Prime Day laptops: The best deals we could find from Apple, Acer and more – Engadget

The latest MacBook Air is down to $1,249 for a configuration with Apple’s M3 chip, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. That’s a new low, taking about $150 below the notebook’s typical street price in recent months and $250 off Apple’s list price. Just make sure to clip the $50 on-page coupon to see the full discount at checkout.

The M3 MacBook Air earned a score of 90 in our review earlier this year, and it’s now the top overall recommendation in our guide to the best laptops. It ticks just about all the boxes for those who prefer macOS to Windows: a thin and premium-feeling chassis, a comfortable keyboard and trackpad, a sharp and color-accurate display, more than enough battery life to get through a typical workday, good speakers and quick performance for most of the things people do with a laptop. It’s even capable of playing more involved games, albeit at lower settings most of the time. This newest model can power two external displays, too, but only when its lid is closed. We’d still like to see more than two USB-C ports, and the whole thing can still get a bit hot with especially heavy workloads. But for most people in the market for a mainstream notebook, it’s hard to do better.

If you only need a laptop for the basics, the base model of the M3 MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD is on sale for $849 after an on-page coupon. That’s $150 below the device’s typical going rate on Amazon and another new low. 

This version has most of the strengths noted above, but it’ll start to feel underpowered if you multitask with any regularity. We recommend getting the higher-spec model if your budget allows it; that one should hold up much better in both the short and long term.

The 15-inch version of the MacBook Air, meanwhile, is on sale for a new low of $1,449 after a $50 coupon. That’s a $250 drop from Apple’s list price and roughly $150 below this model’s average street price over the last few months. This discount applies to the config with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. 

If you can live with less memory and storage, the base model here is on sale for $1,049. That’s another new low.

The larger Air is almost identical as the 13-inch model, with the same chip and port selection, but it has a more spacious screen and slightly more expansive speaker system. If you’re willing to trade some portability for a better media editing or video streaming experience, it might be worth the extra cost. We gave it a review score of 90 back in March.

The last-gen MacBook Air with Apple’s M2 chip isn’t a dramatic downgrade from the newest model, so it might be a better value if you only want a MacBook for casual tasks. It’s now down to $799 for a 13-inch model with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, which is its lowest price to date and $50 below the street price we’ve seen on Amazon for most of the last few months. Compared to buying from Apple directly, it’s a $200 drop. A version with 512GB of storage is also $200 off at $999.

We gave the M2 MacBook Air a review score of 96 when it arrived in mid-2022. Its hardware is virtually identical to the M3 model, so you still get a stellar design with a comfy keyboard, crisp display and long battery life. Its chip is just a bit less powerful, particularly in terms of graphics performance, and it can’t drive two external displays. The storage drive in this M2 model is technically much slower than the one in the base M3 Air as well, so it’s less ideal if you plan on transferring large, gigabyte-sized files every so often. In general, we still recommend doubling the memory and storage space if at all possible. But if you’re on a tighter budget and don’t plan pushing your laptop too hard, this is a decent value.

The 14-inch MacBook Pro with Apple’s M3 Pro chip, 18GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD is available for $1,699. This deal has technically been live for a couple of weeks now, but it still matches the lowest price we’ve seen, and it’s $100 below the notebook’s usual going rate on Amazon. Apple normally sells this config for $1,999.

The latest MacBook Pros are more laptop than most people need, but they should be worthwhile for media editors, 3D designers or other professional types who are willing to trade the MacBook Air’s svelteness for more power, a richer and faster mini-LED display and extra ports. They’re heavier — this 14-inch version checks in at 3.5 pounds — but they’re still exceptionally well-built, and they can handle just about any workload you throw at it. We gave the both 14- and 16-inch versions a review score of 90 late last year. Note that we specifically recommend the configs with an M3 Pro (or M3 Max) chip; there’s a lower-cost 14-inch model that uses the standard M3, but that one is hard to justify over the Air.

With all of these MacBook deals, it’s worth remembering that Apple has already released its new M4 series of chips, so it’s only a matter of time until we see updated Macs. According to a report earlier this year from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, new MacBook Pros could arrive by the end of 2024 or early 2025, while new MacBook Airs could hit sometime next spring. If you’re not in a rush to buy a new Pro, it might be worth waiting. But the current models won’t feel slow anytime soon, so these are still solid deals if you’re looking to upgrade now.

A version of the Acer Aspire 5 15 Slim with a 15.6-inch 1080p display, an Intel Core i5-13420H processor, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD is down to $450 for Prime Day. That’s $80 off this model’s standard going rate and the lowest historical price we could find.

Full disclosure: We haven’t reviewed this specific variant, but it’s an upgraded version of the top pick in our guide to the best cheap Windows laptops. Don’t expect an especially vibrant display or premium hardware (it’s mostly plastic), but we’ve found the Aspire 5 line to be reasonably well-made in the past, and the internals here should deliver steady performance for everyday fare. You also get a protective sleeve thrown in. While it’s hard to get excited over any cheap laptop, this one should be OK if you absolutely can’t go beyond $500.

The biggest potential dealbreaker with this configuration is that it lacks a USB-C port; instead, it uses a DC jack alongside two USB-A ports and an HDMI port. If you need that, another Aspire 5 variant with an Intel Core i7-1355U processor looks like a decent value at $570. That’s roughly $180 off. This model also includes a 1080p webcam and Wi-Fi 6E support, whereas the cheaper version is limited to a 720p cam and Wi-Fi 6. You may have to put up with some pre-installed bloatware on either device, though.

Moving over to gaming laptops, the Alienware m18 R2 is available for $2,380 for a config with a 165Hz QHD+ (2,560 x 1,600) display, an Intel Core i9-14900HX chip, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 GPU. That’s not cheap, but it’s $420 off the device’s standard price and the first major discount we could find for this model.

The m18 R2 is the 2024 version of the top 18-inch pick in our guide to the best gaming laptops. As the phrase “18-inch gaming laptop” would imply, this is a big boy, measuring about 1.05 inches thick and weighing nearly nine pounds. Combined with a battery that lasts about 4-5 hours when you aren’t gaming, it’s much more of a desktop replacement than something truly portable. That said, it’s built well for what it is, with a sturdy aluminum lid, a smooth hinge and a wide port selection. Most importantly, it can easily run modern AAA games at higher settings in 1080p or 1440p. Its memory and storage are both user-upgradeable, too, though its display could stand to be a bit brighter. Just note that this config has a membrane keyboard — Dell also sells a version with low-profile mechanical keys — and, like most notebooks in this class, it can get fairly hot and loud when stressed.

If you want to spend a little less, another config with a Core i7-14700HX chip, 16GB of RAM and an RTX 4070 GPU is on sale for $1,880. That’s another all-time low and about $385 below the device’s average street price as of late. This version will have a harder time with more demanding fare than the 4080 model, though, particularly when playing in 1440p. So, you may need to tone down the graphical settings in certain games to reach a consistently high frame rate. It technically has fewer storage upgrade slots as well.

The Razer Blade 15 with an Intel Core i7-13800H processor, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 GPU is on sale for $1,600. That’s the lowest price we’ve seen for this config and $100 less than its street price over the past couple of months. This model includes a 15.6-inch, 16:9 display with 1440p resolution and a 240Hz refresh rate.

The Blade 15 is the “premium” recommendation in our gaming laptop buying guide. It’s more than a year old at this point, and even with this discount, it’s not as good of a value as our overall top pick (the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14, which isn’t a part of Amazon’s sale). Instead, you’d get a Blade for its design, which is marked by clean lines and a sturdy, all-black aluminum finish. (It is a fingerprint magnet, though.) 

This config is powerful enough to play modern AAA games in 1080p or 1440p beyond that — again, the latter may require you to tune down settings in certain games to see very high frame rates — and it comes with a healthy array of ports. You can also upgrade its storage and memory. It can get hot, and its battery life isn’t great, but it’s at least a little more appealing at this price if you want a 15-inch gaming machine and are particular about your notebook’s look and feel.

Several other Razer Blade models are on sale as well, though they aren’t cheap. A version of the 2024 Blade 14 with a Ryzen 9 8945HS chip and 32GB of RAM is $200 off, for instance, but that only brings it down to $2,500. The latest iteration of the Blade 16 is “down” to $2,599, while the 18-inch Blade 18 still costs a whopping $2,800 after a Prime Day discount.