Amazon’s fall megasale is starting to take shape, and laptop deals are already beginning to blossom. If you’ve been holding out for an upgrade, early Prime Day pricing is bringing actual price cuts to mainstream Windows laptops, MacBook Pros and Airs, gaming rigs, Chromebooks—basically a little bit of everything. Many are also matching or beating all-time lows as retailers rush to test the waters ahead of Amazon’s sales event.
This year’s best things are also pretty good indicators as to where the market shifted: AI-ready Windows systems, longer battery life and OLED displays trickling down in cost. Market trackers at IDC and Canalys have also reported a recovery in the shipments of PCs as well as more aggressive promotions, just the trend we’re seeing among these early listings. Here are my 30 top picks live now, along with what to know before you shop.
Quick list: 30 early deals worth your money
- Dell 14 Plus — $849 (save $250)
- Asus Vivobook S 15 (Copilot+) — $1,069 (save $230)
- Acer Swift 14 AI — $899 (save $150)
- Microsoft Surface Laptop (14″, 16GB/1TB) — $1,129 (save $470)
- Dell Inspiron 16 FHD+ touch; nits or brightness unspecified
- Apple MacBook Air M4 with new design and keyboard is cheaper than Black Friday
- HP Pavilion power user options with a wide range of configs expected to see discounts
- Acer Nitro gaming configs forecast to sell under last year’s best prices, but order will still be important — some may be in-store only, and Xbox Series X console-only deals are listed at the end if they surprise
Best all‑around Windows laptop deals to shop early
$849 Dell 14 Plus is a good intersection point for students and mainstream pros: fast enough to handle browser stacks with grunting muscles, but also an attractive metal chassis that feels like it’s one step above the usual midrange level. Understandably, the early adoption darlings are the Acer Swift 14 AI and Asus Vivobook S 15 (Copilot+)—both making use of NPUs rated around 45 TOPS for on‑device AI features, meaning stuff like live captions, recall‑style search and background blur is snappy but won’t batter your battery.
You seldom see Surface Laptop deals that drop this low for a 14‑inch model with 16GB of RAM and a full terabyte of storage. Weight, battery life and display quality of this configuration make it a clean daily driver. If you have more discriminating tastes, keep an eye out for promos on the Dell XPS 13/14 and Lenovo Yoga 7i/9i OLED: Early sales are taking several hundred dollars off configurations with 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSDs — a baseline I recommend if you want your next laptop purchase to be a long-lasting one.
Pro tip: Ignore inflated MSRPs. Amen, Blue Man (no relation to Sonic’s partner), but good riddance forever to those “save $2,800” tags you now and again see on an Inspiron 16 due to a list price nobody pays. Cross-check recent street prices on price‑tracking services like Keepa or camelcamelcamel, and look for at least 15–25% off the recent average on major lines.
MacBook and Mac desktop discounts worth grabbing
Deals on Apple products are especially strong right now. Headline price: MacBook Air M4 at $999 (15‑inch) or $799 (13‑inch). Our top ultraportable continues to define for battery life and thermals. The new Air also enables multiple external displays when open, a long‑sought feature that eliminates a key friction point for desk setups.
Moving up to a MacBook Pro M4 at $1,499 gets you sustained performance, brighter screens and bigger battery — good for coders, analysts and photo/video editors who live in steady-state loads. MacBook Air M3 at $699, meanwhile, is the value pick for web, office and light editing. The Mac Mini M4, priced at $499, is a little productivity rocket; combined with a nice monitor, it’s Apple silicon for the lowest cost of entry.
Memory is important on Macs because it’s unified: 16GB would be the way to go for heavy multitaskers and creative applications. Also consider how much Apple charges for a storage upgrade, compared to the cost of an external SSD: it may well be significantly cheaper per gigabyte.
Gaming laptops with real savings and strong deals
If you’re chasing high‑refresh panels and modern GPUs, the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i is a good option with its color‑rich, 240Hz OLED display and RTX 50‑series graphics — a forward‑looking spec sheet hacked by almost a grand.
The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (and similar laptops) are still punching above their weight; watch for RTX 4070 promos on builds that strike a balance between portability and 1440p performance.
Thrifty gaming is well served: Acer’s Nitro 16 and Lenovo’s LOQ 15 deals both peek south of a four-figure price — sometimes below $900, down to even $800 in the case of the former — while still delivering respectable settings for playing between 1080p and 1440p. Creator-leaning MSI Stealth Studio models are getting up to 20% off, and that does get you some quieter thermals, color-calibrated screens and strong CPU/GPU pairings for Adobe work and doing anything with a 3D file like editing video.
Look for USB‑C charging up to 140W, mux switches or Advanced Optimus for direct‑to‑GPU output and at least 16GB dual‑channel RAM. Steam’s own hardware survey proves that 1080p and 1440p are still king, so focus on getting a fast panel rather than an eye-watering 4K display.
Student favorites and budget options already on sale
On the budget end, there is obvious value in this HP 15.6‑inch Windows 11 Pro model starting at only $370, a compelling option for school or office basics with its healthy 16GB RAM and hulking 1TB SSD (which helps machines age gracefully). At the budget end, a $600 Dell Inspiron 15 touchscreen with a current‑gen Core i7, 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage is an uncommon combination of performance and price, for spreadsheets, light editing and moderate daily multitasking.
Chromebooks are quietly excellent again. The $679 Asus ExpertBook Chromebook (16GB/256GB) is a legitimate ChromeOS workstation, and models within the Chromebook Plus tumble well below that into Lenovo Flex 5i and Acer 515 territory on a near-weekly basis. For most students, focus on 8GB of RAM, a 1080p IPS display and at least 128GB storage (or expandable microSD) for a snappy offline experience.
Why these 30 made the cut (and how to buy)
I’ve followed the price history on these products, consulted with retail buyers and analysed how the spec‑to‑dollar value holds up to third‑party benchmarks and real‑world testing from trusted laboratories and reviewers. For Windows, these baseline specs are 16GB of RAM and maybe 512GB SSD; for displays you should aim to find OLED or at least a 120Hz+ IPS panel. Expect modern connectivity (USB‑C with 65W+ charging, Thunderbolt/USB4, Wi‑Fi 6E/7) to give your purchase a longer shelf life.
Before you check out, look for clipped coupons on product pages and listings for lightning deals and warehouse “open‑box” items. Stock will ebb and flow throughout the event window, but the best laptop deals often arrive early — and then disappear. Know what you want, and if the configuration of your dreams hits an actual historical low, don’t dally.