This Black Friday laptop deal is one of the best yet

Black Friday isn't historically the best time to buy a laptop (that tends to be July-August), but that doesn't mean a few good deals don't sneak in. Case in point: Today only, and while supplies last, Amazon has the Acer Aspire 5 15.6-inch laptop for $399.99, by far the lowest price to date.

This is the top-tier configuration, the one that normally sells for $530. It includes an 8th-gen Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB solid-state drive and a 15.6-inch full-HD display. It's not a touchscreen, which I understand will be a dealbreaker for some users, but at least you can touch the embedded fingerprint reader to unlock the laptop.

It also has a full-size HDMI port and four USB ports: one USB 2.0, two USB 3.1 and one USB-C. The keyboard is backlit and the battery is good for up to nine hours, according to Acer.

Read more: Best gaming PCs for 2019 

I haven't tried this model myself, so I'll turn you over to Josh Goldman's Acer Aspire 5 review. Verdict: "The Aspire 5 is an excellent alternative [to the Aspire E 15] that's thinner, lighter and still an impossibly good deal."

Meanwhile, well over 300 Amazon buyers collectively rated this 4.3 stars out of 5. Fakespot and ReviewMeta are totally at odds over the legitimacy of those reviews, so I recommend reading the most recent 20 or so and deciding for yourself. 

Based on the specs alone, this is a great buy at this price. In an ideal world, I'd like to see 16GB of RAM, but everything else is solid.

Your thoughts?

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