How much should you pay for a laptop on Amazon Prime Day?
Amazon’s annual summer sale is just around the corner, which means many are prepping for Prime Day laptop deals right now. However, the best deals aren’t always the ones that save you the most, or offer the lowest prices. Finding the best value over Prime Day is a whole other skill. Thankfully, we’ve been covering these offers for years and we know exactly what a truly good discount looks like.
Balancing specs, use-case, features, and price is a tricky act. You’ll need to have a few models in mind to get a head start on this year’s laptop deals, but it’s also important to remain flexible. You could spot an even better on a machine you had never considered before, or there may be better value in jumping slightly above or below your budget.
We’re helping you work out exactly how much you should be paying for a laptop (or gaming laptop) on Prime Day right here, weighing up common use-cases with specs and features to make sure you’re getting the right machine at the right price in July.
Everyday use
If you’re buying a laptop for everyday home use – browsing the web, streaming entertainment, replying to emails, then you really don’t need to spend more than $300 / £300 during larger sales events. You will be looking for a laptop or Chromebook with an Intel Celeron, Intel Pentium Silver, MediaTek, AMD A4, or AMD A6 processor, 4GB RAM, and between 64GB and 128GB of storage (though you’ll likely be able to find a 128GB SSD in this price range during sales).
At the top end of that spectrum, and on particularly strong discounts, you may find a laptop with a Ryzen 3 processor or 8GB RAM. It’s also worth noting that you’ll be able to get away with less storage if you opt for a Chromebook, as Google’s machines are built to run from the Cloud first and foremost – you’ll be storing the majority of your files online.
You’ll spot a lot of 11-inch laptops running for super low prices over Prime Day, but we’d recommend being wary. You can often pick up a 14-inch model for around $30 – $40 / £30 – £40 more and if you’re going to be spending a lot of time on your computer, going for the extra display space is going to be well worth it.
| Ideal Price | Spec |
| Under $100 / £100 | MediaTek / AMD A4 processor | 4GB RAM | 32GB storage | 11.6-inch |
| $100 – $200 / £100 – £200 | AMD A4 / AMD A6 / Intel Celeron / Intel Pentium processor | 4GB RAM | 64GB-128GB storage | 14-inch |
| $200 – $300 / £200 – £300 | Intel Celeron / Ryzen 3 processor | 4GB / 8GB RAM | 128GB SSD | 14-inch / 15.6-inch |
Which budget laptops should you buy on Prime Day?
We’d recommend keeping a close eye on the Acer Chromebook Spin 11, HP Stream (14-inch), and Dell Inspiron 15 3000 over Prime Day this year. All of these laptops have a long history of taking some serious price cuts during larger sales events and we expect them all to be available for under $300 / £300 (considerably under in some cases). You’ll find all of today’s latest prices just below.
Work / Study
If you’re hunting for a new work or study laptop this Prime Day, we’d recommend spending between $300 and $500 / £300 and £500. That will get you a solid processor (Intel Core i3 / i5 or Ryzen 5), 8GB RAM, and 256GB to 512GB of SSD storage space. If you’re going to be multi-tasking between more demanding programs, we’d recommend spending a little more and opting for 16GB RAM, but for the vast majority of users these specs will comfortably see you through.
The specs on offer will vary across this price range – at $300 / £300 you’ll be lucky to find 8GB RAM with a 256GB SSD, though you might be able to sacrifice storage space and opt for 128GB to keep that price low. This is a very mix and match category – if you’ll need a particularly speedy machine you might be able to upgrade to a higher quality processor by dropping fancier features like a fingerprint reader or a larger display, for example. However, a stock i3 / i5 processor, 8GB RAM, and 256GB SSD laptop shouldn’t cost you more than $400 / £400 on Prime Day and will see you through note-taking, a hefty consortium of Chrome tabs, and offer long-lasting battery life.
We also start to see 2-in-1 designs entering the shelves at this price range. It’s worth considering these laptop-tablet hybrids if you’re looking to work or study. The additional flexibility offered by the touchscreen tablet design can come in particularly handy for certain web applications and offers a great form factor for a Netflix binge as well. You will likely be dropping a few specs we would regularly expect to see at this price point for this luxury, though.
| Ideal Price | Spec |
| $300 – $400 / £300 – £400 | Intel Core i3 / i5 / Ryzen 5 processor | 8GB RAM | 256GB SSD |
| $400 – $500 / £400 – £500 | Intel Core i5 / Ryzen 5 processor | 8GB RAM | 256GB – 512GB SSD |
| $500 – $700 / £500 – £700 | Intel Core i7 / Ryzen 7 processor | 8GB – 16GB RAM | 512GB – 1TB SSD |
Which work / study laptops should you buy on Prime Day?
The Acer Aspire 5, HP Pavilion 14, Asus Vivobook 15, and Lenovo IdeaPad 3 regularly offer the best value for those after a mid-range laptop for work or study. These machines often do away with more premium features like fingerprint scanners or high refresh rate / resolution displays to concentrate more on internal components. As a result, we regularly see them below $500 / £500 during sales.
Gaming
If you’re interested in taking advantage of this year’s Prime Day gaming laptop deals, it’s worth taking stock of what kinds of games you’re looking to play. If your library is full of older, less demanding games or indie titles, then you won’t need much more than an RTX 3050 or RTX 3060 mobile GPU. However, if you’re going to be using your gaming laptop as your main driver for the latest and greatest games, it’s worth investing a little more in your choice of graphics card and available RAM.
With 12th generation processors and DDR5 RAM making their way into more and more rigs (and those PCs starting to see their first price cuts), there’s plenty of power out there – but that doesn’t mean you’ll actually use it.
If you’re after a budget rig you should aim to spend between $600 and $800 / £600 and £800 – we see RTX 3050 and RTX 3050 Ti machines in this price range regularly – though you will be picking up an i5 or Ryzen 5 processor at the cheaper end of this price scale. You should also expect to make do with 8GB RAM and a smaller 256GB SSD as well.
Mid-range gaming laptop deals can sit from $800 to $1,000 / £800 to £1,000 – and this is where we’re starting to see more and more RTX 3060 machines falling. If you’ve got your eye on an entry-level RTX 3050 laptop, then, it’s well worth seeing what’s out there just above your budget. If you find an RTX 3060 laptop in this price range, expect to sacrifice a little RAM and processing power to secure the mid-range GPU – you’ll likely pick up an i7 or i5 processor (potentially from the previous two generations) and 8GB RAM. However, you’re still getting excellent value for money if you’re after just a little more graphical grunt under the hood, as your machine will not be bottlenecked as easily.
A strong RTX 3060 rig will offer an i7 or Ryzen 7 processor, 16GB RAM, and 512GB SSD for this price point.
The upper mid-range category bumps us up to an RTX 3070 laptop – usually found on sale for between $1,000 and $1,500 / £1,000 and £1,500. You should be aiming for 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD here – as well as a high refresh rate display to really let that graphics card shine.
Then we get onto the RTX 3080 beasts – these machines have only just started to regularly drop below $2,000 / £2,000 – but if you’re browsing above that budget make sure you’re getting a solid display (such as IPS panel tech), 32GB RAM, and a 2TB SSD. Otherwise, you’ll find far better value at around the $1,800 mark – we regularly see RTX 3080 laptop deals offering similar specs here.
| Ideal Price | Spec |
| $600 – $800 / £600 – £800 | Intel Core i5 / Intel Core i7 / Ryzen 5 / Ryzen 7 processor | 8GB RAM | 256GB SSD | RTX 3050 GPU |
| $800 – $1,000 / £800 – £1,000 | Intel Core i7 / Ryzen 7 | 8GB – 16GB RAM | 512GB SSD | RTX 3050 Ti – RTX 3060 GPU |
| $1,000 – $1,500 / £1,000 – £1,500 | Intel Core i7 / Ryzen 7 | 16GB RAM | 512GB RAM | RTX 3060 – RTX 3070 GPU |
| $1,500 – $2,000 / £1,500 – £2,000 | Intel Core i7 / Ryzen 7 | 16 – 32GB RAM | 512GB – 1TB SSD | RTX 3070 – RTX 3080 GPU |
Which gaming laptops should you buy on Prime Day?
The Gigabyte G5, Asus TUF Dash F15, Acer Nitro 5, Dell G15, and Lenovo Legion 5 Pro have been mainstays on the discounts shelf for a while now, so we would recommend keeping a close eye on these cheaper / mid-range models during this year’s Prime Day sales. However, if you’re looking to up your budget a little more, we’d recommend watching out for savings on the MSI GP66 Leopard and Asus ROG Zephyrus G15 as well.
We’re also getting you prepped for all the Prime Day PC deals coming our way, as well as Prime Day iPad deals if you’re after something a little more flexible. However, if you’re in the market for a much bigger screen, we’d also recommend keeping an eye on upcoming Prime Day TV deals as well.