Black Friday Chromebook deals: What to expect and early sales

Chromebook deals haven’t been as great as we’d like, but the early Black Friday sales aren’t bad.

We’re expecting the type of Chromebooks we recommend (see below for more detail on that) to be priced at about $250 to $350 in the weeks leading up to Black Friday. Prices should drop a bit more as Black Friday approaches. Budget Chromebooks could be about $150 or so, perhaps less — but that can mean compromising on some of the features we think you’ll like. We try to include some of these models, though, because people still look for the lowest prices. (Refurbished models can cost even less, but we usually avoid those.)

Good mainstream Chromebooks now cost about $250 to $350, as noted above — that’s the floor for a Chromebook we’d recommend. A Black Friday steal could push prices down even further.

In general, we put our top picks at the top of our lists.

We still prioritize three things when looking for a Chromebook deal: memory, the size and resolution of the screen, and the CPU. There’s also one big wrinkle for this Black Friday: the Chromebook support window.

You will still find retailers trying to unload Chromebooks with 4GB of RAM, a 768p screen, and an ancient processor. We will still list products with those specs, if justified, as budget Chromebooks. But we really feel that you deserve a Chromebook with 8GB of RAM, a 1080p screen or better (with screen sizes above 13 inches, if possible), and a relatively modern CPU. (These are usually out mainstream picks.) We don’t put a lot of weight on the CPU, if only because a Chromebook doesn’t need a lot of horsepower behind it.

Our recommended CPUs include Intel Celerons, Intel Pentiums, Intel’s Core chips, AMD’s Ryzen processors, and Arm chips from Mediatek or Qualcomm. All of those have their pros and cons, though the performance differences probably won’t matter as much as additional memory.

More memory (that is, 8GB rather 4GB of RAM) will allow for more browser tabs and a smoother browser experience. A 1080p screen will offer a comfortable laptop-like viewing experience. Onboard storage really doesn’t matter all that much, though an SSD of at least 32GB is preferable for storing apps, screenshots, and the like.

If you’re familiar with our lengthy laptops versus Chromebooks explainer, you know that one of the potential gotchas is buying a Chromebook whose support window expires soon. Google now supports new Chromebooks for up to 10 years, so this is less of a concern. We think this might push prices down, but for very old hardware. We’re trying to watch this.

Beware of deals like this: a $41 Lenovo Chromebook on Walmart. Support for this Chromebook ended in 2021, which means that it’s not protected while surfing the web. Too good to be true, indeed.