Today’s best deals: Early Prime Day deals, AMD Ryzen CPUs, and more

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

It's Wednesday, which means it's time for another Dealmaster. Our latest roundup of the best deals from around the web includes a handful of early discounts Amazon has set live ahead of its annual Prime Day promotion, which is scheduled to begin next week.

This is still Prime Day, so several of the early deals Amazon offers aren't exactly winners: There are various discounts on middling TVs and less-recommended Amazon devices like the Halo View fitness tracker or Fire TV Cube media streamer. The pickings should improve during Prime Day proper, and as usual the Dealmaster will be sorting through the junk to help you find what's good next week.

That said, we are seeing a few deals of note at the moment, including the lowest prices we've tracked for the diminutive Echo Show 5 smart display (which is down to $35), the Kindle Kids e-reader—which, at $50, is a good value for those who don't want to pay up for the superior Kindle Paperwhite (which isn't discounted yet)—and the Echo and Echo Dot smart speakers, which are down to $60 and $20, respectively. (Just be completely sure you're willing to accept the myriad privacy and security risks with the latter two.) The extended Audible Premium Plus trial we noted last week, which gives new subscribers three months of service for no extra cost, is still available as well. There are a couple other deals of note that we've highlighted below; remember that you'll need to be a Prime member to take advantage.