This $265 Intel Core notebook is the best selling Windows laptop for Amazon Prime day – I totally understand why it is such a hit

The most popular Windows laptop for Prime Day at the time of writing is the Acer Aspire Go 15 which costs $265 at Amazon, down from just under $299.99, a saving of $35 or 12%. 

This deal is not exclusive to Prime members which is a boon. You can also choose to add a 4-year protection plan to the laptop for just $80, that covers drops, spills and cracked screens due to normal use.

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The Aspire Go is not your usual cheap laptop; it features a more upscale design that reminds me of the old school Apple MacBook Pro with the thick chassis. What sets it apart from the competition though is the Core i3 that powers it.

Not in the US? Scroll down for more Acer Aspire Go 15 Prime Day deals in your region.

Today’s best Acer Aspire Go 15 deal

This is an 8-core, 8-thread processor launched year that, according to popular test site CPUBenchmark, is a smidgen slower than an Intel Core i7-1165G7 that equipped far more expensive devices like the Microsoft Surface Pro 7.

Equally important is the presence of 8GB of LPDDR5 memory. Some may say that it is not enough and that you can’t actually upgrade it (and they’d be wrong as it has a spare slot) but then again, it is the faster, low-power memory (rather than DDR4 for example) and 8GB is enough for most tasks.

Acer managed to squeeze the price tag by cutting back on the storage. 128GB just enough bt it is the fact that you get eMMC UFS (Universal Flash Storage) that doesn’t sit well with me. You should be able to add an extra SSD as other Aspire Go 15 models do sport NVMe SSDs.

What I also commend Acer’s inclusion of five ports (excluding the dedicated power port and the Kensington lock). The sole USB-C port also takes power, great if you have a docking station and want to use only one cable for everything.

Elsewhere there’s a 15.6-inch full HD screen with a non-descript HD webcam perched on the top bezel and Wi-Fi 6 plus Bluetooth 5.0. There are two surprises though: firstly, the keyboard seems to be better than expected: One experienced laptop reviewer says he prefers typing on it better than a Dell XPS 16, a device that costs 10x more.

Then there’s the battery life; its 50WHr battery may seem puny by current standards but it managed more than 10 hours on Tomsguide’s battery life test, which is extraordinary for a device of this price.