Best laptop deals for December: Apple, Asus, Microsoft, and more

UPDATE: Dec. 17, 2024, 4:00 a.m. EST This story has been updated with new laptop deals, plus current pricing and availability.

The very best laptop deals at a glance:

Buying a new laptop is one of the biggest splurges a person will make every several years, so keeping watch for good deals is imperative. Whether you’re looking for an everyday workhorse, a cheap Chromebook for homework, a 2-in-1 Windows PC for drawing, or a powerful premium gaming laptop, a decent discount can make it easier to take the leap on an upgrade.

As a Senior Shopping Reporter here at Mashable, I’ve been scouting and vetting the best laptop deals across major tech retailers for nearly two years. Read on for my top picks as of Dec. 17, including a sub-$500 OLED laptop, a budget-friendly MacBook, and a record-low price on the best laptop our team tried in 2024.

If you don’t see any models that check all the boxes on your spec wish list, bookmark this page and come back soon: I add new picks every other week.

Note: Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart occasionally list incorrect MSRPs for laptops, making deals appear better or worse than they really are. If an MSRP you see below differs from the one shown on the laptop’s product page, it’s because I cross-checked it with the machine’s manufacturer and corrected it.

Best laptop deal under $500

Why we like it

Svelte at 2.8 pounds and 0.6 inches thin, this 14-inch Asus Zenbook features a pretty and bright touchscreen OLED display — a rare sighting at this price point. Its backlit keyboard is also a nice touch. The configuration with a mid-range Intel Core Ultra 5 125H CPU, 8GB of memory, and a healthy 512GB of storage is currently just $499.99 at Best Buy, or 37% off.

An upgraded model with a better Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor and twice as much RAM and storage is also on sale at Best Buy. It’ll run you $699.99 (normally $1,049.99), which works out to 33% off.

More laptop deals under $500

Windows laptops

Acer Aspire Go 14 (AMD Ryzen 3 7320U, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD) — $299.99 ~~$349.99~~ (save $50)
Acer Swift 1 (Intel Celeron N4020, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD) — $299.99 ~~$369.99~~ (save $70)
Dell Inspiron 15 3535 (AMD Ryzen 5 7520U, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD) — $329.99 ~~$449.99~~ (save $120)
HP Laptop 17t-cn300 (Intel Core i5-1334U, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) — $369.99 ~~$849.99~~ (save $480)
Asus Vivobook 16X (Intel Core 5 120U, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD) — $449.99 ~~$699.99~~ (save $250)
HP Laptop 15t-fd000 (Intel Core i7-1355U, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) — $449.99 ~~$914.99~~ (save $465)
HP Pavilion 16t-af000 (Intel Core 5 120U, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD) — $449.99 ~~$1,019.99~~ (save $570)
Acer Aspire 15 (AMD Ryzen 5 7535U, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD) — $499.99 ~~$549.99~~ (save $50)

2-in-1 laptops

Chromebooks

Best laptop deal under $1,000

Why we like it

Read Mashable’s full review of the 13-inch Apple MacBook Air (M2).

The previous-generation MacBook Air is a Mashable Choice Award winner and our current favorite budget MacBook: It has an awesome keyboard, it lasts all day, and its M2 chip has “enough horsepower to handle everyday tasks with ease,” to quote our review. As an added bonus, Apple also recently bumped its base configuration to 16GB of memory (without a price hike). It’s on sale for $799 at Amazon and Best Buy, or 20% off; it was $50 cheaper on Black Friday, but that’s still a solid deal.

Mashable Deals

More laptop deals under $1,000

MacBooks

Best laptop deal over $1,000

Why we like it

Read Mashable’s full review of the 13-inch Microsoft Surface Laptop 7.

Combining a 23-hour battery life with M3 MacBook-beating performance, a sophisticated design, and some entertaining AI features, we think Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC is the best laptop that launched this year. (It’s another Mashable Choice Award winner, obviously). The higher-end model we tested came with a Snapdragon X Elite CPU, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage, and Amazon and the Microsoft Store still have it on sale at its record-low Black Friday price of $1,499 — a 25% discount. Other variants with lesser specs start at $899.99 (or $300 off).

Best Buy was matching that price at the time of writing, but only for paid My Best Buy members.

More laptop deals over $1,000

MacBooks

Apple MacBook Air, 15-inch (M3, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD) — $1,099 ~~$1,299~~ (save $200)
Apple MacBook Pro, 14-inch (M4, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) — $1,449 ~~$1,599~~ (save $150)

Windows laptops

LG gram 17 (Intel Core Ultra 155H, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD) — $1,099.99 ~~$1,799.99~~ (save $700)
LG gram Style 16 (Intel Core i7-1360P, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD) — $1,099.99 ~~$1,999.99~~ (save $900)
Dell XPS 13 9340 (Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD) — $1,399 ~~$1,999~~ (save $600)

2-in-1 laptops

Gaming laptops

Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 (Intel Core i9-14900HX, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD) — $1,049.99 ~~$1,449.99~~ (save $400)
Lenovo Legion Slim 5 Gen 9 (AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) — $1,099.99 ~~$1,519.99~~ (save $420)
Lenovo Legion Pro 5i Gen 9 (Intel Core i9-14900HX, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD) — $1,149.99 ~~$1,499.99~~ (save $350)
HP Omen Transcend 16t-u100 (Intel Core i7-14700HX, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) — $1,179.99 ~~$1,599.99~~ (save $420)
Asus TUF Gaming F17 (Intel Core i7-13700H, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD) — $1,199.99 ~~$1,499.99~~ (save $300)
Dell G16 7630 (Intel Core i9-13900HX, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD) — $1,299.99 ~~$1,749.99~~ (save $450)
Alienware m16 R2 (Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD) — $1,499.99 ~~$1,899.99~~ (save $400)

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