Snag Early Presidents’ Day Desktop and Laptop Deals While You Can

This Presidents’ Day weekend is a great time to take advantage of sales, but if you really want to chop hundreds or even thousands of dollars off retail, the biggest discounts will come from a new laptop or desktop. With component prices skyrocketing, smart shoppers are getting orders in early, and we’ve found solid deals on top-reviewed machines from Apple, HP, Dell, and other leading brands.

Laptop Deals

There’s a reason that Apple has been the platform of choice for creatives for generations. Its hardware is tuned around excellent displays, friction-free performance, and gorgeous build quality. The latest MacBook Pro is a spectacular content-creation laptop, with the M4 processor delivering some of the best benchmarking results we’ve seen. In our review, we gave it an “Excellent” rating for its exceptionally long battery life, fast performance, and robust port selection. A new M5 MacBook Pro just dropped, so this model is seeing a $200 discount.

If money’s tight this year, the best budget option is the Acer Aspire 14 AI, which delivers reliable performance and useful added features in a lightweight, well-designed chassis. In our review, writer Brian Westover said this portable “delivers Copilot+ smarts and surprising stamina,” noting that most of the AI-optimized Windows 11 laptops we’ve seen to date cost more than $1,000. You do make a few compromises at this price, including an underwhelming display and a keyboard that, while backlit, is somewhat difficult to read. However, the partially metal build, good connectivity, and solid benchmarking results more than make up for it. A 45% discount on the already low retail price is pretty sweet, too.

Desktop Deals

HP’s desktops are reliable performers that prioritize security. This significant price cut delivers a workstation that’ll produce solid results for years, backed by a three-year manufacturer’s warranty and Wolf Pro to keep your files safe. We reviewed a previous generation of the Z2 desktop, and were impressed enough by its versatility, quiet operation, and ease of expansion and repair that we gave it an Editors’ Choice award. This configuration is designed for basic productivity and entertainment, with a decent Intel i5 processor. With the money you save, you can easily boost its storage and RAM.

Alienware desktops are designed for gamers who want to push the envelope on a decent budget, and for a top-of-the-line battlestation with the latest silicon, this is a really solid deal. In our review of the latest Aurora, evaluator Charles Jefferies said the machine’s “strong gaming performance, flexible configurations, and distinctive design make it a worthy midrange gaming desktop.”

There are many configurations available, but our focus is on the one with the RTX 5080 GPU, which delivers significant power for demanding 4K at high frame rates, along with ample RAM and storage. You also get a free download code for Resident Evil: Requiem with purchase.

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About Our Expert

K. Thor Jensen

Contributing Writer

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Experience

K. Thor Jensen is a writer and cartoonist living in the Pacific Northwest. He has contributed to dozens of prestigious outlets, including PCMag, Tested, Clickhole, and Newsweek. His second graphic novel, Cloud Stories, was released in 2017.

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