This Lenovo laptop is under $130 at Best Buy

Lenovo's Ideapad 1 laptop is a great affordable option at full price, but Best Buy has just cut a hefty $120 off of its MSRP, making it an easy buy as a stocking stuffer this holiday season.

If you're looking for a student laptop, there are thousands of options to choose from, even when you factor in individual configurations and build-to-order specs. Still, every so often we see a deal so kind to the wallet that it is truly worth considering.

This is one such deal, with the Lenovo Ideapad 1 down to just under $130 — the mathematicians among you will no doubt note that that's almost 50% off.

To set expectations from the off, this laptop isn't likely to suit any high-end creative projects. You'll want something more powerful for coding, too, with the Lenovo Ideapad 1 offering pretty modest specs across just about everything.

The 14-inch display is HD, albeit only just, with a 1366x768 resolution, and it's got just 128GB of storage and 4GB RAM. That means it's likely to be an ideal purchase for a quick browse of the web or social media, or for checking your emails.

Still, if you need something to just write on, this is a great pick — and to that end, you can add a Microsoft 365 subscription at checkout and still keep the total under $200.

The key advantage of the Ideapad compared to similarly priced Chromebooks is that it's running Windows 11 (albeit the S version). That means it's more compatible than ChromeOS, so your favorite apps should run more consistently.

It's the kind of deal we thought would've slipped away after Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but this is well worth a look if you're interested in a cheap laptop.

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.