Upgrading your gaming laptop can be an expensive proposition. With a gaming PC, you have save money by going the DIY route or you can just upgrade specific components instead of replacing the entire desktop. Also, since the monitor is not a part of the system, you can keep using it for future builds. You can't afford such luxuries with a laptop. You'd essentially have to buy an entirely new system every time. Fortunately, laptop prices have dropped tremendously over the years, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't save even more.
Fortunately, Black Friday is fast approaching and there is no better time to invest in a gaming laptop. We are still a few weeks out from November 29, but some retailers like Best Buy and Dell have already released their first set of early Black Friday sales, including some great deals on gaming laptops. As more stores reveal their Black Friday plans and hopefully push out discounts in advance, we'll be sure to update this article.
Best Buy Gaming Laptop Deals
Best Buy has some great deals going on as part of its Black Friday Sale and that extends to gaming laptops as well. Some of our favorites are the Acer Nitro V 15" laptop boasts an RTX 4050 GPU for a budget price of $699.99, the Alienware m16 RTX 4070 gaming laptop for $1,299.99 (currently cheaper than buying from Alienware direct), and the Acer Predator Helios with a massive 18" display, powerful i9-14900HX CPU, and RTX 4080 GPU for $1,999.99.
Alienware Gaming Laptop Deals
The Alienware Black Friday Sale is already well underway with some hefty discounts on Alienware m-series and x-series gaming laptops. The m-series is Alienware's best-selling gaming laptop; it boasts excellent build quality and powerful gaming components for a very reasonable price. The Alienware x-series is a more recent model that boasts a slimmer and lighter redesign. It's the thinnest Alienware laptop ever and compares to other ultra-thin laptops like the Razer Blade.
HP Gaming Laptop Deals
HP has kicked off its Black Friday Sale with some great deals on their Omen and Omen Transcend gaming laptops. The Omen is HP's most popular gaming laptop and is generally more attractively priced than Alienware or Lenovo Legion. The Omen Transcend is a new 2024 lighter and thinner version of the Omen and features better materials like a premium aluminum chassis instead of plastic. The Transcend also has the option to upgrade the display to OLED. It's an excellent choice for anyone who wants a slim and easily portable laptop while still being able to play games.
Note: Some configurations below will require you to manually select the upgrades on the product page.
Lenovo Legion Slim 16" RTX 4070 Laptop
Lenovo hasn't kicked off any official Black Friday Sale just yet. However they do have one good laptop deal worth mentioning. You can get a Lenovo Legion Slim 5 Gen 9 16" Ryzen Edition RTX 4070 gaming laptop for $1,121.99 shipped. The Legion Slim model is thinner than your typical gaming laptop, and yet is still equipped with a GPU that has the same high-wattage TGP as the full-sized Legion Pro. It weighs in at only 4.63lbs and measures 0.78" at its thinnest point. RTX 4070 mobile GPU performs on par with the RTX 3080 and you'll want this kind of power to run games comfortably on the laptop's beefed up 2560x1600 QHD+ display.
Walmart and Amazon Laptop Deals Aren't Available Yet
Walmart and Amazon haven't yet included any good gaming laptop deals in their Early Black Friday Sales. Rest assured these two retailers traditionally have some of the discounts on Black Friday, so stay tuned. We'll update this section once thee deals go live sometime next week.
Not All Laptop GPUs Are the Same
There are two important tidbits that deserve mention concerning graphics cards found in laptops. First, mobile GPU variants are not as powerful as their desktop counterparts. For example, a mobile RTX 4060 doesn't perform as well as a desktop RTX 4060. The mobile versions are generally about one to two tiers lower in performance. Using the same example, the mobile RTX 4060 performs more similarly to a desktop RTX 4050.
Second, not all laptops feature the same performance out of the same GPU. Two laptops equipped with the same RTX 4060 GPU, for example, might perform very different in gaming. In order to roughly tell how good a GPU will be, you can look at the TGP rating. That's basically the amount of power supplied to the GPU. A higher TGP rating means more power will be delivered, equating to stronger performance, however the wattage consumption and heat generated will be higher. Here are the maximum TGP rates for the RTX 40 series graphics cards:
- Mobile RTX 4050: 115W
- Mobile RTX 4060: 115W
- Mobile RTX 4070: 115W
- Mobile RTX 4080: 150W
- Mobile RTX 4090: 150W
Should You Buy Now or Wait for Black Friday?
At this point, Black Friday is only a few weeks away and in most cases it's better to wait. There are some deals here that are probably as low as they will go, even on Black Friday. However, it's very likely that the same deals you see now will also be available on November 29, even if they go out of stock. Also, several retailers, including Lenovo, Walmart, and Amazon, haven't released their deals just yet. It might be a good idea to wait and see what they'll bring to the table.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
