Best Buy is having a busy week, and the events are all we needed to know about how hard Best Buy is planning to go this holiday season.
After announcing Black Friday plans a full 10 days before Halloween, Best Buy is hitting us with a string of three Drops on some pretty major products: The Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro on Oct. 23, the GoPro Hero10 on Oct. 24, and a 98-inch TCL QLED TV on Oct. 25.
If you're not familiar with Best Buy Drops, Black Friday season is a great time to learn the ropes of this savings-centric shopping hack. The "Drops" tab at the top of the Best Buy mobile app is a running list of items that Best Buy is dropping that week, which are often high-profile items at record-low sale prices. Here, shoppers can preview which items are coming on which day so that they're ready to hit "add to cart" when each deal goes live at 11 a.m. ET on its respective day.
Acting fast is crucial because Drops are first come, first served. Once a Drop goes live, the app continuously updates a status bar with the percentage of inventory that has been claimed. Once inventory for a certain Drop is gone, it's gone.
Official Drop prices aren't revealed until that time, but looking at Amazon price history for each product is a genius strategy for making predictions. I've made my own predictions for each of the three products below:
Dropping: Oct. 23
Samsung announced two new pairs of noise-cancelling earbuds at its Unpacked event in July 2024, and they both have stems. The fancier pair, the Galaxy Buds3 Pro, are the ones featured in this Drop. The Pros feature a snugger canal-forward design as seen on the AirPods Pro, pinch-able and swipe-able Blade Lights on each stem that can control things like volume, and more robust sound quality through a new planar tweeter and dual amplifiers. The July event also brought Galaxy AI to all 3 Series Galaxy Buds with the Interpreter feature: With it, users can get real-time translations of a foreign language they're hearing in Listening Mode, whether that's in an IRL conversation or content being watched on a Galaxy Z Fold 6 or Flip 6.
Ahead of their Oct. 23 Drop date, the Galaxy Buds3 Pro are on sale for $219.99 at Amazon, but at their full price of $249.99 at Best Buy. Best Buy has been known to outdo Amazon's record-low pricing for a Drop in the past, so I expect to see the Buds3 Pro at $209.99 or $199.99.
Dropping: Oct 24
If your budget has you eyeing GoPro dupes rather than the real thing, pause your research and snag this GoPro Hero10 Drop. The Sept. 2021 release obviously doesn't tout newer features like the Hero12's enhanced motion stabilization or the brand new Hero13's GPS, but for the price that it's likely dropping at, this is still quite a solid action camera. A noteworthy upgrade over the Hero9, the Hero10 shoots 5.3K video at 60 fps, though it can hit 120fps when shooting in 4K or in slow motion at 2.7K. It's also waterproof without buying an extra waterproof case.
Considering there was a Prime Day sale on a similar Hero10 bundle for $199.99, I expect Best Buy to drop this Hero10 well under $200 — $179.99 isn't at all out of the realm of possibilities.
Dropping: Oct. 25
Best Buy is always one of the best stores to buy a TV on sale during shopping holidays, hands down. This year, though, Best Buy particularly wants to cement itself as the destination for XXL TVs — we're talking 97 inches or larger. That announcement is being aptly followed by a drop of a 98-inch QLED monster from TCL. This model, the Q6 Series, gets brighter than the more basic TCL Q5, making HDR worthwhile by boosting color accuracy with that extra layer of quantum dots sandwiched between the screen and LED backlights. If you're looking for an affordable way to level up your football watching experience this season, this is it.
Ahead of its Oct. 25 drop date, the 98-inch TCL Q6 is already on sale for $1,999.99 — the same price as a 98-inch non-QLED model from TCL. I expect Best Buy to drop that price by another $500, giving you the opportunity to score a giant 98-inch QLED for $1,499.99.
