Image: Asus
Despite the deals available as Black Friday approaches, I haven’t seen many laptops that I’d say fall into the budget range — at least, not ones I’d actually recommend to my friends. But thanks to a Ryzen CPU and generous RAM, this $400 Asus laptop from Best Buy is perfect if you want tons of capability for just $399.99. Hurry, the price is only good today.
The Asus Vivobook 16 has been a popular “sweet spot” laptop this year thanks to that 16GB of speedy DDR5 memory (the least I’d put in a Windows 11 laptop for good performance), a quad-core AMD Ryzen 330 AI processor with the latest Zen 5 architecture, and 512GB of storage. This is technically a “Copilot+ PC” thanks to its NPU, so it gets access to all the new goodies in Windows 11 if you’re interested.
This is a 15.6-inch model, so it’s on the bigger side, and at 4.14 pounds (1.87 kilograms), it isn’t the lightest around either. But that extra space gets you a good mix of ports, with double USB-C and double USB-A, plus a headphone jack and a full-sized HDMI. There’s also room for a full-sized keyboard with a number pad. The screen isn’t touch-enabled, which might be a deal breaker for some, though I’m glad that even at the budget price it has an infrared camera with Windows Hello face login.
With a 1200p screen that’s just 60Hz, this laptop won’t be a gaming monster on its integrated graphics, though it’ll handle games like Minecraft and Roblox just fine. 42 watt-hours of battery life isn’t amazing, especially at this size — if you want something more portable that’s a battery champion, check out the Zenbook 14A from yesterday. And for other deals, be sure to hop over to PCWorld’s Black Friday laptop roundup.
$350 off a budget laptop with an original retail price of $750 is an amazing deal, which is probably why it won’t be around for long. According to the Best Buy site, this deal will vanish like a sweet potato casserole on a Thanksgiving table at 1 AM US Eastern time on November 26th.
Get an Asus Ryzen laptop with 16GB of RAM for $400
Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld
Michael is a 10-year veteran of technology journalism, covering everything from Apple to ZTE. On PCWorld he’s the resident keyboard nut, always using a new one for a review and building a new mechanical board or expanding his desktop “battlestation” in his off hours. Michael’s previous bylines include Android Police, Digital Trends, Wired, Lifehacker, and How-To Geek, and he’s covered events like CES and Mobile World Congress live. Michael lives in Pennsylvania where he’s always looking forward to his next kayaking trip.
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