Cyber Monday is here, even as laptop deals are still hot from Black Friday. We're seeing some mind-blowing discounts on brands like Apple and Samsung, even as we're updating this article.
Take the sleek new Microsoft Surface Laptop: it's our pick for the best battery life laptop of 2024 and it's currently $300 off at Amazon. There's also the iconic Apple MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM, on sale for just $899.
We organized our list into categories that actually make sense for most people, including how many gigabytes (GB) of RAM the laptop has, one of the key metrics in determining speed. We've also highlighted our top picks in each category, calling out their value, performance, or unique feature sets.
The MacBook Air M3 is as high-performing as it is ultraportable. The latest in Apple silicon provides a powerful and battery-efficient core to one of the thinnest and lightest laptops out there. With a 13.6-inch liquid retina display, 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU, the MacBook Air set the standard in portability and continues to push the limits for what an ultraportable laptop can do.
Microsoft's flagship Copilot+ PC is a sleek, well-optimized laptop with a marathon battery. We named it our top pick for best overall battery life out of all the laptops we tested in 2024 thanks to the energy-efficient Snapdragon X Elite processor, which keeps it running cool while also providing stand-out performance.
We're big fans of LG's Gram series for its commitment to being the lightest, thinnest laptops around. The Gram 17 defies logic for portability in a 17-inch form factor, weighing just 2.98 pounds, but still has a nice display and commendable hardware stack. This configuration features an Intel Core i7 Evo processor, 16GB of RAM and a full 1TB of storage.
Samsung's debut Copilot+ PC features the most high-end of the new Snapdragon X Elite chips that were released this summer. The Galaxy Book 4 lives up to its flagship status with a gorgeous AMOLED display, sleek form factor, and fantastic battery life.
Apple's MacBooks rarely go on sale, but this Cyber Monday, we're seeing a handful of competitive discounts across the major retailers. Here are the most noteworthy sales we've found.
Apple's M4 MacBook Pro was released less than a month ago, but it's already seeing a discount to make it a competitive option among all the other devices on sale right now. The M4 MacBook Pro is cutting-edge technology, sporting a 14-core CPU that's armed with a 16-core neural engine to take advantage of AI tasks. In our testing, it pulled ahead of the M3 MacBook Pro, but the M3 still held its own, putting these two devices very close to one another in performance.
Armed with a fast and powerful Intel Core Ultra 9 CPU, 16GB of memory and a 16-inch, 240Hz OLED display, Asus' flagship gaming laptop is as sleek and lightweight as it is high-performing. We're a big fan of Asus' ROG lineup for their small perks that gamers will appreciate, like the performance presets, hotkeys, and efficient battery life.
Whether you're looking for a gaming rig or light and inexpensive laptop to handle the basics, Lenovo has a handful of great deals going on right now across its entire lineup of laptops. Here are some of the best deals on models that I think deserve a shout-out.
Lenovo's Aura Edition laptops come with a handful of unique functionalities designed by Intel, such as the ability to share photos from your Android/iPhone device directly to the laptop simply by tapping it. Special features aside, this laptop comes with 16GB of RAM and the powerful Intel Core Ultra 7 processor, making it a solid laptop for productivity, gaming, creative tasks, or a combination of all of the above.
If you're looking for a mid-range Chromebook Plus with a solid laptop form factor, the ASUS CX34 has an Intel Core Ultra i3 processor paired with 8GB of RAM for snappy performance in ChromeOS. This is a device you could definitely do some cloud gaming on.
HP's Envy lineup is renown for being versatile, but this 16-inch makes a solid creator's workstation with its Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060, 16GB of RAM, and ultra XGA touchscreen display. With a generous selection of ports and a portable form factor, this is a quintessential power user's laptop that's down for work or play.
Cyber Monday is the Monday that directly follows Thanksgiving weekend. This year, Cyber Monday is December 2, 2024.
This is a great question since I think there are quite a few solid laptops out there under the $1,000 mark. Here are a few highly recommended laptops I've tested personally that won't cost you more than $900.
This all depends on what you find easiest. If you like using a touchscreen, and want a device for media purposes like watching shows and movies, a tablet is probably a better bet.
If you're looking for a device that can handle work-related tasks and will be doing lots of typing, a laptop might make more sense. If you can see yourself doing both equally, consider a 2-in-1 like the Lenovo IdeaPad 5, which can convert back and forth between the two form factors.
Absolutely! Amazon has added tons of devices from all the big brands over the past few years to hype up their Black Friday sales events, and they've gotten quite good. For example, when Amazon first started selling Apple's MacBooks and MacBook Pros at discounted rates, it was one of the first online retail outlets to do so.
Black Friday has traditionally been a more general sale day to kick off the holiday shopping season. Cyber Monday specifically refers to sales offered by online retailers that aren't available in physical brick-and-mortar stores. These deals are often sharply discounted, as retailers can adjust prices far more easily online than on physical products on a shelf.
Cyber Monday typically has some very good deals on a smaller selection of products/models, while Black Friday sales tend to be more general and encompass larger inventories.
There are tons of Chromebook deals out there, but we only highlight products we've either gone hands-on with personally or would consider ourselves. For example, laptops and Chromebooks come in a myriad of configurations and versions. If we've tested one model that we recommend, but a lower- or higher-end configuration is on sale, we'd still feel confident recommending it.
We also looked over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the deals we're recommending. Our recommendations may also be based on our own testing -- in addition to extensive research and comparison shopping. The goal is to deliver the most accurate advice to help you shop smarter.
The biggest retailers for laptops (that also have the best sales) are Best Buy, Walmart, Amazon, and B&H Photo Video, and many of our top-rated sales come from these destinations.
ZDNET's experts have been searching through Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales live now to find the best discounts by category. These are the best Cyber Monday deals so far, by category:
And more Black Friday deals: