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Last week, a sad-eyed young man in an Apple Genius t-shirt said the six words no Apple aficionado wants to hear. "Your AirPods Pro 2," he said, "are borked".
He probably didn't use the word "borked", but that's what he meant: the right earbud was completely gone, and the left was on its way out too; my buds were out of warranty and I didn't have AppleCare on them either so I'd have had to replace both buds at full price. So you'd think I'd be rushing to Walmart or Amazon to take advantage of their $199 AirPods Pro 2 deals.
But I'm not, and I don't think you should either.
• See all of today's best Amazon deals
Why I'm keeping my AirPods Pro 2 powder dryI'm hanging on for a few more days because while $50 off a pair of AirPods Pro 2 is a nice discount, it's not an amazing discount – and we've seen amazing AirPods Pro 2 discounts before.
Last summer, Amazon dropped the price of AirPods Pro 2 down to a very low $169. And last Black Friday it went lower still: AirPods Pro 2 were down to just $153.99 – and those were the USB-C ones, not the older Lightning ones.
Are you willing to hang on until next week in the hope that Amazon Prime Day will offer a bigger discount than $50 off the official price? I am.
The $153.99 price of Black Friday was an outlier, but they'd fallen to $159 on multiple occasions before that, and within in the last year their price has dropped below $175 on 10 occasions.
UK AirPods Pro 2 deals haven't been so spectacular, sadly: the AirPods Pro 2 dropped from the usual £229 to £179 just once, in December 2024, and they've only dipped below the £190 mark a handful of times. But today they're back up at £229, so I'd expect them to drop back down a bit next week, and for other places to match or exceed Amazon's discounting.
I'm not completely headphone-free, so while I do need to replace my AirPods Pro 2 pretty soon (I use them a lot for work, and for checking music mixes) I think the smart move is to wait for Prime Day next week to see how low they're going to go.
If they don't drop below the $199 mark then I haven't lost anything, but if they go much lower then buying a new pair is going to be a lot less painful.
Prime Day starts next week on Tuesday 8 July.
Amazon's early Prime Day sale - quick links- Amazon Prime membership: free 30-day trial
- Amazon Devices: 50% off TVs, Echo & Fire Sticks
- Apple: AirPods + iPads from $99
- Back to school: deals from $5.99
- Beauty: 80% off toothbrushes & skincare
- Headphones: $120 off Bose, Apple & Sony
- Health: electric toothbrushes from $24.99
- Kitchen: 54% off Ninja, Nespresso & Keurig
- Laptops: record-low prices from $175
- Tablets: iPads and Samsung from $54.99
- Toys: 40% off Lego, scooters & Toniebox
- TVs: cheap TVs from $59.99
- Vacuums: Shark, Bissell & Dyson from $49.99
- MicroSD card survey tested 200 models to uncover fakes, performance gaps, and endurance failures
- Fake flash was common in cheap high-capacity cards, discarding data past true limits
- Name-brand cards generally outperformed off-brand models in speed, reliability, and total write endurance
One man has taken the task of testing microSD cards to a level most users would never entertain.
Over the course of a year, tech enthusiast Matt Cole bought and tested 200 different models, ranging from 8GB to 1TB, with a particular focus on identifying fakes, testing performance, and measuring durability.
Fifty-one of those cards failed during testing.
Writing over 100TB of data per dayCole is the creator of The Great microSD Card Survey, a deep, evolving benchmark report (and a serious labor of love), that began in July 2023.
He built a testing rig with eight machines and nearly 70 card readers running continuously, writing over 100TB of data per day.
To date, the setup has written more than 18 petabytes of data to the cards under test conditions. Impressively, his entire effort is self-funded, although he does have an Amazon wishlist should anyone wish to buy him further cards to test.
Cole’s goal was to understand how these tiny storage devices differ across brand, price, and origin.
One of his main goals is to identify “fake flash,” where a card tells the host device it has more storage than it really does.
A 1TB card might really only store 8GB. Once that real limit is reached, new data is silently lost. He also highlights “skimpy flash,” where a card is technically real, but provides less usable space than advertised, a common issue even among name-brand cards.
His survey doesn’t stop at capacity. Cole also tested whether cards live up to their advertised speed class ratings, such as U1, U3, or V30.
He ran sequential and random I/O tests, then tracked endurance through repeated write and read cycles.
Some cards survived over 20,000 cycles, while others failed before reaching 500. Temperature monitoring was also part of the process, though it’s still unclear how much heat affects long-term performance.
Among the best microSD cards were the Kingston Canvas Go! Plus 64GB, PNY PRO Elite Prime 64GB, SanDisk Extreme 64GB, Delkin Devices HYPERSPEED 128GB, and Samsung EVO Plus 64GB.
These models performed well across multiple metrics and came close to advertised specs.
Cole’s blog includes charts and summaries to help buyers quickly find reliable options and it’s frankly a stunning piece of work. He’s not done yet either. Testing continues unabated, with more cards in queue, hopefully including some of the largest capacity models.
(Image credit: Matt Cole)More from TechRadar Pro- We've rounded up the best microSD cards around
- And these are the largest microSD cards
- First 2TB MicroSD card is now on sale and no, it is not expensive at all
Marshall makes some very fun Bluetooth speakers and headphones, and three favorites have dropped to very low prices in Amazon's early Prime Day deals.
The deals are on the cute and compact Willen II Bluetooth speaker, down from $129.99 to $99.99 – saving 23%; the very loud Acton III Bluetooth speaker, down 33% from $299.99 to $199.99; and on the retro-styled Marshall Major IV on-ear headphones, down 32% from $99.46 to $67.99.
• See all of today's best Amazon deals
The speakers are joint record-low prices – they have been briefly discounted to these prices before, but never lower that we're aware of. And getting 32% off the official of the Major IV headphones is a pretty major discount too.
Early Prime Day deal: Marshall headphones and speakersWith over 80 hours of wireless playback, wireless charging and fast charging too, these Marshall headphones are ideal for traveling as well as home listening. There are custom-tuned dynamic drivers inside for a typically bold Marshall sound, and in a nice touch there's an extra 3.5mm socket so you can share your music with a pal or partner.View Deal
When it comes to music on the move, the Willen II is a very, ahem, willen partner. It's a 10W portable powerhouse that's surprisingly vocal for its small size, and with IP67 dust and water resistance and 17 hours of play time it's a solid option for shower soundtracks and for summer festivals alike.View Deal
This deal is currently available for both the black and the cream models, and whichever color you go for, you're getting some seriously loud speaker action: with 60W of output power, a wide soundstage and effortless pairing, the Acton III brings the noise in a very entertaining package. This is a really good price for an impressively powerful speaker.View Deal
Why these Marshall speaker and headphone deals are worth havingWe like Marshall's speakers and headphones a lot, but they do tend to be priced quite highly compared to the competition – so to see a speaker like the Acton III drop from $299 to $199 is very welcome, and definitely adds an extra star to our ratings.
Whether you go for the speakers or the headphones you're getting that bold Marshall sound, and its equally bold styling, which harks back to the firm's iconic amplifiers that have been on stages since rock music was invented.
Of the two speakers, I think the Acton III is the pick of the bunch: it's a seriously loud portable speaker, doubly so when paired with a second, and it delivers a surprisingly wide soundstage despite its fairly compact dimensions.
But if you want something fun to take on day trips or traveling, the Willen II is a better bet: it's very small and very light, but delivers an impressive sound for its size.
Amazon's early Prime Day sale - quick links- Amazon Prime membership: free 30-day trial
- Amazon Devices: 50% off TVs, Echo & Fire Sticks
- Apple: AirPods + iPads from $99
- Back to school: deals from $5.99
- Beauty: 80% off toothbrushes & skincare
- Headphones: $120 off Bose, Apple & Sony
- Health: electric toothbrushes from $24.99
- Kitchen: 54% off Ninja, Nespresso & Keurig
- Laptops: record-low prices from $175
- Tablets: iPads and Samsung from $54.99
- Toys: 40% off Lego, scooters & Toniebox
- TVs: cheap TVs from $59.99
- Vacuums: Shark, Bissell & Dyson from $49.99
Samsung's third Unpacked showcase of the year is set for July 9, which will mark its summer showcase (at least for people in the Northern Hemisphere) and the likely debut of next-generation foldable phones.
At this event, we expect to see the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy Z Flip 7 make their official debut, along with a Galaxy Watch 8 and likely its ‘Classic’ stablemate, and perhaps a Galaxy Watch Ultra 2.
We also expect new Galaxy AI features and capabilities to be shown off, and maybe some surprises in the form of future product teases.
We'll be covering the Galaxy Unpacked show live so stay tuned for more information. Do check out our guide on how to watch Samsung Galaxy Unpacked on July 9.
And read on for more about Unpacked as a whole.
Here's what happened at the last Samsung Galaxy UnpackedSamsung's last Unpacked took place in May and saw the full reveal of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge. it was more of a mini-Unpacked with only one product to show off, but the Edge got our attention; check out our full Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge review for more details and our verdict.
For deeper context, Samsung's first Galaxy Unpacked event was held on January 22. And what a showcase it was. We got to see the new Samsung Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25 Plus and Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, all of which are rather minor upgrades over their predecessors but come packed with new Galaxy AI features.
For a recap of all that was announced and discussed, check out our article on Samsung Galaxy Unpacked – 9 things we saw and learned, including the Galaxy S25 Ultra and Edge.
What is Samsung Galaxy Unpacked?Galaxy Unpacked is the name given to the big Samsung product showcase. Normally these revolve around new Galaxy S-series phones and Galaxy Fold and Flip series foldable phones.
But Galaxy Unpacked events are also used to debut new Galaxy smartwatches and wireless earbuds, as well as laptops and tablets. There are also nods given to Samsung’s SmartThings smart home platform and its interoperability with the new Galaxy devices.
In general, you can expect two Galaxy Unpacked events a year; one at the start, ranging between January and February, and the other in around July or August.
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