The Best Laptop and Gaming Black Friday Deals Including Playstation 5, OLED Monitors, and More
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Gigabyte Gaming A16 (CVHI3US864SH) Gaming Laptop — Top Pick
Best Buy deal price: $1,050; street price: $1,250
What we like: Our top gaming laptop pick. Reliable gaming performance for a reasonable price. Delivers high frame rates and smooth performance with a Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 graphics card and 32 GB of RAM. Stays cool to touch. Should play games well for years to come. Not too bulky to slide in a backpack.
Other things to know: 16-inch screen, 1 TB SSD. Has the shortest battery life of our picks. Fans can get noisy. Keyboard bows a little under pressure.
Read more: The Best Cheap Gaming Laptop
Gigabyte Gaming A16 Laptop (CMHI2US893SH) — Budget Pick
Best Buy deal price: $600; street price: $800
What we like: Our budget gaming laptop pick. A solid value. Capable enough for most modern games. Looked great and played smoothly during testing. Storage and memory is easily upgraded. Better battery life (average of 6.5 hours) than our other picks.
Other things to know: Less powerful, but a serviceable choice if you don’t care about playing AAA games on high settings down the line. The graphics card may not have enough VRAM to meet the demands of future games for as long as our other picks.
Read more: The Best Cheap Gaming Laptop
Asus ROG Strix G16 Gaming Laptop (G615JMR-AS74) — Runner-Up
Amazon deal price: $1,200; street price: $1,450
What we like: Our runner-up pick for the best cheap gaming laptop. Better equipped than our top pick to play newer games on high settings. Produced higher frame rates than our top-pick Gigabyte Gaming A16 in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and its display looked brighter, smoother, and more vibrant.
Other things to know: The bottom of this laptop gets too hot to touch safely, and you have to set the fans to turbo speed to keep the laptop cool. We recommend buying this laptop only if our top pick is out of stock, or if you want better performance for AAA games and you’re willing to live with this compromise.
Read more: The Best Cheap Gaming Laptop
Apple MacBook Air (13-Inch, M4, 2025, 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD) — Top Pick
Amazon deal price: $750; street price: $820
Costco deal price: $750 (Costco membership required, deal on black); street price: $820
Best Buy deal price: $750; street price: $820
What we like: Our top pick for the best MacBook. Sleek design and an upgraded 12-megapixel webcam. Fast enough for most people, even those who want to code or edit 4K video footage. Has a bright, high-resolution display, a comfortable keyboard and trackpad. Comes with two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, a headphone jack, and a MagSafe port.
Other things to know: Can power two external displays. Comes with our recommended specs of 16 GB RAM and 256 GB SSD. We recommend using an external drive or cloud storage rather than spending more for extra internal storage.
Read more: The Best MacBooks
Acer Chromebook Plus 514 Laptop (CB514-6HT-368E) — Top Pick
Costco deal price: $265 (Costco membership required, price includes $15 shipping); street price: $365
What we like: Our top pick for the best Chromebook. Reliable performance, spacious and tall touchscreen, and long battery life (12 hours in our testing). Thin and light enough to take on the go. Doesn’t substantially cut corners to sell for a reasonable price. Fast enough for most people’s everyday tasks.
Other things to know: Lacks a 360-degree hinge, and its webcam and speakers are mediocre. Comes with our recommended specs: Intel Core 3 N355 processor, 14-inch screen, 8 GB memory, 512 GB SSD. Costco membership required. Price includes $15 shipping.
Read more: The Best Chromebook
Apple MacBook Air (15-Inch, M4, 2025, 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD) — Budget Pick
Amazon deal price: $950; street price: $1,050
What we like: Our budget pick for video and photo editing needs, and the bigger sibling to our overall MacBook top pick, with a larger screen, larger touchpad, and better speakers. With the latest M4 processor, it also keeps cooler and performs better than the 13-inch version during long, intensive tasks like exporting large videos. Sports an upgraded 12-megapixel webcam.
Other things to know: Has the same two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, MagSafe port, and headphone jack as its smaller sibling. Street price has dropped significantly since release. Comes with our recommended specs of 256 GB SSD and 16 GB of memory.
Read more: The Best Laptops for Video and Photo Editing
Apple MacBook Pro Laptop (14-inch, M5, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD) — Upgrade Pick
Amazon deal price: $1,400 (deal on silver); street price: $1,570
What we like: Our upgrade MacBook pick. A little better than our top pick in every way. Faster for intensive tasks such as media editing and coding. The screen is sharp and color-accurate. Has better speakers and more ports than a MacBook Air. The M5 processor can comfortably play modern indie games.
Other things to know: About a pound heavier than the MacBook Air and slightly thicker. Don’t expect AAA games to run well. You’ll need to upgrade its memory to use larger AI models. Comes with our recommended specs of 16 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD.
Read more: The Best MacBooks
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus Laptop (128 GB SSD) — Best For…
Best Buy deal price: $350 (128 GB SSD); street price: $550
What we like: Our pick that’s best for those seeking a 2-in-1 Chromebook. Has a 360-degree hinge and a tall touchscreen, as well as a reliable keyboard and trackpad, surprisingly good speakers, and a long enough battery life. Fast enough for most people’s needs.
Other things to know: Portable size but heavy and cumbersome to use as a tablet. The webcam produces a dim image even with Google’s new Improve Lighting feature enabled. Specs include Intel i3-1315U processor, 8 GB memory, and 128 GB SSD storage. Street price has risen recently.
Read more: The Best Chromebook
Dell 27 Plus S2725QS 4K Monitor — Budget Pick
Amazon deal price: $225; street price: $280
What we like: Our budget 4K monitor pick. Simple, high-resolution monitor without a lot of complications or frills. Sharp image and natural colors. Stand allows lots of monitor position adjustment. Better refresh rate than other budget 4K monitors we tested. Sturdy, sleek, and simple.
Other things to know: 27-inch display. 120 Hz refresh rate. Two HDMI ports, one DisplayPort. No USB-C charging.
Read more: The Best 4K Monitors
Dell UltraSharp U3225QE 4K Monitor — Upgrade Pick
Amazon deal price: $750; street price: $900
What we like: Our 4K monitor upgrade pick. A larger, 32-inch version of our top pick. You can stack three documents side-by-side in view, and text is always sharp. A slew of ports. Can connect to another monitor for a dual-display setup. Automatically adjust temperature and color settings to its surroundings. Sturdy stand.
Other things to know: Pricey, and if you’re using a large monitor for gaming, we recommend checking out OLED options.
Read more: The Best 4K Monitors
Titan Army P2510S Plus Monitor (24-Inch) — Worth Considering
Best Buy deal price: $220; street price: $300
What we like: A 24-inch monitor worth considering for work and gaming. Has a 240 Hz refresh rate and 1440p resolution. Things will look sharper compared with how they look on 1080p monitors, and you’ll have more space on your screen since text and icons can be smaller without looking blurry. Has great motion clarity, with minimal ghosting from its fastest 240 Hz refresh rate down to 120 Hz.
Other things to know: It’s typically more expensive than our picks, but is less expensive now on sale.
Read more: The Best 24-Inch Monitor
Asus ROG Strix OLED XG27UCDMG 4K Monitor — Best For…
Best Buy deal price: $900; street price: $980
What we like: A next-generation OLED monitor that’s great for gaming. A truly great monitor, combining a convenient 27-inch size, 4K resolution, an OLED display, USB-C connectivity, and a fast response time. 240 Hz refresh rate that offers fast response times in competitive games at high frame rates. Works well when you’re using both a laptop and a PC.
Other things to know: Can connect via HDMI, DisplayPort, or a USB-C port with 90 W of charging. Very expensive even on sale. We still don’t know how long OLED monitors will last but one comes with a three-year warranty that covers OLED burn-in. Not the lowest price we’ve seen (dropped to $850 in October), but still a good deal.
Read more: The Best 4K Monitors
MSI Pro MP275 Monitor — Best For…
Amazon deal price: $119 (with delayed shipping, deal on black); street price: $145
What we like: The best budget monitor for a bigger screen. Larger than our other picks, with a basic 27-inch, 1440p display. Great color and contrast. It gets bright enough for nearly any room.
Other things to know: The stand is awfully wobbly. On sale in black. Shipping is delayed.
Read more: The Best Budget Monitors
Asus ExpertBook P5 Laptop (32 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD) — Top Pick
Best Buy deal price: $1,190 (1 TB SSD); street price: $1,400
What we like: Our top business laptop pick. Offers the same specs and performance as the more expensive business laptops we tested but for a lower price, plus it adds improvements such as a higher-resolution screen and a lightweight design. Includes USB-C, USB-A, and HDMI ports, a comfortable keyboard, and a huge trackpad. Long-lasting battery.
Other things to know: Built-in webcam cover and biometric logins through Windows facial recognition or a fingerprint reader. The webcam software is annoying. Doesn’t have slots for replaceable RAM. Comes with more than our recommended storage.
Read more: The Best Business Laptops
