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As a kid, I loved anything motorized. As an adult, I love anything motorized. That’s why I have drones, a hoverboard and even an electric skateboard.
Never thought I’d like the skateboard, to be honest, because I didn’t ride them in my youth and I tend to fall down even when I’m not trying to balance on a tiny plank atop four wheels.
That said, neighbors now routinely see me zipping around the block on my Z-Board, one of the first-generation electric models. Today, I’ve got something much more modern — and much less expensive.
For a limited time, and while supplies last, Wellbots is offering the Acton Blink Lite electric skateboard for $299 shipped. That’s after applying discount code cheap-skate (see what we did there? Cheap-skate? Cheapskate?) at checkout. Price everywhere else: $399.
At 27 inches and 7.7 pounds, the Blink Lite is billed as the world’s lightest electric skateboard. (And just to be clear, this is not a longboard.) To put that in perspective my Z-Board Classic weighs 33 pounds — not exactly easy to tote around.
The board is also surprisingly high-tech, in that it pairs via Bluetooth with a phone app that can set various modes, track your routes and distance and so on. But it’s a physical handheld remote that controls your actual movement, courtesy of a little throttle switch that propels you forward or back.
The Blink Lite can zip you along at up to 10 mph, and it has a range of up to 5 miles. That could make life a lot easier if you have to walk a long way between, say, your subway stop and your office.
Of course, while an electric skateboard has its practical applications, mostly it’s just about having some fun. I haven’t ridden this particular model, nor have I found many reviews (I believe it just recently hit the streets).
However, if you check Acton’s site, you’ll see about a dozen extremely positive user reviews. There’s also an informative Reddit thread that’s definitely worth reading.
Obviously this isn’t for everyone, but if you love your motorized toys, here’s your chance to skate on the cheap.
Bonus deal: I love me some little laptops. Like this one: Groupon has the Lenovo ThinkPad N22 11.6-inch Windows 10 Pro laptop for $149.99 shipped (plus sales tax). Price elsewhere: about $100 more. And it gets better: If you’re new to Groupon, you can get an additional $20 off by applying promo code LOVE20.
Even better still, click over to Ebates before clicking through to Groupon and you’ll get a 6 percent rebate. If my math is correct, that would bring your total down to $122.19. (Not new to Groupon? You can still score that Ebates rebate.)
The 2.7-pound ThinkPad is fairly entry-level, but it does come with 4GB of RAM, 32GB of solid-state storage (or 64GB for $30 more), Windows 10 Pro and three USB ports (one of them USB 3.0). It employs a twisted-nematic display, which offers excellent brightness and lower power consumption than IPS, but also narrower viewing angles. Beyond that, I don’t know much about this model, as reviews are hard to come by.