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Amazon is readying its second Prime Day sale for Oct. 11 and Oct 12, known as Prime Early Access Sale, aka Prime Day 2. We’ve begun curating the best Chromebook deals leading up to Prime Day 2, both from Amazon and other online retailers.
You’ll need to sign up for Amazon Prime (for free) to take advantage of Amazon’s best Prime Day/Early Access Sale discounts. Other retailers have announced similar sales: Target will hold its Deal Days on Oct. 6-8, and Newegg plans its FantasTech Sale II between Oct. 10 to 13. We’d expect discounts throughout this entire period.
Best Prime Early Access Sale Chromebook deals
You’ll probably find a good Chromebook deal somewhere, though it’s often difficult to tell which Chromebook is a good value. Manufacturers seem to be unloading older Chromebooks at steep discounts, taking advantage of consumer ignorance about processor generations and support lifecycles. We’ve factored in the Chromebook support window to our recommendations below, which tends to extend for between two to five years on discounted Chromebooks.
- Acer Chromebook 512, Celeron N4020/4GB RAM/32GB SSD, 12-inch 912p display, $129.99 (35% off)
- Lenovo 14e Chromebook, AMD A-Series/4GB RAM/32GB SSD, 1080p display, $177.98 (41% off)
- Asus Chromebook Flip C433, Intel Core m/8GB RAM/64GB eMMC SSD, 1080p display, $349.00 (13% off)
- Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 5, Snapdragon SC7180/4GB RAM/64GB SSD, 1080p display, $349.99 (19% off)
- Samsung Galaxy Chromebook, Intel Core i5-10210U/8GB RAM/256GB SSD, 4K display, $829.00 (17% off)
What to think about when buying a Chromebook
Generally, Chromebooks tend to fall into three categories: ultracheap models at about $100, which can offer solid discounts but can hide gotchas like a subpar screen; midrange $200-$350 Chromebooks, the typical price point; and premium Chromebooks at $500 and above. These expensive ones are essentially PC laptops with Google’s Chrome OS on top, and may be too expensive. Our story on laptops versus Chromebooks may help you decide, as might our 2022 recommendations for the best Chromebook.
Normally, we’d suggest you buy a Chromebook with 1080p resolution or above, but 768p displays can work fine, especially on smaller screens. Consider a USB-C dongle to connect to an external display. An Intel Core chip is pretty much a guarantee of solid performance, but can be more expensive, too. Celerons are much more common, and Snapdragon or Arm chips are too.
Author: Mark Hachman, Senior Editor
As PCWorld’s senior editor, Mark focuses on Microsoft news and chip technology, among other beats. He has formerly written for PCMag, BYTE, Slashdot, eWEEK, and ReadWrite.