I dug up the best early October Prime Day laptop deals: These 2 models are worth buying already
Black Friday is the absolute best time to buy a laptop if you want a great deal. Retailers typically reserve their year-round lows for October through December to entice holiday shoppers, and to clear their shelves ahead of next-gen hardware launches in January. It's the perfect storm for PC bargain-hunting.
For its part, Amazon unofficially kicks off its Black Friday festivities well ahead of time with a Prime Big Deal Days sale in early fall. This "October Prime Day" event is scheduled for Oct. 7 and 8 this year, so I'm expecting a bunch of deep markdowns to pop up there in the very near future.
You may have noticed that several Apple MacBooks and Microsoft Surface Copilot+ PCs are already discounted in the lead-up to Prime Big Deal Days, but I think the bulk of them are passable for now. Once the event begins, Amazon will probably put way more options on sale and lower the prices of the already-on-sale models even further. I saw this happen around the retailer's flagship Prime Day shindig in July — early birds had slim pickings compared to day-of shoppers.
My advice for most people is to keep your cart empty until Oct. 7 to make sure you lock in the best deal possible. That said, there are two early October Prime Day laptop deals that I think are worth considering because they're already at or very close to their all-time lows.
Best MacBook deal
Why we like it
Apple's M4 MacBook Air is a sleek speed demon: In our CPU benchmark, it outperformed 89% of the models in our laptop testing database. (Compared to the last-gen M3 model, it's 24% faster.) It doesn't look all that different from older MacBooks with M-something chips, but its upgraded 12MP Center Stage camera was a welcome upgrade to our reviewer. We think the 13-inch model is the best MacBook for students and other users who value portability, and right now, Amazon has an upgraded configuration with 512GB of storage on sale for $999 — its lowest price on record. (Doubling its 256GB base capacity means you'll probably never need an external hard drive.) No other MacBook was on sale for an all-time low at the time of writing.
Read Mashable's full review of the 15-inch Apple MacBook Air (M4).
More MacBook Air deals
Apple MacBook Air, 13-inch (M4, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD) — $897
$999(save $102)Apple MacBook Air, 15-inch (M4, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD) — $1,049
$1,199(save $150)
MacBook Pro deals
Apple MacBook Pro, 14-inch (M4, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) — $1,399
$1,599(save $200)Apple MacBook Pro, 16-inch (M4 Pro, 24GB RAM, 512GB SSD) — $2,249
$2,499(save $250)Apple MacBook Pro, 14-inch (M4 Max, 36GB RAM, 1TB SSD) — $2,869
$3,199(save $330)Apple MacBook Pro, 16-inch (M4 Max, 36GB RAM, 1TB SSD) — $3,099
$3,499(save $400)
Best Windows laptop deal
$1,399.99 Save $400
Why we like it
The 13.8-inch Surface Laptop 7 with a Snapdragon X Elite chip is our favorite Windows laptop for most people. It's beautiful, it's about as fast as an M4 MacBook Air, and it lasts for nearly 23 hours on a single charge — that's two longer than the M4 Pro-powered MacBook Pro, the longest-lasting MacBook we've tried. (Before you buy it, just double check that its powerful ARM-based CPU is compatible with your go-to apps.) The black variant with 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage is marked down to $999.99 ahead of Prime Big Deal Days, which is a 29% discount on its $1,399.99 MSRP. It very briefly fell to $918.47 in late September, but this current offer beats its Prime Day deal in July.
Read Mashable's full review of the 13.8-inch Microsoft Surface Laptop 7.
More Windows laptop deals
Asus Vivobook 16 (AMD Ryzen AI 5 340, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) — $679.99
$799.99(save $120)Microsoft Surface Laptop, 13-inch (Snapdragon X Plus, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD) — $729.99
$899.99(save $170)Microsoft Surface Laptop 7, 13.8-inch (Snapdragon X Plus, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) — $999
$1,199.99(save $200.99)Microsoft Surface Laptop 7, 15-inch (Snapdragon X Elite, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD) — $1,619.99
$2,099.99(save $480)
2-in-1 laptop deals
Microsoft Surface Pro 11, 13-inch (Snapdragon X Elite, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) — $1,299
$1,499.99(save $200.99)
Gaming laptop deals
Asus ROG Strix G16 (Intel Core i7-14650HX, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD) — $1,399.99
$1,499.99(save $100)
Haley Henschel is a Chicago-based Senior Shopping Reporter at Mashable who reviews and finds deals on popular tech, from laptops to gaming consoles and VPNs. She has years of experience covering shopping holidays and can tell you what’s actually worth buying on Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day. Her work has also explored the driving forces behind digital trends within the shopping sphere, from dupes to 12-foot skeletons.
