I tested over a dozen laptops in 2025, and these are my top picks for Black Friday

Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends

A reliable laptop is one of the best investments you can make. And if you’ve been searching across websites and e-commerce pages looking for the best deals on laptops, I’ve got you covered with two of my favorite picks. 

Asus ZenBook A14 (45% off)

Let’s start with the Asus ZenBook A14. Usually available at a flat $999, this sleek laptop is currently going at $550 on Best Buy, a steep 45% drop from the sticker price. At this asking price, this is one of the most irresistible Windows laptop deals out there. 

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One of the lightest Windows laptops out there, this one features a lovely metallic build with a unique surface texture and eye-catching paintjob. Yes, it’s going after the MacBook Air, but not without substance. 

$549.99 at Best Buy

The ZenBook A14 offers a much better (and diverse) port selection than its Apple rival, a lovely keyboard, and a true visual treat courtesy of a 2K OLED screen. At the top of the panel is an infrared camera sensor for Windows Hello biometric face unlock. 

It has a speedy Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus silicon at its heart, paired with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. In our tests, this combination performed well. Plus, this is a Copilot+ machine, which means it supports plenty of on-device AI features. 

Mark Coppock / Digital Trends

The ZenBook A14 also impressed with its battery life, easily lasting a full day of work. Overall, if you’re eyeing a daily driver that’s snappy and stylish at the same time, the Asus ZenBook A14 is the best pick at its discounted $550 asking price. 

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (32% off)

In case you’re looking for a machine that’s a tad more powerful, something that can handle work and play, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is one of the most highly-regarded options out there. The regular asking price is $1,799.99, but as part of the Black Friday deals, this one is currently available at $1,299.99 in the US. 

Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends

Just in case you’re wondering, that’s a few hundred dollars lower than the M5 MacBook Pro, and with plenty of meaningful advantages. It has a sleek chassis with a beautiful light strip at the back and a solid build overall with plenty of ports to go with it. 

The real attention grabber is the 3K 14-inch OLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate. Underneath the hood, you will find a fairly powerful AMD Ryzen 9 270 processor, paired with Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5060 graphics card, 16GB of RAM, and a massive 1TB SSD storage drive.

$1,299.99 at Best Buy

At its reduced asking price of $1,300, this is one of the most powerful laptops out there and a must-have deal for gaming enthusiasts who want a portable package that can handle games at a respectable graphics settings and productivity chores, as well.


Nadeem Sarwar

Contributor
Nadeem is a tech and science journalist who started reading about cool smartphone tech out of curiosity and soon started…
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