Retailers like try to pull you in with big price cuts to distract from the actual product they’re selling. For instance, a three-digit price cut on a shiny new laptop might distract you from the fact that you’ve never even heard of the manufacturer. That’s the case with the Gateway Notebook deal at Walmart. Sure, it’s a nice price cut, but if you’re looking for a quality laptop at a low price, you should buy the Dell Inspiron instead. It’s also on sale today. Read more about how the laptops stack up against each other before you make a decision.
Avoid this Gateway Ultra Slim Notebook deal
At face value, this Gateway seems like a great notebook. Not only do you get a very thin laptop with FHD resolution, but it also comes with a reasonably powerful 12th Gen intel i7-1255U, which is excellent for productivity work. Unfortunately, for the $659 price tag, you’re missing out on a few features you can find elsewhere for the same price. Take the webcam, for example, which is only 2MP and very much below standards for today’s expectations, at least at this price point, and doesn’t compete with the best budget laptops on the market. The overall build quality is also not necessarily commiserate with the asking price, although we do appreciate the relatively large 512GB storage, which won’t have you reaching for external hard drive deals to supplement it. The Gateway Notebook also comes with a touch-enabled screen, which isn’t very common at this price point, so at least it does have that going for it.
Buy this Dell Inspiron 14 deal instead
On the other hand, this Dell Inspiron 14 is almost $100 cheaper and has essentially the same specifications, with some improvements. Instead of an Intel Core i7, you get an AMD Ryzen 7 5825U, which is just as powerful and a bit more efficient, which means slightly better battery life. More importantly, though, you get 16GBs of RAM rather than 8GB, which will have a massive impact on your quality of life since you won’t constantly be dealing with lag from having too many apps or tabs open. Similarly, you get a more powerful webcam, a slightly better build quality, and improved Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The only downside here is that the screen on the Inspiron 14 isn’t touch-enabled, so if that’s an essential aspect for you, then it might be worth checking out some of these other laptop deals for alternatives that are better than the gateway.
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