Technologies

9 hidden Amazon perks other than Prime shipping and video to save money now

You know the big ones: Prime Video, Prime Music and Prime’s free shipping. But there’s a ton of Amazon features that you might not know about and will want to start using ASAP to save some cash.

Amazon has made a name for itself as the supplier of just about anything. But in addition to two-day and even same-day shipping for Amazon Prime members, the trillion-dollar tech titan has dozens of other services just a few clicks away from the homepage. Some, like Amazon Prime Video and Prime Music, make headlines. Others tend to get buried in the vastness of Amazon’s super site. We’re here to help uncover the best of the bunch.

Amazon expanded its reach during the pandemic — with visits increasing 37% from February 2020 to January 2021 — as it pushed new programs, including Amazon Sidewalk, the auto-on broadband-sharing program for Amazon Echo speakers and Ring devices. But its shopping services continue to be its bread and butter.

For avid Amazon shoppers, a heap of lesser known features can score you big perks if you know where to look, including steep discounts on expensive items and free books. We’ve scouted Amazon’s jungle of services to find the most useful (and surprising) Amazon programs that you can use today.

1. Free reading with Prime Reading and Kindle Unlimited

Prime Reading is your own personal lending library that comes with a Prime membership. With a rotating selection of over 2,500 books and magazines, you can access Prime Reading with the Kindle app on your desktop or portable device or your Kindle e-reader. This Amazon service also lets you share titles with members of your household. Some books in Prime Reading come with Audible narrations so you can multitask while you listen.

Prime Reading also includes First Reads, which gives members a sneak peek at books before they’re released to the general public.

Kindle Unlimited is a $10-a-month subscription service separate from an Amazon Prime account. It gives you unlimited access to more than 1 million ebooks and up to three magazine subscriptions on a Kindle device or Kindle app.

2. Trade in used devices to redeem gift cards and shop preowned, discounted products

Amazon is boarding the train to sustainability station, and it’s something you can directly benefit from. With Amazon Trade-In, you can send back your used electronics in exchange for Amazon gift cards. Make sure to check on the eligibility of each product — some trade-in options are only available for a limited time.

Amazon Renewed gives you access to products that may have been opened but unused by their original owners, or were refurbished. Amazon assures that these preowned items work and look like new, coming with the Amazon Renewed Guarantee. A variety of products and brands are available, even from premium names like Apple and Vitamix.

3. Shop Amazon’s Warehouse items at a discount

Amazon Warehouse resells millions of like-new or preowned items that have been returned by customers. Some of the products only had their boxes opened by original purchasers before they were sent back, unused, so they’re sold again at a discount. While there’s no regular manufacturing warranty on these products, they are backed by Amazon’s 30-day return policy and 90-day renewed item return policy.

To read more about how you can get the most out of Amazon Warehouse, check out our guide on shopping for the best deals on Amazon Warehouse.

4. Find discounts on overstock in Amazon Outlet

Just like a brick-and-mortar outlet store, but without the gas money. The Amazon Outlet features overstocked items and other products at a discounted price. Like at an outlet, you can find premium brands, items under $10 and products ranging from home furniture and clothing to books and pet supplies. It’s a good place to stay within a budget while being the first owner, unlike some items in the Amazon Warehouse.

Keep in mind that although the online shopping experience is convenient, just like an outlet, the best deals sometimes take some sifting to find. Luckily, you can do it from the couch.

5. Discover limited-time offers with Lightning Deals

Amazon’s Lightning Deals are a promotion where a product or service is on sale for a short period of time or until it’s sold out. You can find them all throughout the site, but especially on Prime Day and in Today’s Deals. On Prime Day, Lightning Deals are only for Prime members.

There is one lightning deal per customer until the promotion ends or all the deals are claimed by other shoppers. You can join a waitlist for a deal, but keep in mind that these discounts are extremely time-sensitive, so grab them fast. Unless refreshing the page over and over is your thing, these deals aren’t necessarily the tool to find something specific because of their fleeting nature and limited availability.

6. Back up photos and videos with Amazon Photos

Amazon’s online shoebox for photos and videos offers secure and unlimited full-resolution photo storage plus 5 GB of video for Prime members. To use this feature, you can choose to manually or automatically upload media in the Amazon Photos app. You can personalize the displays on Amazon devices like Fire TV, Echo Show and Fire tablets as long as you have the app. There are also ways to create keepsakes using the pictures you upload, such as custom cards and prints.

With the Family Vault perk, up to five family members can share in the same plan. If you want more beyond what Prime offers, there are paid plans available. If you choose to switch — which can be done anytime — there is a 100GB option for $2 per month and 1TB plan for $7 per month.

7. Share Prime benefits with Amazon Household

Sharing is caring, and Amazon Household lets you divvy up Prime benefits and digital content with others. Using Household, share your Prime account with:

Up to two adults (aged 18 and over), each with their own Amazon account. Adults can manage accounts of teens and children.
Up to four teens (ages 13 through 17). Teens can have their own Amazon login to shop with parent approval and stream content.
Up to four children (children can’t shop on Amazon).

8. Shop exclusive discounted Whole Foods hauls

Healthy shopping can rack up the number at the bottom of the receipt. But if you enter your email address, phone number or scan the QR code on your Whole Foods Market app at checkout during your next grocery haul, Prime members receive discounts on select products.

Blue tags indicate sales exclusive to Prime members, while yellow tags mean an extra 10% off of an item already on sale. This gets you discounts on weekly best-sellers, including produce, packaged goods and beauty products, but note that it excludes alcohol. The few cents saved on items may seem insignificant individually, but savings do add up at the end of the shopping trip.

Also, if you don’t want to make the trip across town, Amazon offers two-hour delivery of groceries for free, as long as you meet the minimum purchase amount. But if you don’t mind the drive, there are also one-hour pickup windows depending on your location — just remember to check in with the Amazon app to see if you need to enter the store.

9. Build a wish list with Prime’s wedding registry

If the big day is coming up, Amazon’s wedding registry can get a gift wish list set up for everything from daily essentials to group presents. Amazon can help you cover all the gifting bases, and that makes it a convenient option for you and your wedding guests.

The registry includes lists of editors’ picks and best sellers to help you sort through Amazon’s options, while the browsing feature can inspire new ideas or highlight something you may have forgotten about. You can also buy any item that’s left on the registry for 20% off — which can be returned within 180 days if you decide you don’t like it.

For more, here are our picks for the best Alexa devices and which e-reader is right for you.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for May 15, #234

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 234, for May 15.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Connections: Sports Edition has a tough blue category, but you might get it easily if you’re a fan of a certain international sport. Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Get to that ball.

Green group hint: Think Jack Nicklaus.

Blue group hint: Ted Lasso.

Purple group hint: J.R. Ewing.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Handle a baseball.

Green group: Found in a golf bag.

Blue group: Premier League team nicknames.

Purple group: Dallas ____.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is handle a baseball. The four answers are catch, field, glove and scoop.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is found in a golf bag. The four answers are balls, clubs, tees and towel.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is Premier League team nicknames. The four answers are Bees, Cherries, Saints and Tractor Boys.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is Dallas ____. The four answers are Cowboys, Goedert, Mavericks and Stars.

Technologies

Marvel Rivals’ Galacta’s Gift Event Makes Ranking Up Even Easier

Marvel Rivals’ ranked competitive mode has been mired in controversy since the game’s release. Despite this, it’s about to be even easier to climb the ladder.

There has been no shortage of criticism for Marvel Rivals’ ranked competitive system since the game’s launch in December. Players earn far more rank points from a win than they lose from a loss, leading players with sub-50% win rates to climb the ladder to Diamond or Grandmaster — and in some people’s eyes, the rank distribution has lost much of its meaning and prestige.

Now, Marvel Rivals’ latest event risks further muddling the skill divisions of the competitive mode when it launches on May 15. The Galacta’s Gift event pass will include eight consumable Chrono Shield Cards, which will prevent players from losing rank points after a competitive match loss.

Read More: Marvel Rivals Season 2: The 6 Best Heroes to Start Learning Now

The decision to add further safeguards to the Marvel Rivals’ ranked experience is puzzling. But it might be another way to retain high player engagement, especially as support players have gone on strike during Season 2.

Steam player counts are a flawed metric to measure a game’s success, as player count naturally picks up and drops depending on what is going on in-game, and these charts account only for a subset of PC players among the broad console-inclusive playerbase. Even so, Marvel Rivals reportedly had more players at the end of Season 1 than at the beginning of Season 2. This event could be a quick way to scrape back some of those lapsed players, even if it harms the game’s competitive integrity.

Whether the Chrono Shield Cards will be detrimental to the game’s competitive environment, they’re here to stay. Here’s how to get them — among the other rewards included in the new Galacta’s Gift event.

Chrono Shield Cards will protect your rank points

Completing event challenges during the Galacta’s Gift event will level up a free event pass, containing seven tiers with different rewards.

At tiers two and four, players will earn separate bundles of four Chrono Shield Cards. That means you’re able to earn eight total Chrono Shield Cards during the item’s debut.

Once you activate a Chrono Shield Card, it will remain active until you lose a competitive match. Upon that loss, your Chrono Shield Card will be consumed — but you won’t lose any rank points for that defeat.

You can have up to 20 Chrono Shield Cards at a time, and they are cleared from your inventory at the end of the season. This seems to suggest that the consumables will be plentiful enough for you to stack up on, though we don’t yet know how players will be able to earn more outside of this event. Regardless, it’s healthy to be skeptical about the new addition to the game — especially if these items are moved into paid bundles sometime in the future.

Chrono Shield Cards will not remove the existing Chrono Shield system for Bronze, Silver and Gold players, which charges as they lose ranked games. After enough losses, lower-ranked players gain a Chrono Shield — protecting them from a rank demotion for a single game. Since this system protects ranked points in the lowest ranks, I’d recommend saving your Chrono Shield Cards until you reach at least Platinum rank on the competitive ladder.

How to get a free costume during the Galacta’s Gift event

The Chrono Shield Cards are likely going to be the most controversial event rewards in Marvel Rivals to date, but the juiciest prize in the new event is the costume coin on the final tier.

This special currency has only been obtainable during one other event — the paid Hyper Orange Venom Pick Up Bundle. If you have a costume coin, you’re able to trade it in for a premium skin from the costume shop.

Many of these skins cost 1,600 units, the standard premium currency in Marvel Rivals, which is roughly equivalent to $16. Spending $3 to earn the costume coin in the Pick Up Bundle was a very good deal. Being able to earn a costume coin for free during the new event is even better.

There are a number of caveats to the costume coin exchange, however. Only costumes for Season 0 heroes are available — that means you can get a costume for a hero that was available at launch. That means costumes for the members of the Fantastic Four and Emma Frost will not be available in the costume coin exchange.

Once you have your costume coin, you can trade it in by navigating to the Exchange tab located under the Store menu. I highly recommend you nab the Incognito Dolphin skin for Jeff the Shark, so you can look cute and cuddly while you harass the enemy backline.

Want to get your hands on more free costumes? We have a guide for every current (and previous) free skin in Marvel Rivals.

Technologies

Act Fast to Get This Limited-Time Deal on the Best Portable iPhone Charger I’ve Found

For just $32, you can get my favorite ultra-compact iPhone charger, the Anker 622 MagGo, which snaps neatly onto the back of my iPhone and goes everywhere I do.

Like most people living in the modern world, I use my phone for just about every aspect of life — from staying in touch with work, family and friends to getting driving directions, news and weather updates. And like most people, I also live in fear that my iPhone’s battery will die on me right when I need it most. Fortunately, I bought a handy magnetic charger that is so portable and practical that I can take it everywhere I go and now my dead-battery fears are a thing of the past.

The Anker 622 MagGo is a small slab of battery with a few features that make it an ideal on-the-go accessory. Right now, Amazon has a limited-time deal going on that means you can get one for as much as 33% off, bringing the price down to $32. The charger comes in a variety of colors, with Interstellar Gray being the cheapest at the moment and all other colors running $34. For me, it’s more about power than color, but if you want to snap up a battery pack that complements your phone, you can choose from Buds Green, Dolomite White, Lilac Purple and Misty Blue.

Hey, did you know? CNET Deals texts are free, easy and save you money.

Here’s why I’ve stuck with this little charger for so long

Have you seen people walk around with a loop of cable hanging from their pocket to their phone? I’ve been there and hooked that loop on too many chairs and table corners. Never again. The ring of magnets in the Anker 622 MagGo aligns with the MagSafe magnets in every iPhone since the iPhone 12, latching securely and charging without wires. (The notable exception is the iPhone 16E, which does not offer MagSafe but does charge wirelessly using Qi technology. The Anker 622 MagGo will charge the iPhone 16E but won’t latch to it magnetically.)

It’s also compact — a little backpack feeding power to the phone while you’re holding it or have it stashed in a pocket, even a jeans pocket if your fit isn’t too tight.

Those features alone would have convinced me but the Anker 622 also includes a fold-out back flap that props up my iPhone and can also hold the phone in its wide orientation for StandBy mode. With a power adapter such as the Anker Nano Pro (not included) and a charging cable, I’ve taught long classes with the phone angled to help me keep track of the time without checking my watch.

Essential Anker 622 MagGo specs

Here’s what you need to know.

Battery capacity: 5,000 milliamp hours
Voltage: 1.55 volts
Output: 7.5-watt Magnetic (compatible with MagSafe-equipped devices, iPhone 12 and later) or 20-watt USB-C port. Can charge only one device at a time.
Input: The same single USB-C is also how you recharge the device.
Size: 4.13-inch by 2.61 inches by 0.5 inch
Weight: 5 ounces
Included: Magnetic battery, 60cm (23.6 inches) USB-C to USB-C cable
Warranty: 24 months

MagSafe-compatible charging

I’ve owned several battery chargers and each one has some sort of compromise. They’re bulky. They require a cable. They charge wirelessly but don’t include a magnet to keep the phone in place so it’s hard to maintain that connection. There’s always something.

The Anker 622 is half an inch thick and snaps onto the back of my iPhone using the MagSafe-aligned magnets. I don’t have to turn it on to start charging — power flows as soon as the connection is made.

Now, this isn’t the highest-capacity (5,000 mAh) or fastest portable charger. That’s fine. What I usually need is a way to eke out a few more hours of battery life on my iPhone. I can typically get a full top-off of my iPhone 15 Pro.

Making a stand

The other appealing feature of the Anker 622 MagGo for me is its built-in stand. Honestly, it doesn’t look like it should work well: It’s a fabric-covered set of plastic pieces that lie flush against the case, folds in two places and attaches to the back of the unit with a magnetic strip when extended. Yet I’ve had no problems with the stability of my iPhone 15 Pro or even the larger iPhone 15 Pro Max size.

This also lets me use standby mode by turning the iPhone to landscape orientation (the magnets are strong enough to hold the phone in place) when it’s on a table or desk.

Smart port placement matters

The charger gets its juice from a single USB-C port, which is positioned on the edge of the case, not the bottom. That means you can replenish it while the stand is open — many chargers’ ports are stuck on the bottom.

That USB-C port also acts as a charger for other devices when you plug in a cable, such as when your Apple Watch needs a boost.

How the Anker 622 MagGo compares to similar power banks

Before getting the Anker 622 MagGo, I carried an Anker PowerCore III 10K Wireless, which doubles the battery capacity, includes a USB-A port and charges wirelessly but without magnets to hold the phone in place. That meant if I didn’t use a cable, the phone and charger needed to be stable and level; too often I’d find the iPhone slid off its wireless perch and not charged. It’s also larger and heavier. I still use it, but it’s the power bank that goes into my carry-on suitcase as a backup charger.

Since I’ve owned this Anker 622 MagGo, the company has released a few updated models. The $55 Anker 633 (currently on sale for $45) packs 10,000 mAh into a slightly thicker brick, includes a USB-A port in addition to USB-C and has a metal kickstand for resting the phone upright.

You can also consider getting the chunkier Anker MagGo Power Bank that delivers 10,000 mAh and follows the same idea of compact magnetic charging and a convenient kickstand. Its main appeals are faster 15-watt magnetic charging and Qi2 compatibility, plus a small display on the side that reports the battery capacity and an estimate of the remaining battery in hours.

For more smart buys, check out this amazing multitool and a portable TV that can go anywhere. And if you happen to be gift shopping, check out our roundup of the best gifts for grads and the best tech gifts for anyone, anytime of year.