Believe it or not, the Apple Watch Series 8 is one of the best budget smartwatches today
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Despite its somewhat advanced age, the decidedly high-end Apple Watch Series 8 remains undoubtedly one of the overall best smartwatches money can buy. In many important ways, this 2022-released model is similar or outright identical to 2023's Apple Watch Series 9, and in one key department, the older device actually has the upper hand on its successor.
We're obviously talking about pricing, which has been reduced for the Series 8 a number of times at various major US retailers on the heels of the Series 9's launch a few months ago. With Christmas around the corner, that's once again the case at Walmart, where you can purchase this oldie but goodie in exchange for as little as $249 right now.
That's for an entry-level GPS-only model with a small 41mm case in a bunch of different colors, mind you, while a large 45mm unit with standalone 4G LTE connectivity, for instance, can be had at $349 after a very cool $180 markdown from a $529 list price.
The non-cellular-enabled 41 and 45mm variants are both discounted by a slightly humbler but still pretty significant 150 bucks from their regular prices of $399 and $429 respectively, and last but not least, a small Apple Watch Series 8 capable of making and receiving voice calls on its own is currently down from $499 to $329.
Although they're not completely unprecedented and they might not remain unbeaten for long, these hot new last-minute holiday discounts certainly make the Series 8 a very interesting product to consider for a Christmas gift, as well as quite possibly the best budget smartwatch an Apple fan can buy at the time of this writing.
Forget about the Apple Watch SE and Apple Watch SE 2, as this bad boy delivers unrivaled value for your money with a super-high-quality Retina display, life-saving ECG technology, blood oxygen monitoring, fall detection, crash detection, an extremely durable (and fairly elegant) design, and... not-too-bad battery life.
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