Best Buy kicked off its Week 1 early Black Friday deals, branded DoorBOOsters, on Friday. But if you're shopping for AirPods Pro 3, the retailer isn't the place to look.
According to 9to5Toys, Best Buy's new sale has no discount at all on Apple's current flagship earbuds. Amazon, meanwhile, is still running its existing deal, 20% off the list price, which by the outlet's own math works out to a current price somewhere around $199 rather than the usual $249.
That gap matters because AirPods Pro 3 are the newest Pro-tier buds in Apple's lineup, with active noise cancellation and the hardware upgrades that separate them from the cheaper AirPods 5, which Best Buy and Amazon both carry from $129 with ANC included this generation. For anyone who wants the Pro model specifically, over the step-down AirPods 5 or the older AirPods Pro 2, Amazon is simply the better source right now.
Best Buy isn't entirely skipping Apple gear in its doorbuster push, just the Pro earbuds. Amazon has its own run of Apple deals live alongside the AirPods Pro 3 discount, including AirTag 2 trackers from $17.50 each, a pre-order discount on the 2026 Apple TV 4K, and a markdown on the M5 MacBook Air that 9to5Toys says is back to its best price in months.
Whether $199 is the floor for AirPods Pro 3 this season is another question. 9to5Toys is forecasting a deeper cut once Black Friday proper arrives, pegging the likely price at closer to $179 and possibly $169, which would only be $20 to $30 below where Amazon's listing sits today.
That's a modest gap, and it puts buyers in the usual early-season bind. Grab the current 20% off deal now and lock in a guaranteed set of AirPods Pro 3, or wait a few weeks for what could be a marginally better price with no guarantee it actually lands. For shoppers who want to avoid the Black Friday rush entirely, the current Amazon price is a reasonable stopping point. For anyone chasing the absolute lowest number, 9to5Toys' advice is to sit tight until the full Black Friday deals go live later in November.
Either way, Best Buy's doorbuster sale suggests the real AirPods Pro 3 competition this season will be fought out on Amazon's own terms, at least for now.
DDFiled by The Deals Desk
Price drops and sales on tech worth buying, with the price, the retailer and the time it was reported. Prices move; every deal says when it was seen.
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