Black Friday's here early with a 50-series gaming laptop this cheap

It's been a pretty clear fact for quite some time now that the best time to buy a gaming laptop was "a couple of years ago". As memory prices have skyrocketed in recent times, the price of gaming laptops has started to creep into unreasonable territory, and anyone who bought before that spike will be feeling smug about it.

What were once budget machines now cost mid-range prices, and don't even ask about high-end laptops. Still, the good news is that sales events have so far proven great times to reverse those trends, and get prices that won't have you losing sleep over your decision.

Black Friday is still a month away right now, but retailers have started to drop early deals ahead of the biggest shopping day of the year, and Argos is one of them. In fact, it has a deal right now on an Asus gaming laptop that I think merits your attention if you want an entry-level gaming laptop.

Save £600

Asus Vivobook 16In C5: was £1,499 now £899 at Argos

The RTX 5050 might be the cheapest 50-series card, but it still means you get all the latest features, like frame generation, and that's a huge factor. To get this laptop for £900 when it's still sitting at £1500 elsewhere is quite the steal – but there's no telling how long the discount will last.

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I review a lot of gaming laptops, and don't really make a secret of my tastes when it comes to their designs – I like them stealthy. The more they shout about being a gaming laptop (which generally means external RGB lights on the back of the screen), the more I'm unimpressed.

So, this laptop from Asus ticks a lot of my boxes. It's got a design that could honestly blend in with the productivity crowd, other than its slightly jazzier keyboard backlighting. It also has an expansive 16-inch display, which is key if you don't have an external monitor and don't want to be squinting as you game.

Its Intel Core 5 Intel Core 5 Processor 210H processor is very capable, and that GeForce RTX 5050 from Nvidia will ensure that you can play all the latest and greatest gaming releases, with a good amount of future-proofing. You won't be maxing out the settings on those games, of course, but you'll still be able to have them looking really shiny.

This deal is really early for Black Friday, obviously – but it's still a great one. If you don't fancy the mayhem that is the end of November, it could be a really solid way to cut some stress out of your life and just get the gaming laptop you want a little earlier than expect.