It’s no secret that CNET’s shopping experts love a good deal and we especially love sharing those deals with you. Black Friday is the biggest shopping event of the holiday season, and these discounts are hard to ignore. If you’ve been looking to upgrade your laptop, now is the best time to shop and save. Major retailers like Amazon and Best Buy are rolling out deals and we've rounded up the best ones. For example, the Apple MacBook Air M3, CNET's pick as the best overall MacBook, has been marked down by $200. Whether you need it for gaming, work or school, now's the perfect time of year to finally snag that laptop you've been eyeing or replace your aging, slow computer. Many favorites from our list of the best laptops on the market are on sale right now.
Keep your eyes locked on this page because we'll regularly update this guide throughout the holiday shopping season. If you're in the market for something a little more mobile, you can check out our roundups of the best Black Friday phone and tablet deals.
Best Black Friday Laptop Deals
The latest model in Apple's lightweight lineup, the M3 MacBook Air sits at the top of our list for the best laptop of 2024. This model features a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display, an 18-hour battery life, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. It's also designed to work with Apple Intelligence. All colors and configurations are currently $200 off at Best Buy.
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This HP Pavillion Plus earned the overall top spot on our list of the best Windows laptops of 2024. This configuration features a 14-inch WQXGA display, 512GB of storage and an Intel Core i5 processor. It's also equipped with multiple USB-C and USB-A ports, an HDMI port and a headphone jack for serious versatility.
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Featuring a 14-inch WUXGA touchscreen display, the Lenovo Yoga 7 is the best two-in-one laptop of 2024. This discounted configuration boasts some powerful hardware, including 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, an AMD Radeon 780M GPU and an AMD Ryzen 7 processor. It also comes with the Lenovo Digital Pen stylus.
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This Alienware model is already one of our favorite gaming laptops for those on a budget, and right now you can pick it up for even less. There are a few different configurations on sale, but this $1,300 model is equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU, 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.
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Black Friday Gaming Laptop Deals
This 16-inch gaming laptop has 16GB of RAM and a GeForce RTX 4060 along with a 1TB SSD. It's not top-end, but it's a very solid choice for pretty much everyone who wants to game on the go and still enjoy solid specs.
Black Friday Laptop Deals for Students
This budget-friendly Acer is the best cheap laptop of 2024. With an AMD Ryzen 3 processor, 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, it's designed for the basics like scrolling social media and checking your email. It also has a built-in webcam, and an HDMI port and weighs just 3.2 pounds so it's easy to take on the go.
Black Friday MacBook Deals
A large screen and powerful hardware make this one of the best laptops for creatives. It's packing some decent specs as well with 18GB of RAM and a lovely 16-inch screen. An excellent choice for Apple fans or fans-to-be.
Black Friday Chromebook Deals
This affordable Lenovo two-in-one is one of the best Chromebooks of 2024. It has a compact 11-inch screen, making it really easy to carry around all day, and it still squeezes in 4GB of memory too.
What should you look for in a Black Friday laptop deal?
One of the biggest considerations is which laptop configuration is on sale. With the best laptop deals, typically only a specific version of the laptop is discounted, and making any changes to the hardware, specs or even color could affect the price. This means that sometimes you find that, for example, the 512GB model is actually cheaper than the 256GB option. Be careful when you're adjusting specs and look out for sudden price changes.
Ultimately, you're looking for the biggest savings compared with not only the price but the usual "street" price for a laptop. Don't be fooled by list prices. Use price comparison sites or shopping extensions to make sure the discounted price is actually a good deal.
Which retailers usually offer the best Black Friday laptop deals?
You can usually find laptop deals at a variety of retailers. Major retailers like Best Buy and Amazon, plus smaller competitors like Newegg, Adorama and B&H Photo, tend to offer sales on more specific models, while manufacturers such as HP, Lenovo and Dell usually host larger sales that cover more models and configurations. If you're looking for a specific model, you'll want to keep checking back throughout the holiday shopping season for the latest batch of deals.
Will laptops be cheaper on Cyber Monday?
Usually, there are no significant differences between the Black Friday and Cyber Monday discounts. Major retailers like Best Buy and Amazon tend to bring out the big discounts directly on Black Friday. You might be able to find some additional savings on items that haven't run out just yet. If there's something that catches your eye, we'd recommend jumping on it immediately. Most of these discounts run out as soon as the product is out of stock.