Gadgetory

the holiday shopping bonanza is upon us as you scramble to score sales on gifts keep these basic rules in mind to avoid getting suckered by a bad deal for starters always do a little background on the gadget is it brand new or is it last year's model we've seen some nice sales advertised on last year's Roku which is still perfectly good as well as last year's Beats Studio wireless headphones and last year's GoPro Hero 5 Smart speakers are going to be a hot gift and we've seen many stores selling a new Google home Mini at a discounted price of $29 during Black Friday and then stores were throwing in bonus gift cards and coupons to sweeten the sale it sounds perfect until you remember that Google admitted there was a problem with the speaker and it had to disable the touch controls it's not a big deal if you don't mind only controlling it with your voice see research matters if you're getting wrapped up in Amazon deal hunting you should use the site camel camel camel it's a funny name but it will check the price history of everything sold on Amazon so you know if it's a really good deal also do the math on bundles getting a bundle doesn't always mean you're getting a discount we saw Nintendo had a Super Mario Odyssey switch bundle that came with the console game and carrying case and it costs the same as if you bought all three things separately when you're swept up in the shopping rush of a sale be wary of buying extra accessories at full price and stay away from off-brand or no brand tablets they just end up being junk when it comes to cheap tablets the best choice is Amazons fire seven tablet it's only 30 bucks when it's on sale I'm Bridget Carey and you can keep up with the latest hot holiday gadget deals at cnet.com