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Black Friday is here, raising countless deals and promotions from all corners of the internet. We’ve been busy curating all sorts of lists with the best prices possible, and one area to which we’re paying particularly close attention is Black Friday laptop deals. It seems like just about every make and model is on sale this year, and trying to narrow things down to just one device can seem like a monumental task. If you’re shopping for a great laptop within the $600 price range, there’s an easy recommendation I can make.
I’ve been focusing a lot on the best Black Friday gaming laptop deals (that also includes some great budget options), but I haven’t ignored the tempting deals on laptops that I’ve personally tested and reviewed this year. One standout is Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Go 3, refreshed this year with a few improvements that I’ll dig into below. It’s an ideal laptop for students and young professionals who want a premium build quality and portable design, and it’s even easier to recommend now that it’s been discounted by $200 at Amazon and Best Buy.
Surface Laptop Go 3
$600 $800 Save $200
Have $600 to spend on a new laptop? Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Go 3 is one of the most delightful PCs I’ve tested this year. While the $800 full price makes it a bit less easy to recommend, this $200 discount puts it in the top spot for laptops I’d suggest picking up during Black Friday.
In my Surface Laptop Go 3 review, I didn’t hold back when noting that some crucial weak spots hadn’t been dealt with in the latest refresh. The Laptop Go 3 has the exact same chassis as the Laptop Go 2, it’s available in the same four colors, it has the same touch display, and it still lacks a backlight for the keyboard.
However, that unchanged design isn’t too much of a problem. The laptop is lightweight and built to a high standard that easily trumps other laptops in the (full retail) $800 range. The display’s 1536×1024 resolution could use a bump, but at 12.4 inches it actually looks quite crisp. The 3:2 aspect ratio also gives you a lot more vertical screen space to work with when multitasking. The lack of keyboard backlight is still a bummer, and the 720p webcam is falling behind most 2023 laptops that have made a move to 1080p.
Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 3These gripes quickly fall away in the face of a $200 discount. The updated 12th Gen Intel Core i5-1235U CPU brings strong performance and runs cool thanks to improved thermals. RAM is faster thanks to a bump up to LPDDR5, there’s more battery life from a charge, and a fingerprint reader is now available in all models for improved security. In my testing, the Laptop Go 3 was able to run for almost 10 hours in PCMark 10’s Modern Office rundown; real-world battery life hit about six hours when using the system steadily for a relatively heavy productivity workload. The keyboard and touchpad are outstanding, and the speakers embedded below the keys come through loud and clear.
At the usual $800 price, the Laptop Go 3 isn’t quite as easy to recommend, though we still name it the top affordable option in our roundup of the best Surface PCs. There’s a lot more competition in this price range. But at $600 with the Black Friday discount, it’s easily one of the most delightful and affordable laptops you can pick up this year.
Amazon and Best Buy both have discounted $600 models with 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD. If you need more RAM, Best Buy also has the 16GB model on sale for $850 from the usual $1,000 price.
** (Disclaimer: This video content is intended for educational and informational purposes only) **
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