Some retailers are cutting laptop prices ahead of Amazon's October Prime Day, and the biggest early markdown is $650 off a gaming laptop.
Best Buy, Costco, and Amazon have started discounting laptops before Amazon's official October 6-7 Prime Day sale. Best Buy's top deal is the Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (AMD Ryzen 9 270, RTX 5060, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD) for $1,649.99, down from $2,299.99, a $650 cut. Costco is selling the MSI Prestige 16 AI+ (Intel Core Ultra X7 358H, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD) for $1,399.99, a $400 discount that does not require a membership. Amazon's best offer so far is smaller: the 13-inch MacBook Air (M5, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD) is $150 off at $1,449.
Laptop prices have climbed $100 to $950 this year as memory and component costs spike, so any real discount is worth noting before the holiday rush. It is also telling that Amazon, the host of its own sale, has the weakest laptop deal of the three - Best Buy and Costco are doing the heavy lifting two weeks early.
Based on how the MacBook Air was discounted last cycle, its price could drop toward $200 off once Prime Day actually starts, but that still would not undo a year of price hikes.