While there are a lot of grea earlyt Black Friday gaming laptop deals you can pick up, there are certainly some laptops you want to avoid, not because they’re terrible, but rather because you can get a much better deal for less money. So, for example, take the Gateway Creator Notebook; while it’s excellent at the price it’s on sale for, the Dell G16 is $50 cheaper and has a much better screen, with basically the same specs.
Avoid the Gateway 17.3-inch Creator Notebook
While the 17.3-inch size at a below $1,000 price point may seem like a good deal in a vacuum, the Gateway 17.3-inch Creator Notebook is not that great of a Walmart Black Friday sale if you’re looking for an entry-level gaming laptop. It comes with an 11th-gen Intel i7-11800H, 16GB of RAM, and an RTX 3050 Ti, all of which are reasonably good on their own, providing a pleasant experience for gaming and casual use. Of course, the screen is sadly FHD and only goes up to 120Hz, which, on the one hand, doesn’t tax the RTX 3050 Ti too much when gaming but also doesn’t give you much room to adjust for what works best for you. It also comes with a 1TB SSD, which is impressive, but is it worth the $949 it’s going for at Walmart??
Buy the Dell G16 gaming laptop
Comparatively, the Dell G16 has roughly the same components, with an RTX 3050 Ti, 16GB of RAM, and an upgraded 12th-gen Intel i7-12700H, the latter of which will allow you to squeeze out a little bit more productivity and editing work. Where they differ significantly is the screen, with the G16 having a 2k resolution, a 16-inch screen that can hit an impressive 165 Hz, and even better, it has a much better aspect ratio of 16:10. If you aren’t a gaming laptop aficionado, that means the screen is essentially in the sweet spot for resolution, size, refresh rate, and aspect ratio. So while it’s true the higher resolution and refresh rate will tax the RTX 3050Ti more, you also get more flexibility since you can watch movies at 2k resolution or lower graphics resolution to get higher framerates.
Put that all together, and you get an excellent Dell Black Friday sale for just $900. You do give up an extra 512GB of RAM for the $50, but you get so much more in return; plus, you can always grab one of these external hard drive deals to help supplement the G16’s storage.
Editors’ Recommendations
