Google Home Max gets unprecedented $100 discount, undercutting Apple HomePod
The conditions of the deal/s may have changed since the initial publishing of this post.
While Google has never detailed the specific sales numbers of its individual smart speaker models, it's safe to assume the company's solid second position in this thriving global market is not owed primarily to the high-end Home Max. This 2017-released bad boy is typically even pricier than Apple's premium HomePod, at a whopping $399, and unlike the Google Home Mini and even the much newer Home Hub, the search giant's biggest and baddest Google Assistant device has rarely been substantially discounted.
But starting today, March 21, Google is offering a $100 price reduction that will expire on March 30 at the company's official US e-store. The same markdown is available across authorized third-party retailers nationwide, including Best Buy, B&H Photo Video, Target, and Walmart, although no expiration date is mentioned anywhere else for this unprecedented deal.
That's right, the Google Home Max is cheaper than ever before, fetching "only" $299 in "Chalk" and "Charcoal" paint jobs (read white and black). This does seem to strongly suggest the powerful smart speaker is not selling like hotcakes, which wouldn't exactly come as a surprise. It remains to be seen if the massive discount also means Google is planning to announce some sort of a sequel at the I/O developer conference in early May.
Until then, you might want to keep in mind there's really no comparing the Google Home Max with a $129 "regular" Google Home (itself on sale for $99 right now) or a $149 Home Hub (marked down to $129 at the time of this writing). While there's no obvious difference in Google Assistant capabilities and "smart" features, the actual speaker part of this setup is a whole other ball game, rocking dual 4.5-inch woofers for deep and balanced bass, a pair of custom tweeters providing "crystal-clear" highs, and even a technology called Smart Sound that automatically adjusts the equalizer settings to match the acoustics of your room.
In a nutshell, this is loud, sharp, and powerful. But you'll have to decide for yourselves if that makes it worth three times the price of a non-Max Google Home.
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