Yes, Black Friday brings a ton of great deals on Chromebooks that we only see two other times of the year (Prime Day and Back to School), and for most folks needing a lightweight laptop, now is the time to buy. With smaller models discounted to $180 or less and new, beefy business-class Chromebooks seeing their first big discounts, you should take full advantage of the opportunity.
- Best price ever: HP Chromebook x360 14c ($379 at Best Buy)
- Lightweight and long lasting: Acer Chromebook Spin 311 (3H) ($230 at Target)
With millions working from home for the first time this year and tens of millions of kids trying to learn from home (with or without a school-issued computer) as we enter a second wave of lockdowns, Chromebooks have never been in such high demand. This high demand led to Chromebook shortages for much of the last seven months — including basically no Chromebook deals for Prime Day — but supply has recovered enough for us to finally start seeing good deals again in the lead-up to Black Friday.
There's a reason Chromebooks have been so sought after this year: if you're looking for performance on a budget, Chrome OS has a significant edge over Windows 10 when running on sub-$500 hardware. A $300 Windows laptop will be a sluggish mess in less than six months, but I spend most of my days working just fine on $300 Chromebooks like the Acer Chromebook Spin 311 and the Lenovo C340-11.
Save $30 on the 64GB model or $70 on the 32GB model!
As a budget-minded Chromebook, the newest version of the Spin 311 may be light on ports, but the MediaTek processor gives it truly all-day battery life while still having enough power for schoolwork, light work, and casual computing.
Compact, budget-minded Chromebooks have been especially hard-hit by the Chromebook shortage this year as parents and school districts have been scrambling to get laptops for all of their kids. This has led some of the best education Chromebooks to be either back-ordered clear into 2021, like the Dell 3100 2-in-1, or go on a roller coaster of price gouging like the ASUS Chromebook Flip C214.
The ASUS C214 is finally stabilized back at $400 on Amazon, and if you need a durable Chromebook that can survive a rambunctious kid, this is probably your best bet on Black Friday even if it doesn't drop back down to it's intended $350 price. $400 for the non-stylus model beats $530 for the stylus model and the $420-$440 Dell wants for the best configurations of the Dell 3100 2-in-1.
Not on sale yet, but here's hoping
$400 is the regular price for the ASUS C214, but after eight months of it being out of stock and price gouged up to over $600 at times, it's still the best price its seen since the pandemic started. It's durable and built for classroom abuse, so hopefully, your kid won't break this one in a month (again).
Chrome OS is a lightweight operating system that's designed to run well on mediocre software and to be blazing fast on premium machines. They run Android applications and Linux applications on top of just being lightweight laptops that get you to the Chrome Browser and online as fast as possible. They're even available in desktop form as Chromeboxes, but this is the one area where I recommend skipping Black Friday and waiting for December or January.
See, Acer, ASUS, and HP all announced new Chromeboxes that are releasing over the next two months. This means that if you're buying a Chromebox deal on Black Friday, it's a two-year-old model that retailers are trying to get rid of before new models show up, but the new models have better port configurations and will get Chrome OS updates until 2028-2029 depending on the model. This is one instance where waiting and buying the model is the better long-term value.
Why you should buy a Chromebook with 8GB of RAM on Black Friday
Most Chromebooks today come with 4GB of RAM, which is okay for the average user, but if you see a deal on a Chromebook with 8GB of RAM, it's absolutely worth the upgrade, especially if you're working/learning from home and tend to have a bunch of video calls. RAM (Random Access Memory) is the temporary storage that your Chromebook uses to accomplish whatever you're doing on the screen: it holds the tabs you've most recently used and the apps that you're currently using. Video calls are more intensive tabs that tend to use more RAM than your normal webpage, and when you run out of RAM, the system automatically starts dropping the last used tabs and apps from it.
So if you've ever been in a video call, tapped a previously-opened tab, only to see a blank window before it reloaded, that's what happened: your Chromebook ran out of ram and dropped that tab in order to do something else. Most of the time, you're not going to run into problems with this, but now that more of us are on Zoom or Google Meet calls multiple times a day, 8GB of RAM has never been more important
As far as 8GB Chromebook deals go, the recently-released HP Chromebook x360 14c is already $250 off, which gets it under $400. We also saw some deals on the Acer Chromebook Spin 713 and Samsung Galaxy Chromebook that we're hoping will return again on Black Friday or Cyber Monday.
Save $250 on this work-from-home powerhouse.
HP knocked it out of the park with the Chromebook x360 c14. From the premium finishes to the hardware and software focus on privacy, to the performance and specs, this thing was made to work.
We have a full roundup of Black Friday Chromebook deals, but these are my favorites so far:
Black Friday Chromebook Deals
At 11.6-inches, this is small Chromebook is great for younger users, and while it's light on ports, that's what they make USB-C hubs for! At this low price, it's worth picking up just as a "backup computer" for someone in the family to use if they drop theirs or spill coffee on it.
Want a big-screen Chromebook without breaking the bank? Best Buy's deal on the HP Chromebook 14 gives you a large screen and an ample selection of ports for less than a decent tablet. The 14-inch 1080p screen will be great for watching YouTube— I mean reading digital textbooks, and the front-facing speakers are nice, too.
If you don't need a touchscreen, this 14-inch Chromebook is durable, long-lasting, and 33% off now. This model's technically a year old, but it'll be enough for distance learning and the average remote work workload.
Despite coming out less than two months ago, the latest Acer 11-inch Chromebook is already discounted at Target. This is the Chromebook I've been working on full-time for the last month, but be sure you're OK with 32GB of storage since there's no microSD slot.
This super-sized laptop is currently #10 in our Best Chromebooks because it's bulky but powerful. you get a 15.6-inch touchscreen and a full keyboard with a number pad.
This is a very powerful and well-reviewed Chromebook. The specifications include an Intel Core i3 processor, 8GB RAM, and 64GB flash storage that can be expanded using the microSD reader or by just taking advantage of the Google Drive integrations in Chrome OS's file manager.
This deal is actually a bundle that saves you almost $300 when you purchase an HP Chromebook, JLAB Audio headphones, and Lenovo Smart Clock. These items would normally cost you about $700 if you were to purchase them individually, but since they all work so nicely together, you might as well grab them all at once.
