We’re deep into Cyber Monday at this point, but I wanted to give you an idea of how I’m spending my money on this holy day of commerce. I already have most of the things I need for my day-to-day gaming. For example, I don’t need a new keyboard or video card, so I’m looking for some deals on the edge of gaming as well as gifts.
Here’s what is in my cart:
A board game for music lovers
Dropmix
Price: $50 (normally $100)
Buy from: Walmart
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This one is a gift. I have to spend a lot of money to get my family home for Christmas to visit relatives, so I try to find gifts that I can give to the various groups of nieces and nephews without having to find something for them individually (which would take up more space in my luggage). Dropmix is ideal for this. It’s a collaborative rhythm board game where people place down cards featuring familiar music to create new mixes. At $50, I can afford to grab one of these for each group of children, and we can even break it open and play while visiting.
A lot of storage
Western Digital Easystore 8TB External USB 3.0 HDD
Price: $150 (normally $300)
Buy from: Best Buy
I hate running out of storage, and it’s time to do something about it. I’m getting this 8TB behemoth and plugging it into my router. I’m going to use it to store my movie collection that feeds into my Plex home-media server. I’ll also use it for storing photos and other items that don’t need to take up space on my workstation.
More Wi-Fi because Wi-Fi is life
TP-Link AC1750 Wi-Fi Range Extender
Price: $51 (normally $60)
Buy from: Amazon
I need fast internet, and I don’t want to have to settle for something slower just because my desktop is on a Wi-Fi connection in my office. I considered some mesh networks — that Netgear one is on sale — but I already have a fast AC gateway from Comcast. This TP-Link extender will enable me to grab a hyperfast connection and plug my PC directly in with an ethernet cable. This is crucial because I want to start streaming 4K movies over my Plex server and 4K games using Nvidia’s gamestream.
A voice assistant that can actually answer questions
Google Home Mini
Price: $29 (normally $49)
Buy from: Walmart
I tried Amazon’s Echo platform for a while, but I found that Alexa rarely had answers to my questions. Google Home has a lot of the same features, and it actually understands questions like “When was the release date for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim?” I’m going to use this Mini in my office to get answers, add items to my shopping list, and play music throughout the house. Also, Walmart gives you a $25 gift card with the purchase, so I’m going to pick up a couple as gifts as well.
Speedy storage to kill load times
XPG SX6000 NVMe 1.2 128GB SSD
Price: $55
Buy from: Newegg
It’s time to take advantage of the new storage interfaces now that SATA3 is getting older. This drive has 128GB for my operating system and a few mission-critical games, and it plugs into a PCIe port for hyperfast data-transfer throughput. That’s a good deal for $55.
