Latest news with #AcerAspireGo15
Tom's Guide
29-07-2025
- Business
- Tom's Guide
Huge back-to-school laptop sales at Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart — 15 deals I'd shop now with up to $400 off
Back-to-school season is approaching, and if it's time for an upgrade, a ton of the best laptops we've tested are seeing price cuts across the web. Whether you're on a strict budget or looking to splash out, I've found some amazing options. For example, right now the MacBook Air 13' (M4/256GB) is on sale for $799 at Amazon. Not only is this our choice for the best laptop you can buy, it's now on sale for $200 off, its lowest price ever. This one could sell out fast, so don't hang around! You can also get the Acer Aspire Go 15 on sale for $314 at Amazon ($35 off). We rank this one as the best value laptop, and it's perfect for schoolwork thanks to its decent performance and productivity-friendly keyboard. Keep scrolling to see all my favorite laptop deals. For more savings, see our Amazon promo codes and see the Adidas back-to-school deals I'd shop from $11. Looking for an inexpensive work laptop? This laptop has a 14-inch display, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage. It's lightweight, too, weighing just 3.1 pounds. You'll easily be able to take it with you wherever you go. The Asus Vivobook Go is a good choice if you want a cheap, portable Windows laptop. It features an Intel Celeron N4500 processor, 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD. The 15.6-inch display FHD has a 60Hz refresh rate. It's also very portable, weighing 3.46 pounds and measuring 0.71 inches thick. If you just need something for basic productivity by day and watching YouTube by night, the IdeaPad 1 will do the job at a super low price. The Intel Celeron processor is enough for your basic typing and spreadsheet work, and multitasking is handled by 4GB of RAM. Plus, for the binge watching, the 15.6-inch HD display is decent. The Lenovo Chromebook Duet is one of the best Chromebooks around, and with this price cut, it now presents more value than ever. Expect a sharp 11-inch WUXGA (1920 x 1200) IPS display, commendable MediaTek Kompanio 838 CPU, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. Mainly, this excels at all online tasks, and for most, that's exactly why it's a steal at this price. The Acer Aspire Go 15 made our list of the best laptops as the best value pick, and it's even better value now that it's on sale for a discount! You get a roomy 15.6-inch display, 10 hours of battery life and plenty of ports. We also like its comfortable keyboard, and its Intel Core i3 processor is enough to handle everyday tasks. The webcam and speakers aren't great, but that's not too bad for the price. This Vivobook laptop from Asus is a bargain at this price. It offers a little more horsepower than your typical notebook at this price range, featuring a 16-inch 1920 x 1200 display, Core i7-1355U CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. Don't let that 0.9-inch thinness deceive you — the MSI Thin is powerful with AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS, RTX 4060 GPU, 16GB of super fast DDR5 RAM and a 512GB SSD. Pair that with a 15-inch 1080p 144Hz display for fluid gaming and you've got a stellar system. Get onboard with AI for less thanks to this HP Omnibook 5 deal, which brings the perks of Copilot+ with it. It sports a 16-inch 2K (1920 x 1200) touchscreen, along with an AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. Not bad for a laptop that can more than handle it's share of multitasking. Apple's M4 chipset powers this MacBook Air. It upgrades the camera from 1080p to 12MP with Center Stage support. The M4 chipset also supports dual external monitors, even when you have the laptop's lid open. It packs a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display (2560 x 1664), Apple's M4 CPU with a 10-core GPU, 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. In our MacBook Air M4 review, we said the Editor's Choice laptop is irresistible thanks to its speedy performance, sharper camera and lower starting price. The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x is the best Copilot+ PC we've seen, and it's thanks to its incredible specs under the hood. With a Snapdragon X Elite CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, it will blast through multiple tasks at once. Better yet, it boasts a 14.5-inch 3K (2944 x 1840) OLED touchscreen display. Despite its more budget appeal, we were impressed by what the Acer Nitro V 15 could manage when we tested it out, especially for entry-level gaming. This model comes with an RTX 4060 and an Intel Core i7 13620H CPU, along with 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, and it's sure to handle many of those essential PC games. Oh, and its 15.6-inch (1920 x 1080) 144Hz display is great for those competitive FPS titles. This svelte PC packs enough style to make Mac fans jealous. Under the hood you'll find an Intel Core Ultra 7 Series 2 CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. We especially like the 14-inch 2880 x 1800 OLED display with 120Hz refresh rate. The HP Omen Transcend 14 delivers the goods thanks to its great gaming performance, classy design, vibrant OLED display and RGB-lit keyboard. While its battery life disappoints and it only has effective USB-C charging via one port, its strengths outweigh its deficiencies. If you're looking for raw horsepower, the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M4 Pro chip is for you. It offers blistering performance and will likely speed through most of your daily tasks without so much as a hiccup. The base model features a 14.2-inch 3024 x 1964 Retina display, Apple M4 Pro CPU, 24GB of RAM and a 512GB check: $1,799 @ Best Buy | $1,959 @ B&H This is a well-specced edition of one of the best 14-inch gaming laptops you can buy. It features a 14-inch 3K 120Hz OLED display with an AMD Ryzen 9 CPU, an Nvidia GeForce 5070 Ti laptop GPU, 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD to store all your favorite games.
Tom's Guide
29-06-2025
- Tom's Guide
I review laptops for a living, and I'd buy these 3 to go back to school
Summer is in full swing, and that means lots of students are out of school — with plenty of parents counting the days until they go back. Retailers around the U.S. are going to be running back to school sales to capitalize on that, so now is the time for students and parents to be thinking about what kind of laptop you want for the school year ahead. I know because I was a student myself once, and some of my friends and readers have kids who will be shopping for their first school laptop soon. Since I've been writing about laptops for years they sometimes ask me for help, and I have some tips on what to look for when shopping for a student laptop. Eight-plus hours of (tested) battery life, a screen bright enough to see in a sunny classroom and a comfy keyboard are really valuable in a laptop that's headed back to school. A light overall weight is also a big plus because it makes lugging the laptop around campus more enjoyable. Good port variety is nice to have because it lets you do more with the laptop, but you can buy a USB-C adapter or hub to fix most port problems. Likewise, having a laptop capable enough to run modern AI applications can be nice, but in my experience those NPU-focused apps aren't game-changers for productivity. With those tips in mind, here are the laptops I recommend most for students going back to school. I'm not the world's biggest Mac fan, but it's hard to beat the incredible value that Apple's MacBook Air M4 delivers for students. The M4 chip inside is more than powerful enough to run just about any app a modern student might need, and it lasted an incredible 15 hours in our battery test. Not only will it carry you through a whole day of school, the 13-inch model is easy to carry thanks to the fact it weighs less than 3 pounds. The Apple MacBook Air M4 is one of the best laptops on the market, and this model sports a 13-inch (2560 x 1664) display, a speedy M4 chip, 16GB of unified memory and a 256GB SSD for storage. I prefer the 15-inch model since I like a bigger screen, but the display on either MacBook Air is plenty bright enough for use during the day. The only real flaw is the fact you're limited to Thunderbolt 4 ports, but again, you can buy an adapter to get around that handicap. For my money the Acer Aspire Go 15 is one of the best budget laptops you can buy because it gives you a fully functioning Windows laptop for less than $300. Now it's not the fastest or lightest laptop around, but I think it's more than capable enough for young students who need to do homework and remote learning. Admittedly, when I wrote our Acer Aspire Go 15 review I thought the Intel Core i3-N305 CPU inside made it feel a little slow and sluggish. But it's got enough horsepower to run basic productivity apps and even some lightweight games. The ultra-affordable Acer Aspire Go 15 is pretty slow, but it's got more than enough power for basic homework, research and surfing the web. The 15.6-inch 1080p display is good enough to stream movies on, and the 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage are enough for basic apps and documents. The 8GB of RAM also makes multitasking a bit hard, but that's not the worst thing for a young student. The 128GB of storage is enough room for a few apps and games in addition to schoolwork, and you get a nice assortment of ports that let you plug in USB-A or USB-C accessories or connect to an external display via HDMI. However, be aware that the 15.6-inch 1080p IPS screen is a bit dim and thus sometimes hard to see in bright light. You can use it around the house or in a coffee shop just fine, but it's tricky to see outside at noon. I think Framework laptops are some of the most exciting in the world right now because they're so radically repairable and upgradable. That also means a student needs to be prepared for the idiosyncrasies that come with owning one. I've used and reviewed all of the laptops Framework currently sells, and I think the entry-level Framework Laptop 13 is a great choice for certain kinds of students. Specifically, any student who's curious, self-reliant or interested in how laptops work will probably get a lot out of the fact that every Framework laptop is designed to be customized, upgraded and repaired by its owner. You can even order a (cheaper) barebones DIY edition and equip your Framework with your own RAM, SSD and operating system, though I don't recommend that for anyone but the most techy students. The Framework Laptop 13 is the company's first and most versatile laptop, and you have lots of options for how to order and configure one. What I've linked here is the pre-built entry-level model with the 13.5-inch (2256x1504) screen, an Intel Core Ultra 5 125H CPU, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. However, you can spend more to configure your machine with better components. Each Framework comes with a special tool you can use to easily loosen the screws holding the case together, at which point you can crack the laptop open and replace or upgrade parts using Framework's guides. So while the model I've linked here comes with an Intel Core Ultra 5 125H CPU, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, you can buy upgrades down the road directly from Framework and install them yourself if you want something different. So if you find the battery life of the Intel chip not to your liking, you could try swapping it out for one of AMD's new Ryzen AI 300 series CPUs. And I haven't even mentioned the unique Expansion Card system that underpins all Framework laptops. Here's how it works: Framework Laptop 13 units have four slots on the bottom for Framework Expansion Cards. You have to buy these cards directly from Framework for a small fee, but the upside is that you can mix and match ports on the laptop to adapt to your needs. So you can order it with, say, one USB-A Card, one USB-C Card, an HDMI Out Card for using an external monitor and a 256GB SSD Card for some extra storage when you need it. But then you could also have, say, a MicroSD Extension Card and an SD Extension Card you could swap onto your laptop when you need to pull files or photos off of your SD cards before class. Don't get me wrong, it can definitely be scary to pry open your laptop and start fiddling with the innards. But I've reviewed Framework laptops for years, and after you get the hang of it, the fear subsides and the fun begins.
