I’ve been sorting through Black Friday laptop deals all week, including discounts on gaming laptops. There are a lot of decent options out there, but when it comes to the best bang-for-your-buck value, this $300 off sale on the Alienware 16X Aurora has to be the best. It’s the closest laptop with an Nvidia RTX 5060 graphics card that I’ve seen get to $1,000. For $1,100, you get 16 GB of RAM, 1 TB of storage, and the aforementioned RTX 5060.
In contrast, another gaming laptop I love, the Razer Blade 14, has an RTX 5060 configuration on sale for $1,450. Similar specs for a lot more money. That’s a far thinner and more portable laptop, though, so it’s not exactly a fair comparison.
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Photograph: Luke Larsen
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Photograph: Luke Larsen
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Photograph: Luke Larsen
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Photograph: Luke Larsen
I’ve also been eyeing the current deal on the Asus ROG Strix G16, which is as close to a 1:1 match with the Aurora as you’ll find. It’s another gaming laptop I like, at just about the same thickness and weight, and the model that’s on sale for Black Friday comes with a very similar set of specs. The difference in price between the two machines is only $100, which doesn’t sound like a huge difference, but the Alienware 16X Aurora also comes with a higher-resolution, 2560 x 1600 display. That goes a long way toward making the laptop feel more premium, especially outside of your gaming sessions. With an RTX 5060, you probably won’t do a whole lot of gaming at native resolution, but if you also want to use your laptop for watching videos, studying, or work, the sharper display of the Alienware laptop is a nice upgrade. I should note that the configuration I tested was also very bright, going up to 557 nits, whereas this model says it only goes up to 300 nits.
But here’s the thing: I was critical of the Alienware 16X Aurora when I reviewed it, coming in at a couple of hundred more than equally powered laptops, which resulted in similar performance in games. That made it hard to justify. At $1,100, though, it’s just the opposite.
If you’re really looking for a cheap option, though, something under the $1,000 mark, you have a few good options right now. First off, you can configure the Alienware 16X Aurora with an RTX 5050, which brings the price down to $900. That’s solid. You still get the higher-resolution screen and the extra storage. The performance of any laptop with the RTX 5050 isn’t going to blow you away, but it handles lighter games surprisingly well, and can access upscaling and even multi-frame generation to increase frame rates when you need it.
But I’d also recommend checking out the Acer Nitro V 16. It’s one of the cheapest gaming laptops you can buy right now that’s actually worth buying, on sale for $629. Same RTX 5050 and performance for $271 less.
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Photograph: Luke Larsen
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Photograph: Luke Larsen
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Photograph: Luke Larsen
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Photograph: Luke Larsen
There are some compromises, though. The display is worse, obviously, and you get half the storage as the Aurora. But it also comes with an oddly small 135-watt power supply. This doesn’t provide the laptop with enough power to run at high levels, and there’s no way around this at the current moment. So, if you’re gaming in Turbo mode, you may see the battery drain while plugged in. The system eventually does automatically switch to the Balanced mode once it hits a certain level of battery. To me, it’s a shame and a frustrating issue that Acer should resolve—though it’s not the end of the world for a laptop at this price.
The happy medium between these options, though, really is the RTX 5060 version of the Alienware 16X Aurora.
For more deal-hunting recommendations, check out our hand-picked list of the Best Black Friday Deals, Best Black Friday Laptop Deals, and Best Black Friday Tech Deals.
