This Lenovo IdeaPad Slim Deal Is Now Cheaper Than the MacBook Neo

The MacBook Neo is a fine option of buyers on a budget who want the premium look and feel of a MacBook without necessarily paying a premium, but if you're more interested in staying within the Windows ecosystem, recent price cuts on certain x86 and Snapdragon models will let you do that while spending less. One such example is Best Buy's deal of day for a slick Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 laptops.

If you're quick, you can score a Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 for $499.99 at Best Buy ($250 off MSRP), which is $100 less than the starting price of a MacBook Neo (not including the education discount), and $200 less than upgraded version with the same storage. However, the IdeaPad 3 Slim boasts some advantages other than undercutting Apple on its price.

For one, the IdeaPad Slim 3 features a bigger 15.6-inch IPS display with a Full HD 1080p (1920x1080) resolution and touchscreen support, which isn't something that is available on any Mac systems (only iPad and iPhone devices).

It's powered by an 8-core/16-thread Ryzen 7 5825U processor based on Zen 3 with a 2GHz base clock, up to a 4.5GHz turbo clock, 16MB of L3 cache, and onboard Radeon Vega 8 graphics. Lenovo's laptop also comes configured with 16GB of DDR4-3200 memory and a 512GB solid state drive (SSD), so that's twice the RAM as the MacBook Neo and twice the storage as the $599 model.

Granted, it gets a little problematic comparing specs between two different platforms. To be clear, we're not throwing shade on the MacBook Neo, which is proving a capable machine for the money even with just 8GB of unified system memory. Still, the IdeaPad Slim 3 that is on sale is a fine alternative in the Windows space.

If you don't need to beat the MacBook Neo in price and want a higher end laptop at a discount, then check out this Dell Plus 14 that is on sale for $799.99 at Best Buy ($400 of).

Like the IdeaPad Slim 3, the Dell Plus 14 is a 2-in-1 convertible, but with a 14-inch WVA touchscreen display with a 1920x1200 resolution.

It also features an Intel Core Ultra 256V processor based on Lunar Lake with 8 total cores, split between 4 performance cores clocked 2.2GHz to to 4.8GHz and 4 efficient cores clocked at 2.2GHz to 3.7GHz.

Other CPU specs include 12MB of L3 cache, Intel Arc 140V graphics, and a dedicated NPU capable of up to 47 TOPS, which is central to the Dell Plus 14 being labeled as a Copilot+ PC.

You get 16GB of fast LPDDR5X-8533 memory and a 1TB SSD, along with modern amenities like Wi-Fi 7 and HDMI 2.1.

Here are a few more Windws laptop deals...

• 15.6-Inch Lenovo LOQ (Ryzen 5 7235HS, RTX 4050, 16GB/512GB): $789.99 (save $260)
• 14-Inch Lenovo Yoga 7i OLED (Core Ultra 5 226V, 16GB/512GB): $749.99 (save $200)
• 15.3-Inch Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x (Snapdragon X, 16GB/256GB): $549.99 (save $200)
• 14-Inch ASUS Vivobook 14 (Snpadragon X, 16GB/512GB): $499 (save $250.99)