Black Friday is coming in hot, with plenty of excellent gaming laptop deals already live as retailers such as Amazon and Best Buy have kicked off their official sales.
Falling on November 29 this year, Black Friday is almost always the ideal time of year to snag a great discount on one of the best gaming laptops - like the MSI Thin 15, which is now just $599.99 (a 33% savings) in the Best Buy Black Friday sale event, or this 14-inch Lenovo Legion Slim 5 for $1,099.99 at Lenovo.com, a 24% discount. UK retailers are also putting out some real bangers for Black Friday, like this Gigabyte Auros 16X for £1,249 at Currys, a massive £650 price cut on one of the best-performing gaming laptops we've tested here at TechRadar in years.
Whatever your budget and whatever your PC gaming needs, I've compiled the very best deals right here for your perusal; I've even included some great discounts on the best handheld gaming PCs, like the Asus ROG Ally and the Lenovo Legion Go - you'll find these at the bottom of each section, in case you feel that a handheld might suit you better than a bulky laptop. Whichever gaming device you choose, buy in confidence knowing that I've personally curated these deals to help you get the absolute best bang for your buck.
As Computing Editor at TechRadar, you'd better believe that I've seen a laptop or two in my day. I've personally tested enough gaming laptops to outfit a small army, and while I do most of my gaming on my chunky custom desktop PC these days, I still love a well-designed portable gaming system - especially if it's currently enjoying a cut-price deal.
Today's best gaming laptop deals in the US
- Amazon: the biggest inventory, but also flooded with third-party sellers
- Best Buy: huge selection, official Black Friday sale starting on November 8
- Walmart: super-cheap options, watch out for third-party sellers
- Dell: good if you're on a budget, plus powerful Alienware laptops
- HP: great budget Victus laptops, plus high-end Omen models
- Lenovo: great deals on Legion and IdeaPad Gaming laptops
- Razer: big savings on last-gen Razer Blade laptops
Today's best gaming laptop deals in the UK
- Amazon: large inventory, but beware of upmarked third-party sellers
- Currys: exceptionally competitive choices for all price ranges
- Dell: excellent budget options, as well as hefty sales on Alienware laptops
- Laptops Direct: often has great clearance sales, but watch out for old stock
- HP: get great HP gaming laptops for up to £400 off
- Lenovo: save hundreds on Legion and IdeaPad Gaming laptops
Black Friday gaming laptop deals: FAQs
When will the best Black Friday gaming laptop deals start?
Black Friday starts on November 29 this year, but early Black Friday gaming laptop deals are already rolling out across major retailers. Although the Friday-Monday period after Thanksgiving in the US is generally where the biggest price discounts land, there's been a visible trend in recent years where retailers price their products at roughly the lowest prices you're going to get starting in early November.
Is Black Friday the best time to buy a gaming laptop?
Generally, I'm going to say yes, though the weeks leading up to Black Friday are also chock full of savings on gaming laptops from major brands like Razer, Alienware, Lenovo, HP, MSI, and more.
A recent report from Adobe Analytics shows that computer prices generally fall about 24% on Black Friday from their pre-holiday price, but the prices are going to start trending down pretty quickly starting in the last week of October.
What specs should I look for when buying a gaming laptop on Black Friday?
As a general rule of thumb for any modern gaming laptop running Windows 10 or 11, you'll want a discrete GPU (also called a graphics card). This could be from Nvidia's GeForce line or AMD's Radeon series - both are good and broadly speaking, larger numbers in the name of the GPU mean better performance.
The Nvidia RTX 3050 is what we would currently consider the minimum for a good gaming experience at 1080p resolution, but more powerful GPUs like the higher RTX 3000-series and 4000-series will net you better performance.
You're also going to want at least 8GB of RAM, ideally 16GB, for playing the latest games, as well as an Intel Core i5/AMD Ryzen 5 processor. i7/Ryzen 7 is also good, but anything more powerful than that is likely to be overkill.
The only reason you might want to splurge on a super-powered system with tons of RAM, a high-end GPU, or an Intel Core i9/Ryzen 9 CPU is if you need your gaming laptop to be able to carry out demanding, resource-intensive tasks.
This could be editing 4K videos, or running 3D animation rendering software. In this situation, be sure to do your research in advance regarding what programs you'll be running and the recommended system requirements for those.
Regarding how old the components are, you may want to tread carefully. We'd recommend against choosing anything more than two generations old; that means you can go back as far as an 11th-generation Intel or a 5th-generation AMD CPU. Some of the deals that crop up on Black Friday might seem great, but upon closer inspection have some seriously outdated components that won't stand up in the long run.
Lastly, if you're considering something like a MacBook, you'll have a much easier time. The variation of components here is far smaller than that found in Windows-powered gaming laptops; broadly speaking, we'd recommend opting for one with Apple's excellent M2 or M3 chips, rather than the older Intel-powered models. Just keep in mind that a lot of the best PC games simply won't run on a MacBook, so a Windows PC is highly recommended.
What Black Friday gaming laptop deals should I expect?
Black Friday gaming laptop deals are generally fantastic pretty much across the board at major retailers in the US and UK, with nearly all models having some configuration on sale at places like Amazon, Best Buy in the US, Curry's in the UK, and others.
Unlike manufacturers like Apple (which almost never has sales pricing on their website), you can also find great deals directly from HP, Dell, Lenovo, and others through their webstores.
Why you can trust TechRadar this Black Friday
For more than a decade, we've been covering Black Friday here at TechRadar, and our dedicated team has scoured the internet year after year to find the best gaming laptop deals across every major and not-so-major retailer.
TechRadar's computing team is especially knowledgable thanks to their decades of shared experience that we leverage to help you find the right deals for the gaming laptops you want, but also to help you find which gaming laptop is actually right for your needs, backed up by our rigorous testing and review process.
