Best Prime Day laptop deals: $849 MacBook Air, $790 Surface Laptop 7

The battle of the best Prime Day laptop deals seemed like M4 MacBook Air’s game to lose. In the lead-up to its annual members-only sale this week, Amazon had Apple’s latest 13-incher marked down to only $849 (in all colorways, too). That’s $150 off the M4 MacBook Air’s already modest MSRP of $999, which is a hefty discount for a popular laptop that only just came out in March.

I thought it would be tough for Amazon to one-up that deal once Prime Day formally started, but I’m happy to say it’s proven me wrong. On the first day of the sale (now live through July 11), I’ve found a slew of Windows laptops that have fallen to record-low prices there. That includes our beloved Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 and four different gaming laptops with brand-new Nvidia GeForce RTX 50 series graphic cards, which were my Prime Day white whales. I really didn’t expect Amazon to put any on sale, much less at such steep discounts.

As Mashable’s resident laptop guru (and someone who’s been covering Prime Day since 2019), I want to share a few quick reminders to help you make smart shopping decisions when you’re making a purchase as big as a new computer. One is to avoid third-party sellers on Amazon, which may have their own customer service policies or dabble in sketchy selling practices. The other is to cross-check prices with other retailers to verify Amazon’s deals — it occasionally lists incorrect MSRPs — and to make sure you’re getting the best price possible. For what it’s worth, Best Buy is Amazon’s biggest rival when it comes to laptop deals. It’s currently running a Black Friday in July sale alongside Prime Day through July 13.