $84.92 as a “Prime Member Price,” with a note that the price is exclusively for Amazon Prime members and a 23 percent saving against a $109.99 list. It has been $84.92 or $84.93 on all eleven readings we have taken since July 28, Prime membership or not.
The Aurzen Roku TV D1R Cube carries the same Prime-member label at $179.99, presented as 28 percent off $249.99. That is a genuine reduction from the $249.99 it moved to in early September, but it is also the price the Cube sold for in late August. A short-throw mini from a seller called Sainyer shows $42.99 under the same label, the price it had on September 28, three dollars above the $39.99 we saw in early September.
Two went the other way overnight. An AKIYO mini rose from $43.99 to $46.40, and an unbranded HY300 Pro clone from $39.99 to $41.99.
Three weeks ago we published the prices to hold Prime Day offers against. Several of those machines are not part of the event at all. The unbranded B0GGH9DJ9Q mini, which jumped from $59.99 to $89.99 in a single week in early September, is $69.99 with no badge, still ten dollars above what it sold for all of August. The ONOAYO 4K outdoor projector, which has flipped between $241.99 and $402.99 all summer, is on the high side at $402.99. The NexiGo PJ40 Pro is $299.99 for the fourth straight reading, and Magcubic’s Wi-Fi 6 mini is unchanged at $59.99. The Magcubic HY300 Pro is $49.99, eight dollars more than on September 16.
Outside the best-seller list, the most notable price this morning belongs to the Dangbei N3 Max. It is $359.20, badged 36 percent off its $559.99 list. In our September 16 report we called its $399.99 the baseline to beat, because it had held that figure for three weeks; today’s price is $40.79 below it and the lowest we have recorded for the N3 Max. For that money it still delivers 1,000 ISO lumens from a sealed optical engine, VIDAA with officially licensed Netflix, automatic focus and keystone correction, and 12W of Dolby Audio. Few projectors under $400 pair that much light with Netflix running natively rather than through a stick.
The Dangbei N2 mini is $149, badged 35 percent off $229. It was $179 when we checked it in late August and back at $199 on October 1, so this is its lowest figure in our notes as well, for a compact 1080p projector that opens licensed Netflix, YouTube and Prime Video without a streaming stick.
Several 4K machines are also at the lowest prices we have on file. XGIMI’s Elfin Flip 4K is $799 against $999 on September 29. JMGO’s O2S Ultra triple-laser ultra short throw is $1,984, down from the $2,299 it carried in mid-September. Epson’s Home Cinema 2350 is $1,018.52, about $217 under its late-September price, and BenQ’s TK705i is $1,399, $200 under. The Optoma UHD38x is $899, a hundred dollars below what it cost when we compiled our 4K under $1,000 guide.
Two higher-priced listings show why a badge on its own says little. Hisense’s M2 Pro is $997.49 with a 23 percent saving shown against $1,299.99; it was $997.49 yesterday, before the event began. ViewSonic’s LX700-4K is $1,143.38, presented as 31 percent off $1,649.99. On September 26 the same listing sold for $999.99, which we reported at the time. Its Prime Big Deal Days price is $143 higher than a price it had ten days ago.
The event runs through October 7. We will check the same listings again before it ends, and the question worth answering then is whether the 5 percent group moves a second time or whether the first morning was the deal.