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Laptop deals that tie or beat Black Friday's best prices

We found two laptop deals that tie or even beat last week's Black Friday prices- An HP Laptop is $75 cheaper than Black Friday's best price, and we found a formerly in-store only laptop deal that's now available online with free shipping. 

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AP Photo/Jeff Chiu/File
Customers check out various laptops on display at a Microsoft event in San Francisco. An Acer Aspire laptop, left, and a Lenovo IdeaPad U310 Touch are seen at the demo table.

Black Friday's stellar sales are bleeding into this week's best laptop deals with two machines that tie last week's prices. We've also found an HP laptop that's $75 cheaper than Black Friday's best price and a formerly in-store only laptop deal that's now available with free shipping.

Lenovo ThinkPad Helix Intel Ivy Bridge Core i5 1.8GHz 1080p 11.6" Convertible Touch Ultrabook
Store: Lenovo
Price: $699.99 with free shipping
Lowest By: $549
Is It Worth It?: Make no mistake, this hybrid is more executive boardroom than it is coffee table laptop. And although Engadget found the ThinkPad Helix's convertible design a little awkward, they nevertheless praised it for having "a sturdy keyboard, reliable trackpad, and a bright 1080p display with wide viewing angles." Of course, we like this deal because it's the cheapest Helix we've ever seen, tying our Thanksgiving day mention. (It typically costs $1,249.) Features include an Intel Core i5-3337U 1.8GHz Ivy Bridge dual-core CPU, an 11.6" 1920x1080 LED-backlit LCD, 4GB of RAM, a 128GB SSD, and Windows 8 Professional 64-bit.

HP EliteBook 840 Intel Haswell Core i5 1.9GHz Dual 14" Laptop
Store: Newegg via eBay
Price: $499.99 with free shipping
Lowest By: $180
Is It Worth It?: Ultrabooks don't generally appeal to the business user, but HP's EliteBook 840 G1 is certainly the exception. "The 840 G1 has distinguished, get-down-to-business looks, a great design, robust performance and all the correct corporate options," PCWorld crowed. Even better, it's currently $75 cheaper than our Black Friday mention, the latter of which required a coupon and Visa Checkout. (Today's deal doesn't require either and features the same specs.) This system boasts an Intel Core i5-4300U 1.9GHz Haswell dual-core processor, 14" 1366x768 LED-backlit LCD, 4GB of RAM, 180GB SSD, and Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (plus a license for Windows 8 Professional).

Asus Intel Atom Quad-Core 1.33GHz 11.6" Laptop bundled with Webroot Secure Anywhere 3-Device 6-Month for Windows/Mac/Android/iOS
Store: Best Buy
Price: $149 with free shipping
Lowest By: $81
Is It Worth It?: Though it's now $50 over our Black Friday mention, the Asus X205TA is now available with free shipping (last week an in-store purchase was required) and it's still the second-best price we've seen for this laptop. It features a power-efficient Atom Z3735F 1.33GHz quad-core processor, 11.6" 1366x768 display, 2GB RAM, 32GB eMMC storage with two years of 100GB ASUS WebStorage for free, and Windows 8.1.

Acer Aspire E15 Signature Edition Intel Haswell Core i5 15.6" Touchscreen Laptop
Store: Microsoft Store
Price: $399 with free shipping
Lowest By: $100
Is It Worth It?: A 15" Core i5 machine at this price is an absolute steal. In fact, it's among the five cheapest deals we've seen for such a machine. The 5.4-lb. notebook features a Core i5-4210U 1.7GHz Haswell dual-core processor, 15.6" 1366x768 LED-backlit touchscreen LCD, 4GB RAM, 500GB hard drive, and Windows 8.1 64-bit.

Lenovo Flex 2 Intel Pentium 2.16GHz 15.6" Touchscreen Laptop
Store: Amazon
Price: $404.99 with free shipping
Lowest By: $65
Is It Worth It?: Though you might mistake this laptop for a Yoga, the Flex 2 is a different beast in that its screen doesn't flip back completely, but instead swings 300 degrees into what Lenovo calls "stand mode." When in stand mode, users can touch the screen without having the keyboard get in your way. Under the hood of this 5.5-lb. convertible you'll find a Pentium N3530 2.16GHz quad-core processor, 15.6" 1366x768 LED-backlit touchscreen LCD, 4GB RAM, 500GB hard drive. It's currently tied with our Black Friday mention as the cheapest Flex 2 we've ever seen.Want more bite from your processor?

For an additional $45 you can upgrade to the 1.9GHz Core i3 Haswell processor.

Louis Ramirez is a senior features writer for dealnews.com, where this article first appeared. 

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