Black Friday has passed, but never fear. The sales are still there, but everyone (including ourselves) is now switching over to Cyber Monday, where the mega-discounts will continue. So if you missed Black Friday itself, check out our Cyber Monday page for the best deals on gaming laptops.

So it’s still a pretty great time to be thinking about buying a new gaming laptop, because all the key players have released their new mobile hardware now. That means stock of the new tech should be solid, and that healthy supply ought to mean competition for your cash. It also means there may well be some last-gen machines, that are still very much worth a considered purchase, available at a hefty discount.

But, as with everything, it’s important to make sure you are getting a good deal and that means not being blinded by just a big discount number. A rubbish gaming laptop is still rubbish however big a discount is. Likewise a great laptop can be a great deal if it’s only a little cheaper than normal.

First, figure out your budget, think about what you really want to do with your new machine, and be honest with yourself. Do you really need an RTX 4090 laptop to play the new Football Manager? The answer is no. Honestly, the answer would be no to buying an RTX 4090 laptop anyways—a good, cheaper RTX 4080 notebook will generally perform as well in gaming terms.

It’s also worth keeping an eye on the backup specs for a gaming laptop, especially if you’re looking at the more affordable end of the spectrum. Many companies look to save cash, or force you into a more expensive purchase, by limiting the amount of RAM or storage in a budget gaming laptop. But even if it only has 8GB installed, it’s worth checking around to see how easy an upgrade it is to get that up to 16GB; it might still be cheaper than buying an equivalent laptop with 16GB from the outset.

Black Friday gaming laptop deals — US quick links

Black Friday gaming laptop deals in the US

Our magic Black Friday price bots are searching the web, constantly tracking down the best gaming laptop deals.

UK quick links

Black Friday gaming laptop deals in the UK

Our magic Black Friday price bots are searching the web, constantly tracking down the best gaming laptop deals. 

When is Black Friday 2023?

Black Friday 2023 is right now, in case you hadn’t noticed, November 24. The best deals for gaming laptops are likely already on this page, so get stuck in.

Though of course today isn’t the end of the fun, we also have Cyber Monday on November 27. Once the initial panic is over, you can bet you’ll see leftover discounts spilling into Cyber Week, too.

So, buckle up for some great Black Friday gaming laptop deals, as we’re expecting a bunch of the best gaming laptops from 2023 to go on sale.

Will prices drop any lower?

There are always reasons to hold off on making a new purchase whenever you are thinking about making one. Whether it’s the potential for a new generation of techie goodness on the horizon—either cutting prices on existing models or delivering tangible higher performance—or because there might be an imminent sale like Black Friday looming.

When picking out Black Friday gaming laptop deals we take all of this into consideration, and where we think prices on something might significantly drop on the big day itself we simply won’t recommend it. But all of the products here we either believe won’t significantly drop much further in terms of their pricing, even over Cyber Monday or Cyber Week, or are just good deals that we wouldn’t hesitate recommending if you wanted to make a purchase today.

It’s worth stating, too, that many retailers have already dropped prices as low as they’re going to go in the Black Friday sales, and the likes of Newegg and Best Buy are offering their own kinds of price guarantees to give you some confidence in their current discounts.

What should I look out for in a Black Friday gaming laptop deal?

The best Black Friday gaming laptop deals will deliver high-performance hardware for a knockdown price, or at the very least not come with an overly inflated price tag. 

But it doesn’t automatically scan that just because something has a three-figure discount that it will be worth the money. You need to keep an eye on what parts are being used, what else you get for your cash, and whether it’s actually right for you.

Things are tough for PC gaming hardware, as it stands today. But companies are still aiming to shift stock so expect some discounts on current-gen kit. Don’t be fooled into parting with money for anything beyond the last generation of GPUs, however. It’s unlikely there’ll be a laptop with an Nvidia 10-series graphics card inside it that’s worth buying this Black Friday, unless you can find a wonderfully cheap deal.

Keep an eye out for storage, and memory size too. That’s most true at the low end of the market, where manufacturers may aim to keep prices low by using single sticks of memory and therefore halving the potential memory bandwidth. That might not be a problem in the very cheapest of gaming laptops, however, where the GPU will make the most difference to your experience.