Looking for a discounted laptop for the holidays? Plenty of Black Friday deals have already been announced. And you just might find a decent model for less than $200. Here are some of the best deals.
Best Buy
The electronics mega-store’s sub-$200 offering is a 15-inch Dell laptop with 4GB of memory and a 320GB hard drive. It’s got an older Celeron processor, so don’t expect blazing speed. But for light work and Web browsing, it should be fine. The Black Friday sale price is $178, a savings of about $200.
Want a laptop with a touch screen? Best Buy will offer an 11.6-inch Asus model for $250. It, too, uses a Celeron processor with a 320GB hard drive and 4GB of memory. The Black Friday deal saves you $250. We tested a similar model, and found performance good but battery life short.
Best Buy is also offering an HP detachable laptop, a 13.3-inch touch-screen model with 4GB of memory, a 128GB solid-state drive, and the latest fourth-generation Core i3 processor from Intel. Pull the display out of the keyboard, and you've got a tablet. The price is $500, about $250 less than the regular price.
There are also deals on Apple computers, including $200 savings on the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. The Black Friday price is $1,099. Displays on these models are excellent, with very high-resolution. The sale model has a 128GB solid-state drive and 4GB of memory. The model we tested came with 8GB of memory, and performance was very good.
Best Buy is also shaving $150 off the price of MacBook Air laptops.
Check our computer buying guide and Ratings to find the best model for your needs.
Office Max
For a larger laptop, list, consider checking out Office Max, which will offer a 17-inch Toshiba Satellite with 8GB of memory, a 750GB hard drive, and an AMD A-series processor. When we tested a similar model with slightly less memory, performance was good, especially for productivity and Web-based tasks. But it was slow for viewing and editing HD videos. Still $350, is a great price for a basic laptop this size, and you'll save $180. There's a similar model from HP, also for $350.
If you're looking for a more powerful performer, Office Max will also have a 15-inch Toshiba with an Intel Core i7 processor. It's a third-generation processor, so it's not among the newest, but models with this processor performed well in our tests. Price is $600, a savings of $130.
Staples
The office superstore will have laptops on sale from HP, Toshiba, Lenovo, and Dell. There are no sub-$200 offerings, but you’ll find a couple of decent deals. For starters, there's a 14-inch Dell Inspiron with a touch screen for $580. That's not a bad price for a model with a 1TB hard drive, 8GB of memory, and a third-gen Intel Core i5 processor.
At the low end of the price spectrum, you might want to check out a 15-inch Toshiba laptop for $250. It's got an AMD A-series processor, 4GB of memory, and a 500GB hard drive.
Walmart
A sub-$200 laptop can also be found at this retail giant, though it's not as much of a bargain as you'd think from the price. The HP Black Licorice 15.6-inch laptop, on sale for $178 (a savings of $140), is powered by an AMD E-based processor, which often performed poorly in our tests.
—Donna Tapellini
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