This deal is weird. It’s a $500 Lenovo laptop at Best Buy with 16GB of RAM, plus a year of Microsoft (Office) 365, a year of Game Pass Ultimate, and a free Xbox controller. It feels like something laser-targeted towards incoming college students, yet it’s happening at the end of the school year—and only for one day. It’s today’s Best Buy deal of the day. Weird. But beggars can’t be choosers.
The laptop in question is a Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3. It’s definitely on the budget side of things, but a 15-incher with 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and a recent processor isn’t to be sneezed at right now. The Ryzen 7 170 is an 8-core Zen 3+ design with integrated Radeon 680M graphics, a very good fit if you’re looking for an all-round machine that can do a bit of gaming on the side. Ports include USB-C, double USB-A, full-sized HDMI, and a full-sized SD card reader.
At 3.52 pounds, this isn’t a small or thin laptop, but you do get a few extras thrown in like a touchscreen and a physical privacy shutter on the webcam. But it’s the trimmings that draw the eye on this particular turkey. It’s part of a promotional deal from Microsoft where you get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium, a year of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and a free redemption code for an Xbox controller on the Xbox Design Lab. You’re still limited to the standard design (not the Elite, and no Fallout or Spongebob freebies), but that’s still an impressive offer. Between those three extras, you’re getting over $450 in goodies with the laptop.
Again, this price is good for today only at Best Buy, ending at 1 AM Eastern. If this isn’t quite what you’re looking for, check out PCWorld’s roundup of the best laptops on the market.
