We’re already back to school, but there are still a few killer laptop deals hanging around. Right now, Walmart is selling a 14-inch 1080p Gateway laptop with an Intel Core i3 processor for $279Remove non-product link. That’s $220 off the MSRP and a marvelous price for the gear you get inside. You don’t normally find a Core processor, a fingerprint scanner, and a 1080p display in notebooks going for under $300, much less all three.
This Gateway Notebook features a 14-inch 1080p display, which is fantastic for a laptop that falls firmly in the budget category. This clamshell should be great for basic uses like web browsing, video streaming, and document creation and editing. It should also handle the occasional lightweight photo editing duty just fine. Similar to the low-cost laptop we saw on Thursday, however, this Gateway still isn’t strong enough for serious video and photo editing.
You’ll find an Intel “Ice Lake” Core i3-1005G1 under the hood, which is a dual-core, four-thread processor with a boost clock of 3.4GHz. Other key features include 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD of unknown type. It also has a built-in fingerprint scanner for Windows Hello (another rarity in budget laptops), a microSD slot that can take up to 512GB cards, one HDMI out, one USB-C port for data transfer only, and two standard USB ports.
As you’d expect for a budget laptop, this Gateway ship with Windows 10 in S mode, but you can do a one-way free upgrade to standard Windows 10 in order to install traditional desktop programs. Walmart’s product page says the laptop is ready for Windows 11, and that it’s Google Classroom Compatible.
[Today’s deal: 14-inch Gateway 1080p laptop for $279 at Walmart.Remove non-product link]