The best Cyber Monday 2014 deals on Chromebook laptops
While there were some Chromebook deals over the Black Friday weekend, they tended to get lost amid the iPad sales and HDTV specials. But as the tablet specials die down a bit for Cyber Monday, it seems like everyone has a Chromebook deal or two from just about every manufacturer who's built a laptop running Google's Chrome OS. Let's take a look at them from lowest to highest price, though when we're talking about Chromebooks, "highest price" won't exactly break the bank.
Staples tops the list with the 11.6-inch Acer CB3-111-C670, which will be available for just $149.99 on Cyber Monday -- $50 less than the usual price. B&H Photo has a similarly impressive deal on the Asus C300MA-DB01: At $179, it's more than the Staples deal, but you get a larger 13.3-inch display for the extra $30. Not quite as cheap as these others, but about $30 less than you can find it elsewhere online, is the 11.6-inch Lenovo ThinkPad N20, which Adorama is selling for $189.99.
There are a couple of Chromebooks selling for just $10 more than the ThinkPad N20. The Samsung Chromebook XE303C12-A01US -- available from Adorama, MacMall, and Staples for $50 than its original $249 price -- is similarly sized to the Acer and Lenovo, though it includes Samsung's own Exynos 5 processor instead of an Intel Celeron CPU. The $199 special from Sam's Club is for the 13.3-inch Toshiba Chromebook 2.
Usually, once you cross the $200 price threshold, Chromebooks start moving beyond the basic configurations of 2GB of RAM, 16GB of solid-state storage, and the Celeron processors of the world. That's not the case with the Dell Chromebook 11, however, which features those specs but is sold on the company's own site at a starting price of $279. You can save $10 by purchasing it through Adorama tomorrow. But it is the case with HP's Chromebook 14, which not only offers a larger 14-inch screen but also features Nvidia's Tegra K1 processor. HP's own site sells the Chromebook 14 from $299.99, but Office Depot/OfficeMax will sell it for $30 less on Cyber Monday and Sam's Club will discount it by $20.
Finally, you have a pair of options if you want a Chromebook deal costing over $300, both Acer models. If you want 4GB of RAM instead of the usual 2 gigs, along with touchscreen capabilities, Adorama has the Acer C720P-29554G01aii for $309, though its other specs (11.6-inch screen size, 16GB of storage, Celeron processor) aren't as exciting. If you don't need a touchscreen, but want to beef up the other specs, Office Depot/OfficeMax will sell the C720-3605 for $309.99. It is a rare Chromebook that includes an Intel Core i3 processor instead of a Celeron, and also comes with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. The sale price is about $20 less than the current cheapest online price.