No need to wait for Black Friday with these impressive Chromebook deals

Black Friday isn’t too far off, and anyone in the market for a Chromebook should pay close attention. Last year, we saw major price drops on several of the best Chromebooks, including $100 off the Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5 2-in-1 Laptop and $200 off the Dell Chromebook 3100 2-in-1, which is a great device for students.

This year, some impressive Black Friday deals have already begun, mostly at Best Buy — where the retailer is promising to refund you the difference if the price drops lower after you buy it between now and Black Friday. So if you want to relax and eat leftover turkey over Thanksgiving weekend instead of hunched over a keyboard, now seems like a great time to snag a deal.

We are rounding up all of the best Chromebook Black Friday deals that we can find from around the web, and we will update this page as more deals come in over the next month. We expect some amazing deals on the actual holiday, but for now, here are the best deals we’ve found.

What you need to look for when buying a Chromebook

There’s always a ton of specs and features you typically need to juggle when shopping for a laptop, but for Chromebooks, the buyer’s guide can be summed up pretty well into four points:

1. Get a touchscreen. — Unless you’re anti-fun, there’s no reason not to get a touchscreen model; they do not cost that much more, and it’s always worth it. Touchscreens make it easier to interact with Android apps and make it easier to do things like sign documents or zoom in precisely.
2. Pick your screen size first. Decide right now if you want something compact (11.6 inches), mid-size (12.5-13.5 inches), or large (14-15.6 inches). Processors and storage are pretty standard across each size category, so size is one of the defining features you’ll want to sort out early.
3. 4GB of RAM is good, 8GB is better. — Most Chromebooks sold today come with 4GB of RAM, and 4GB is perfectly fine for running a video call plus a dozen or so tabs in Chrome. More RAM is always better, but 4GB is still okay. If it says it has 2GB of RAM — or 16GB of internal storage — close the tab and walk away.
4. Check the expiration date!!! — Yes, Chromebooks come with expiration dates, after which they are no longer guaranteed to receive Chrome OS updates. It’s called the AUE date, and they’re listed for every single Chromebook model on Google’s support page, so take 10 seconds and look the Chromebook in your cart up on this page. The shorter the time before a Chromebook’s AUE date, the less time you have to enjoy the full benefits of your Chromebook. Most Chromebooks that launched last year have six years of support, and most models launched in 2020 have eight years of support ahead of them.