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These are the best Green Monday 2018 deals

There are some surprisingly good ones! Also: What the hell is Green Monday?

Rick Broida Senior Editor
Rick Broida is the author of numerous books and thousands of reviews, features and blog posts. He writes CNET's popular Cheapskate blog and co-hosts Protocol 1: A Travelers Podcast (about the TV show Travelers). He lives in Michigan, where he previously owned two escape rooms (chronicled in the ebook "I Was a Middle-Aged Zombie").
Rick Broida
3 min read

Happy Green Monday, everyone! Or, as I like to call it, Retailers' Last Stab at a Made-Up Day to Goose Year-End Results. Because, let's face it, with Black Friday , Cyber Monday , Giving Tuesday, Small Business Saturday and other artificial excuses to offer deals squarely in the rear-view, stores have to do something.

Just what the heck is Green Monday? The term was coined by eBay back in 2007 to describe the "best sales day" in December -- typically the second Monday of the month.

Back then, two-day shipping wasn't nearly as prevalent, so this was also positioned as one of the last days to shop online and still receive purchases in time for Christmas.

You know what? Who cares if it's the retailer equivalent of Sweetest Day -- there are deals to be had, so let's see what might deserve some of your green today. And I'll start with Amazon , which is yet again offering deals on nearly all its Kindles, Fire TV sticks, Fire tablets, Echo devices and so on -- many at or very near Black Friday prices.

Bigger and better than the Echo Dot, Amazon's flagship smart speaker is very close to its Black Friday price.

It was $5 less on Black Friday, but $25 for Amazon's Alexa-enabled streaming stick is still a pretty fantastic deal.

Just $10 more than the current price of Amazon's entry-level tablet, the Fire 7, the HD 8 offers a bigger, better screen and faster performance.

The detachable Joy-Con controllers that ship with the Nintendo Switch are nice, but if you want to up your game, you'll want a full size gamepad -- and the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller is the gold standard. It rarely goes on sale, and this price is just a few bucks more than its Cyber Monday low of $51.

Though not technically a Green Monday deal, it's occurring on Green Monday, and therefore worth inclusion. Samsung's entry-level tablet features a fairly low-resolution 9.6-inch screen and 16GB of expandable storage. Reviews at Walmart are mixed, but over at Best Buy (where it's currently $150), it has a 4.6-star average from over 6,000 buyers.

The step-down version of CNET's Editors' Choice pick Elite Active 65t, the "standard" 65t is still an excellent alternative to Apple's AirPods -- and, at this price, a much cheaper one.

Here's a portable with some horsepower, not the least of which is its 360-degree hinge and optional Active Pen for drawing, sketching, takes notes and so on. Update: The Active Pen is optional, not included as previously indicated. My apologies for the error. Pro tip: Hit up cash-back service Ebates for a whopping extra 14 percent savings -- an extra $101.15 back in your pocket.

That's it for now, but check back later -- we'll add more deals as we spot them!

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