Amazon’s laptop recommendations include outdated models and no-name brands that could disappoint buyers.
Seattle: Amazon shows many laptops that people should not buy. Some are old models that cost too much money.
The Samsung Galaxy Book4 costs $565 but other laptops give you more for your money. The Asus Vivobook with a new chip costs $650 and lasts longer on battery. The Lenovo IdeaPad costs even less at $584 but has the same good chip.
Amazon also pushes laptops from brands you have never heard of. Jumper and Nimo make cheap Windows laptops under $300. These use slow parts like eMMC storage and Intel Celeron processors. Some look nice with big touchpads and full keyboards, but they come from unknown companies with almost no real reviews.
Nimo tries to sell these as gaming laptops but they have no special gaming parts. These laptops are no better than any other $600 Windows computer for playing games. Real gaming laptops cost much more money.
Amazon does show some good laptops too. The Apple MacBook Air with M4 chip appears high in results. The Dell 15 laptop looks solid at $530 with good specs like 120 screen refresh rate and 16 GB memory. But most results show paid ads from brands of different quality.
Walmart does even worse than Amazon with laptop picks. Twenty-four of the first 40 laptops are from unknown brands like RNRUO and Coolby. Most others come from HP. Good laptop deals exist but buyers must search carefully to find them.