Why You Can Trust CNET Best Buy Thursday flash sale laptop deals: Save $120 on Acer Nitro gaming laptop, $300 on Dell Inspiron, $350 on HP Spectre and more
Hurry, the sale lasts only 12 hours.
Flubbed Black Friday? Missed Cyber Monday? No worry, Best Buy is running a flash sale today that will let you cash in on some savings. The 12-hour sale runs from 1 p.m. ET Thursday to 1 a.m ET Friday (10 a.m. to 10 p.m. PT Thursday).
Read more: Best laptops of 2020
I've rounded up the best laptop deals of the flash sale here, from a well-equipped HP Chromebook to a powerful MSI gaming laptop. In between, there's a budget gaming laptop from Acer, an all-metal Dell Inspiron, a high-end HP two-in-one convertible with the latest Intel tech, and a huge 17.3-inch laptop from Asus that could make working from home more comfortable and productive.
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This is a high-powered configuration by Chromebook standards. You'll find neither a budget CPU nor a meager allotment of RAM here. This HP Chromebook features a Core i3 processor and 8GB of memory along with 64GB of flash storage. And the 14-inch display can rotate all the way around into tablet mode and features a full HD (1,920x1,080-pixel) resolution where most Chromebooks supply only a 768p panel.
If you're no longer commuting and now work from home, why not get the biggest laptop you can find? With an AMD Ryzen 7 CPU, 12GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, this 17.3-inch model from Asus offers a midrange component lineup at a budget price.
This budget gaming laptop features a 15.6-inch, full HD display powered by a 10th-gen Intel Core i5 CPU, 8GB of memory and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 graphics. The GTX GPU lacks the ray tracing of Nvidia's current RTX lineup but should let you play most games at medium settings at 1080p.
Dell's top-end Inspiron 7000 line boasts an all-aluminum chassis that's thinner, lighter and sturdier than the midrange Inspiron 5000 series that feature metal lids and keyboard decks but flimsy plastic bottom panels. This 14-inch model supplies a 10th-gen Core i7 CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.
The Spectre x360 is one of CNET's favorite two-in-one convertibles for its premium styling, trim weight and long battery life. This model features an 11th-gen Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM and a huge 1TB SSD with 32GB of fast Optane memory. The 13.5-inch touchscreen boasts a crisp 3,000x2,000-pixel resolution and can rotate 360 degrees into tablet mode. With its 11th-gen Core chip, the Spectre x360 gets Intel's Evo label, which means among other things the laptop provides oodles of battery life, fast charging and the ability to wake from sleep instantly.
However, for just a bit less than the HP you can get a more capable gaming laptop with RTX graphics and a fast display. This 15-inch laptop features a 10th-gen Intel Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD and Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 graphics. The RTX 2060 is the budget card in Nvidia's RTX lineup and offers excellent bang for the buck along with ray tracing, which reproduces how light behaves in the real world to give games a more photorealistic look. The 15.6-inch display features a 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution and a speedy 144Hz refresh rate