Every Christmas I see these 'laptop deals' pop up on Amazon - please don't buy them, these deals are much better

Laptop recommendations - SGIN X15 crossed out in red, Asus Vivobook 15 ticked in green.

(Image credit: Asus, SGIN)

Are you in search of a new laptop for your loved ones this holiday season? As Christmas approaches, there will be numerous holiday laptop deals available, which makes it challenging to navigate through all the sales and find the right device. While some of the best laptop deals will feature significant price reductions, it's important to be cautious, as not every deal is trustworthy and deserving of a spot on our 'nice list.'

Picture this: You're scrolling through the online jungle of deals, and suddenly, you stumble upon this unheard-of brand with mind-blowing discounts. Tempting, right? Well, here's the catch – not every deal out there is as genuine as it seems.

Too good to be true?

As you scroll through Amazon's laptop page, you may find a brand of laptops known as SGIN, which offers some impressive discounts on fairly decent devices. For example, there's a 17.3-inch laptop with 24GB of RAM, 1024GB of SSD storage, and a Celeron N5095A processor, currently at a 49% discount, reduced from £899.99 to £459.99. If you were approaching this deal head one with not a lot of computing background or just looking for a laptop that looks good for cheap you may be pretty enticed by it - but don't be swayed solely by the numbers on the discount tags.

Don't fret - there are still plenty of deals

Of course, I'm not trying to put you off your Christmas shopping. If you're not sure where to start, our best laptop deals gift guide will help you find a deal for every budget. Plus, if you want a bit more information about each product before you make a purchase, that page will be your best bet.

I'll get more into the details of why you should be careful with suspicious laptop brands on Amazon, but if you're looking for a laptop you should buy, here are my favorite deals right now - specifically those that are around the 'sale price' of the SGIN laptops except, you know... actually worth buying.

Lenovo Chromebook Duet 3: was £399 now £249 at Argos
We're big fans of the Lenovo Chromebook Duet at TechRadar so definitely want to share this significant reduction on the flexible 11-inch laptop that brings it down to a record-low price for this configuration. In our very positive Lenovo Chromebook Duet review, we thought the original version offered an excellent balance between tablet portability and Chromebook flexibility. This version boasts 8GB of RAM for good performance and a healthy 128GB of storage. Plus, the day-long battery life is a huge boost for those who are always on the go.

The brands to avoid

If you're planning to drop a good chunk of change on a new device for you or your loved one, you want your laptop to be worthwhile and have some longevity. When I was younger my family would always cheap out on school laptops and invest in brands that no one had ever heard of, and without fail every year we'd have to spend more money on another laptop.

Geviar and GEO Computers are two other laptop brands that will pop up as you scroll through Amazon for deals, and they follow the same pattern that SGIN's deals do - big discounts, suspiciously identical laptop pictures, and of course, bad reviews. Some further digging reveals that SGIN is actually just a brand name owned by a Chinese manufacturer called Shenzhen Oraako Electronic Technology - and it's got other brands like Bmax and KUU for pulling the same stunts in different regions.

In fact, when you try to look for Geviar's or SGIN's official websites, you get a long list of sales links and then several YouTube videos of people urging you not to buy these laptops from Amazon!

Youtuber Dayo Aworunse actually purchased one of SGIN's laptops, and the unboxing goes... as you'd expect. There's actual grease from another person's hand on the laptop Aworunse unboxes, hinting at the laptop being used by someone else before being delivered.

The comments on the above video by Dayo Aworunse all echo the same sentiment of 'do not buy', with some users making note that Amazon should be doing more to weed the site of these 'scammers'. So take care this festive season - don't gift someone a dud!

More Christmas sales

Amazon: up to 65% off tech and gifts
Adidas: up to 60% off outlet clothing, shoes, apparel
AO: up to 40% off vacuums, appliances, and tech
Argos: up to 70% off toys, Christmas decor, and tech
Boots: half-price gift sets, gift cards, and fragrances
B&Q: cheap Christmas trees, lights, decor, wreaths
Carphone Warehouse: 120GB data for £12 per month
Currys: up to 40% off TVs, air fryers, laptops and more
Cotswolds Outdoor: up to 50% off Patagonia, Rab, North Face
Debenhams: up to 70% off home, fashion, gift sets
Disney: up to 60% off Christmas jumpers, toys, decor
Ebuyer: up to 40% off laptops, desktops, and components
John Lewis: £300 off TVs, Apple, plus Christmas decor
Jessops: up to £1,000 off Sony, Canon, Nikon, and Fujifilm
O2: up to £600 off iPhone, Samsung and Google
Samsung: up to £600 off TVs, phones and appliances
Shark: up to £100 off best-selling vacuums
Very: discounts on tech, appliances, furniture and beauty
Vodafone: six months half-price SIMs from £11.50

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Muskaan is TechRadar’s UK-based Computing writer. She has always been a passionate writer and has had her creative work published in several literary journals and magazines. Her debut into the writing world was a poem published in The Times of Zambia, on the subject of sunflowers and the insignificance of human existence in comparison. Growing up in Zambia, Muskaan was fascinated with technology, especially computers, and she's joined TechRadar to write about the latest GPUs, laptops and recently anything AI related. If you've got questions, moral concerns or just an interest in anything ChatGPT or general AI, you're in the right place. Muskaan also somehow managed to install a game on her work MacBook's Touch Bar, without the IT department finding out (yet).