Save over $300 on this powerful laptop, ideal for students

(Image credit: HP)

We see you, students. You're working hard, taking notes and writing papers, and we think you deserve a great deal on a new laptop — and we've found a doozy.

The highly-regarded HP Victus 15.6-inch, which offers impressive performance, a big display, and a striking cut-out hinge design, is discounted at Best Buy — and aside from being ideal for your work, will let you cut loose with some games, too (just not during lectures, ok?).

The laptop is down to just $549.99 as part of the retailer's early Black Friday deals — which is a massive $350 off of the MSRP.

Key features: 15.6-inch display with 144hz refresh rate, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050, 512GB SSD

Price history: We've seen discounts on similar configurations before, but they usually cap out at around $600 - so this is a very solid deal indeed.

Price comparison: Walmart: $609 | Best Buy: $549.99

Reviews consensus: The HP Victus could arguably do with a little more RAM than the 8GB offered here, and battery life could be better, but for a workhorse focused on getting stuff done, and enjoying some gaming at the end of the day, it's well worth a look. The display offers a 144Hz refresh rate that's ideal for gaming, but you'll also find it's big enough to help with multi-tasking and running multiple windows side by side. Oh, and speaking of windows, it's running Windows 11 right out of the box.

TechRadar: ★★★★

Buy it if: You want a laptop that looks sleek but professional, or a machine you can run a recent games, like Diablo 4, while you take a break.

Don't buy it if: You want more RAM, or better battery life — you may find yourself needing to sit near a charger with this one, particularly when doing intensive work.

Lloyd Coombes freelance tech and fitness writer for Live Science. He's an expert in all things Apple as well as in computer and gaming tech, with previous works published on TechRadar, Tom's Guide, Live Science and more. You'll find him regularly testing the latest MacBook or iPhone, but he spends most of his time writing about video games as Gaming Editor for the Daily Star. He also covers board games and virtual reality, just to round out the nerdy pursuits.