Best Prime Day Laptop Deals: Big Discounts on Laptops From Apple, Dell, Asus, HP and More – CNET

This 14-inch Acer laptop gets you impressive specs for the price. I’m currently testing a version of this with an OLED display (pictured); this version has an LCD, which is good if the display tasks a backseat to battery life for you. Although, this does have a nice touchscreen with 100% sRGB color space, which is sufficient for web content creation. Its performance is strong, too, for stuff like editing photos and videos. It also weighs less than 3 pounds, making it perfect for a daily commute or carrying around campus.

Asus makes so many gaming laptops it’s a bit hard to keep track. The ROG Strix Scar line is focused on straight-up performance. This is the 2022 model, but it’s definitely not outdated — especially at this price. It’s built around an esports-quality 240Hz IPS QHD display (100% DCI-P3 color coverage) with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti pushing pixels. The CPU is a top-of-the-line Intel Core i9-12900H paired with 16GB 4,800MHz DDR5 and a 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD. This configuration lists for $2,050 and Amazon’s regular price is $1,778 but is reduced by $278 to $1,500 for Prime Day. 

While most people know LG for their home entertainment products and appliances, the company also has an excellent laptop line called Gram. I’ve tested many over the years, and they never fail to impress, especially when it comes to weight and battery life. This 15.6-inch model from 2022 has a fast Core i7 processor, 16GB of LPDDR5 memory and a 512GB SSD for storage. It also has, as you might expect, a beautiful display. And despite its size, it weighs only 2.5 pounds.

For a thin gaming laptop, this is an excellent configuration for the money: Core i7-12650H, GeForce RTX 4050, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD and a 144Hz 1080p screen. You don’t get superpowers for less than a grand, but you do get something that will handle many 1080p games. If you’re sensitive to display quality, though, you may want to skip this; one of the ways MSI cut corners for this price is by using a screen with a limited color gamut (45% NTSC, which is not good). If you’re going to hook up to an external monitor, then it may be less of an issue.

HP knows how to make a good low-cost laptop (as does Acer). This HP laptop is from the PC maker’s entry-level line and is designed for simple home office or school use. In other words, if you want something to web browse, write emails, work with basic documents or spreadsheets, track your finances and video chat with friends and family. And it’s all wrapped up in an attractive body. The 15.6-inch full-HD display will give you some room to spread out, too. (Although, if you need more, there’s a deal available on the 17.3-inch model below.) 

Amazon has two configurations on sale for Prime Day: one for $320 with an Intel Core i3 processor, 8GB of memory and 128GB of storage and  ($110 off). If you plan to install any software or want to store more than a few files, photos or videos directly on the laptop, I highly recommend getting the $490 option. 

Lenovo doesn’t always make it easy to know exactly how much money you’ll save on a laptop on sale. I’ve been doing comparison shopping like this for nearly two decades, though, so I can spot a good deal and, well, this is a good one. It’s loaded with higher-end components — 13th-gen Core i9 CPU, Nvidia RTX 4080, 32GB of memory and 1TB SSD, and it’s topped off with a 2.5K-resolution display with a 240Hz refresh rate. We tested this combo, and it hit 190 frames per second on Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Guardians of the Galaxy set to their highest image quality at 1080p. 

By comparison, Alienware’s m16 with a near-identical configuration is $2,550 (and that’s its sale price with $200 off). 

Acer is having its own Black Friday in July sale, and one of its best deals is on this gaming laptop. The Nitro laptops are the company’s budget-friendly gaming models, so the prices are already good for what you’re getting. But this particular configuration is loaded with upper-midrange components including an AMD Ryzen 7 6800H processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, 8GB of memory and 32GB of DDR5 SDRAM. This configuration (AN515-46-R0EQ) was priced at $2,200, which was reasonable when it was initially released last year. The current sale price of $1,250 is the lowest I’ve seen it. Read our Nitro 5 review.

If you want a small gaming laptop with a small price, this is it. This Zephyrus 14 has an older AMD Ryzen 7 5000-series CPU and an Nvidia midrange 3060 discrete GPU, but it will still hold its own with demanding games at reduced settings. But it’s that you’re getting that performance in a slim laptop that weighs a hair over 3.5 pounds that’s the impressive part. Well, that and it’s $600 off its original price of $1,400.