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Get a refurbished Acer Cloudbook 11 for $99.99 (or less)

From the Cheapskate: This Windows 10 laptop is no powerhouse, but come on! It's a full-blown Windows 10 laptop for under $100. Plus an awesome Mac software bundle.

Rick Broida Senior Editor
Rick Broida is the author of numerous books and thousands of reviews, features and blog posts. He writes CNET's popular Cheapskate blog and co-hosts Protocol 1: A Travelers Podcast (about the TV show Travelers). He lives in Michigan, where he previously owned two escape rooms (chronicled in the ebook "I Was a Middle-Aged Zombie").
Rick Broida
2 min read

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That's a pretty handsome laptop, especially for the price.

Acer

Thanks to reader Mark for steering this my way...

A laptop for under $100? Not a Chromebook, mind you, but an actual Windows laptop? And Windows 10, for that matter? Get out!

No, get in -- on the deal. Ending today, or when supplies run out, Groupon has the refurbished Acer Aspire One Cloudbook 11.6-inch laptop for $99.99 shipped. If this happens to be your first Groupon purchase, you can apply coupon code WELCOME for an additional $10 off.

But, wait, there's more! Cashback service Ebates is currently offering a 9 percent rebate on all Groupon purchases. That would bring your total down to $81.89! Even if you're not a new customer and can't use the coupon code, the Ebates rebate will net you a final price of $90.99.

(Huh? Ebates? Cashback? Here's an overview for the uninitiated.)

Make no mistake, the Aspire One is something of a slowpoke. It runs a Celeron processor with 2GB of RAM, which is pretty much the bare minimum for Windows 10. So don't expect to keep 20 tabs open in your browser or run any games more demanding than Bejeweled.

On the other hand, it includes a 32GB SSD, and, as you learned yesterday, it's you can add considerably more storage at a low price. It also includes two USB ports (though only one of them is USB 3.0), an SD slot, Bluetooth 4.0 and even an HDMI output.

So, yeah, as budget laptops go, this one doesn't pull any essentials. It's also admirably thin and light (2.5 pounds). It could be a great solution for, say, a student heading into middle school. Or it could be good for someone who just does the occasional email-and-Facebook check and wants a keyboard with a decent-size screen.

Keep that in mind as you peruse reviews from the likes of Laptop Magazine and TechRadar. They tend to cover laptops with an eye toward business use, or at least daily use. The Aspire One doesn't fare favorably under those conditions.

Because it's refurbished, the warranty will expire after 90 days. But at least it's a manufacturer's warranty.

Thoughts?

Bonus deal: Calling all Mac users! StackSocial is running an insanely good software bundle, one valued at $946(!) but priced considerably lower. You can name your price for three of the items in the bundle, or beat the average (currently $13.96) for all 13 items. The flagship program is Owlet, a 3D-rendering utility that would normally run you $499. But there's a ton of other good stuff as well. Even if you only need half the apps in the bundle, it's a killer deal.