Enlarge / Activating Siri on an Apple HomePod speaker. (credit: Jeff Dunn)

Greetings, Arsians! It’s Independence Day in the United States, so the Dealmaster is back with a special Fourth of July edition of their usual tech deals roundup. While today’s holiday isn’t well-known for providing big discounts on tech—the biggest price drops will still come on Black Friday and Cyber Monday—we've found a handful of genuine deals worth considering on video games, tablets, speakers, and more. Below are the best Fourth of July tech deals we could find this year.

Sega Genesis Mini for $40 at Amazon (normally $60)

The Sega Genesis Mini. (credit: Sam Machkovech)

This is tied for the largest discount we’ve seen on Sega’s bite-sized retro console, which we reviewed positively when it launched late last year. Much like the NES Classic and Super NES Classic before it, the Genesis Mini packs a few dozen hits in an adorably tiny replica of the console on which it’s based.

Here, you get 42 pre-loaded and well-emulated games—including favorites like Sonic the Hedgehog, Streets of Rage 2, Gunstar Heroes, and Ecco the Dolphin—along with two controllers. Those gamepads aren’t the six-button models Sega launched later in the original console’s life, unfortunately, and there’s no way to “rewind” your progress if you screw up in-game. But at half off the original MSRP, this is a good value for nostalgists or anyone who missed out on the Genesis experience back in the day.

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  Just a tiny amount of the $15 billion dollars YouTube made last year. [credit: Jericho / Ron Amadeo ]

In under six months, YouTube Music will be Google's one-and-only music service. Google Play Music is scheduled to shut down at the end of the year, leaving YouTube as Google's one-stop media brand. As part of this transition, YouTube Music recently added the last great Google Music feature to its lineup: music-library support. After an agonizingly slow rollout, this long-time Google Music user gave the service a whirl and is back to report: this is going to be a mess.

For those that aren't aware, the "Music Library" feature lets you bring your own purchased music to the service. Google Music launched with the feature back in 2011, which let you upload your MP3s and whatever else to Google's servers, and then you could stream or download them to your other devices. Google Music has its quirks, but it is a fantastic service for syncing your music collection across multiple devices, backing up your music, and putting your music into the Google Cast ecosystem for easy playback on a Google Home speaker or Android TV. YouTube's takeover of the service includes an easy one-click library-transfer feature, which works great. The problem with YouTube Music are the restrictive playback rules, which are a major downgrade from Google Music.

I could sit here and complain for days about YouTube Music's regressions, the maze-like UI, and the weird blending of random YouTube crap and my music collection. But what I really want to shout from the rooftops right now is this: YouTube Music doesn't respect people who purchase music. If you bought your music, uploaded it to YouTube Music, and expect to be treated like you own the music, this service is not for you. If you bought a Google Home smart speaker or any other Google Cast device, Google's public position right now is that you'll need to pay a monthly fee to cast to your speaker once Google Music shuts down.