We're being treated to a wave of Black Friday deals right now – but does a laptop that's had its price cut from £714.25 to just £209.98 at Amazon sound too good to be true? If it does, that's because, in this case, it is.
While Amazon is touting this early Black Friday laptop deal with a huge 71% off, we'd actually recommend you steer clear.
On the surface it might appear okay. It has a 15.6-inch screen, and while the 256GB SSD is a bit low for a Windows 11 laptop, it comes with 8GB RAM, which you don't usually see at a laptop at this price.
However, look closely, and there are some big red flags. First of all, the brand is SGIN, a name most people won't have heard of. The page on Amazon is also full of contradictions and strange information – it calls the storage an SSD ROM, for a start.
It also sometimes says that the screen is in fact 14.1 inches rather than 15.6 inches, and in the 'about this item' section the SSD is referred to as being 512GB, not 256GB.
The biggest issue we have with it, though, is that the CPU is the incredibly weak Intel Celeron N4020C processor, a dual-core, two-threaded chip that just isn't up to the job for modern tasks. You'll find Windows 11 will run pretty terribly on the laptop, despite the 8GB of RAM. We have a hard job believing this laptop ever sold for £715.
So, why are we even highlighting this deal if we're telling people to avoid it (or to suggest it to any enemies you might have – yes, it really is that bad)?
We're highlighting it because people are falling for it – it's currently the number one best seller in Traditional Laptops at Amazon. In that list, there's another SGIN laptop with the same awful specs, so people are buying a lot of these.
Nestled amongst these, though, are some truly great laptops for around the same price, so instead of wasting your money, read on for a selection of the best cheap laptops that are actually worth buying…
Not in the UK? Don't worry, we have some great cheap laptop deals for you as well.
The best cheap laptop deals worth buying in the UK
The best cheap laptop deals worth buying in the US
As you can see there are quite a lot of Chromebooks we suggest to buy instead. These are great alternatives that offer low prices and very good performance for most tasks. Make sure you check out our Chromebook Black Friday deals round up for more great choices in the run up to Black Friday.
Cheap laptop deals where you are
