Amazon’s Prime day is the first major shopping event of 2026 and many families will use this opportunity to purchase a laptop ahead of the annual back-to-school rush. With so many offers on the table, here’s an easy trick to avoid being disappointed by the numerous “fake deals” on Amazon right now.
A quick look at the best-selling laptops quickly brings up an interesting trend. Many laptops are sold with “Intel Processor” or “Intel CPU” in the headline. Now there’s nothing wrong with Intel but the sheer fact that the actual processor is not mentioned is a major red flag in my view.
So here’s my warning: be extra vigilant if you don’t see the actual name of the processor. Read my article about desktop PCs to avoid on Amazon Prime Day.
Not being upfront with details of the most important component in a laptop doesn’t bode well. A spot check of the top 100 best-selling laptops on Amazon yielded 20 such examples, four of them in the top 20 (out of the 10 Windows laptops).
Vague words like ‘High performance CPU’, ‘Quad-Core Intel’, ‘10-core’ or just ‘Intel Core’ are a sure ticket to instant regrets. Trust me on that. Look for models that spell out the actual processor, e.g. Ryzen 5 7520U, N150, Ryzen 7 250 etc.
Processors you should absolutely avoid
Do not buy laptops with the following processors or you will encounter sluggish performance and poor battery life. Note this applies to Windows laptops only, not Chromebooks.
- Intel N-series (N100, N150, N95)
- Intel Celeron (N4500, N3350 etc)
- AMD Ryzen 3 (3250U, 3200U)
- AMD A-series (A6-1450, A9-9400 etc)
- Intel Pentium
Don’t forget the memory
I cannot in all honesty advise anyone to buy an 8GB RAM laptop in 2026. Between resource-heavy browser tabs, background updates, and new AI features, 8GB is a recipe for constant freezing and elevated blood pressure. Fortunately, you don’t need a massive budget to save your sanity.
5 laptop deals that get it right
Here are five new, brand-name Windows laptops with good processors and 16GB for around $500 that you can buy right now.