The best Chromebook under $100 to buy on Black Friday is the Lenovo Chromebook 3 11.6-inch on sale for $79 at Best Buy. It’s a decent machine with acceptable compromises.

The $79 Lenovo Chromebook 3 (normally $139.00) at Best Buy doesn’t offer the flashiest discount, but it has the best combination of features that avoids the pitfalls that other retailers offer. It’s one of the leading offers on our list of the best Chromebook deals of Black Friday, which also includes higher-priced but more full-featured options.

We prioritize 8GB of RAM, a large, detailed screen, and a relatively fast processor as the key attributes for a Chromebook. At under $100, these are rare. Lenovo’s Chromebook 3 offers just 4GB of RAM and an 11-inch, 768p screen. But for the price, these are acceptable steps down. We also like the fact that the Chromebook 3 includes a Celeron N4020, a relatively modern dual-core chip, and Google support that only expires in 2026.

We’re going to warn you: there are other sites offering Chromebooks for this $79 price or less, especially Walmart. Beware of refurbished or “recertified” Chromebooks, and watch out for Chromebooks offering an N2840 or a Celeron N3000-esque processor inside. These were made several years ago, and just aren’t worth the savings.

If your Chromebook budget is $100, we’d ask that you try and squeeze an extra $20 out of it and opt for the $119 Asus 14-inch Chromebook instead, on a massive 64% off sale at Best Buy. You’ll get a much larger, better screen, and an improved processor. But if you can’t, please choose the $79 Lenovo Chromebook 3 instead. It’s easily the best sub-$100 Chromebook you’ll find on Black Friday.

See the $79 Lenovo Chromebook 3 at Best Buy

Author: Mark Hachman, Senior Editor

As PCWorld’s senior editor, Mark focuses on Microsoft news and chip technology, among other beats. He has formerly written for PCMag, BYTE, Slashdot, eWEEK, and ReadWrite.

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