Amazon Prime Day is one of the best times of the year for those wanting to buy new technology for their lives. This year, Prime Day ran from July 11-12, but if you recall, in 2022, the company had the Prime Early Access Sale in October, and it's doing it again this year.

These kinds of sales events are always exciting and have us rushing to try and find the products we've wanted to buy all year at a nice discount. One of the most popular categories is laptops, because the best laptops are usually very expensive, and this is the best time to get them at a reasonable price. Plus, with the holiday season coming up, it's a good time to get some early shopping done without waiting for Black Friday.

Will there be a second Prime Day in 2023?

Yes. Amazon has already announced round two of its Prime Day deals, and it's being called Prime Big Deal Days. We don't have a specific date for the event yet, but you can probably expect it to happen in the first half of October.

Of course, that's not even including Black Friday in November, when Amazon usually has a lot of sales, too. These are both great opportunities to save on holiday shopping. Of course, if you can't wait that long, we do have a list of cheap laptops you can buy if you want something affordable.

Prime Day vs Prime Big Deals Day: What's the difference?

Much like the Prime Early Access Sale from 2022, Prime Big Deals Day is essentially a repeat of Prime Day. There aren't any notable differences aside from the date. Prime Day usually takes place in July, while this second sales event takes place in October.

Otherwise, you can expect the same kind of big discounts on laptops during both events. The deals themselves may not be exactly the same, but they'll be just as worth your time. Some deals may even be better, since products that came out earlier in the year are likely cheaper now.

Do you need to be a Prime member to save on Prime Big Deal Days?

As the name suggests, Prime Day and Prime Big Deal Days are primarily focused on Amazon Prime members, meaning you have to be subscribed to Amazon's premium service. Most of the deals on these days will only be valid if you're a member, but you could also see some deals that are available to everyone.

However, this kind of sales event usually pushes other retailers to have sales of their own, so if you want to shop at places like Best Buy, you'll probably see a lot of sales there that don't require a Prime subscription. Even some PC manufacturers host sales on their own websites, so it's worth looking around. Still it's worth being an Amazon prime subscriber if you want to save some money on a laptop.

FAQ

Q: How much should I spend?

How much money you should spend on a laptop always depends on your own needs and budget, and lesson number one is to avoid spending money you don't have. There are options here for all kinds of budgets, so you can surely find something that's a good deal.

Of course, if what you're looking for is an Apple laptop, you're always going to be at the very least close to $1,000, so it's not exactly the best route to go if you want something cheap. Still, if your budget allows for it, there are great deals there.

For gaming laptops, you can also expect to spend up to $1,000 to have a solid experience, though there are some great deals to be had that bring prices significantly lower. You can grab laptops with last-gen processors and GPUs that still handle gaming just fine for well under $1,000 a lot of the time. Of course, there are more premium options, too.

However, you can usually find perfectly serviceable laptops for under $700, especially once Prime Day is in full effect. Chromebooks are a great choice if you want something affordable that still delivers a solid experience, and you can often find many of them around or under $500. They won't be the fastest, but if you just want something to browse the web or stay in touch with family, you don't need to spend a lot more.

Q: What's the best laptop?

The best laptop is going to vary greatly depending on what you need and your budget. If you're a content creator, something with powerful specs and great battery life like the MacBook Pro is probably for you, and options like the Acer Swift X are also great, but these are expensive.

For gaming, it's generally better to have the highest specs, but that can get pretty expensive. The Asus ROG Strix G16 is probably the best gaming laptop on this list right now, but there are a lot of gaming laptops for different price ranges that will still do the job very well running most modern games. You'll generally want something with at least an 12th-generation Intel Core processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 series graphics.

If you want a great laptop to watch movies, something worth looking for is an OLED display like the one on the Acer Swift 3 OLED. Of course, there are great screens that aren't OLED, like the MacBook Air, but OLED is almost always better.

For browsing the web and general use, almost any laptop will suffice, but it's always worth looking for a nice screen and the latest specs. Everything we recommend here is at the very least good enough. There are also Chromebooks, which tend to be much weaker in terms of specs, but they make up for it because ChromeOS is such a lightweight operating system. These are machines designed almost exclusively for browsing the web, and they don't need a lot of expensive hardware.

Q: What makes a good deal?

There are two main factors to take into account when deciding what is a good deal and what isn't. First, it's how big the discount is. Naturally, the more money is being slashed off the price tag, the better the deal is.

However, it's also important to remember how good and new the products are. A laptop like the 15-inch MacBook Air probably won't get a huge discount, but it's one of the best laptops money can buy, and it just came out recently, so any discount on it is a great deal.

On the other hand, just because you find an $800 discount on a laptop with 10th-generation Intel processors, that may not be a great deal. It's being heavily discounted because it has very old hardware, and you might be better off spending a little extra for more modern hardware. Our picks here take all this into consideration so you know you're getting a good deal with these options.