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14 Aug 2025

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This budget Acer laptop with 16GB RAM is absurdly cheap: $235
If you’ve been looking for a fantastic deal on a solid budget laptop, this is it. Let your fingers do the walking over to eBay, where the official Acer store is offering a refurbished 15-inch model with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD for just $234.59. That’s over 50% off the retail price. The Acer Aspire 3 is definitely a budget design, with a somewhat outdated AMD 7520U quad-core processor. It’s not going to be a benchmark monster, as it’s comparable to the least-expensive Intel Core i3 chips. Even the integrated graphics—normally a highlight of AMD designs—didn’t wow us in our Acer Aspire 3 review. But the build quality is solid, plus 16GB of DDR5 RAM and a 1TB SSD are generous even at the original price, unheard of at this discounted price. You also get decent connection options with USB-A, USB-C, and HDMI. A 15.6-inch 1080p screen is more than servicable for most tasks, though it lacks a touchscreen, and you also won’t get Windows Hello with lack of a fingerprint reader and face scanner on the 720p webcam. Battery life is also a little underwhelming at 6 to 8 hours of normal use. All that might seem like a downer, and perhaps it would be for a standard-priced laptop. But at well under $300, I’d say all of those are acceptable trade-offs for value. (After all, it’s damn near impossible to find a Windows 11 laptop with adequate RAM and storage for under $250.) The refurbished status is a bit of a ding, but coming directly from Acer helps alleviate it, as does the one-year Allstate warranty. That’s much better than the typical 90 days you get with a refurb. If you’re not swayed, then be sure to check out PCWorld’s roundup of the best laptops on the market. But if you’re ready to buy, get one quickly. Discounts this steep tend to sell out fast, and Acer won’t have an unlimited supply of refurbished laptops that qualify for this sale. Get a 15-inch Acer laptop with 16GB RAM for absurdly cheapBuy now via eBay

That teeny-tiny Asus Zenbook A14 laptop from CES is now for sale
I confess, even as someone who likes to build big number-crunching desktops, that I like sleek and lightweight laptops even more. That’s why the Asus Zenbook A14 caught my eye at CES 2025. At less than a kilogram in weight and with 30+ hours of quoted battery life, it’s the platonic ideal of a road warrior notebook. And after a slight delay from its announced date, it’s now available to order from the Asus store. The Zenbook A14 (model number UX3407) is so named because the lawyers wouldn’t let them call it the “Zenbook Air” for fear of Apple’s litigious wrath, according to the PR team. But you can see the resemblance if you’ve used a MacBook Air before, with its super-skinny and super-light design. At 2.16 pounds and just 0.63 inches thick at most, it’s self-styled as “the lightest 14-inch Copilot+ PC on the market.” And while every little bit counts in those measurements, it’s the laptop’s understated finish that really drew my eye. The proprietary “Ceraluminum” coating on the entire body, including the keycaps, gives it a slightly stony finish that seems to repel fingerprints. Asus has been using this process for a while on its laptops, but I think this is the first one that’s covered in it so completely. It’s available in gray and beige colors. The laptop is based on a Snapdragon X processor, and combined with its surprisingly roomy 70-watt-hour battery it can last for up to 32 hours on a single charge. That’s Asus’ estimation, though, so expect it to be much less if you’re doing anything except watching video. But even if you chop it in half on the assumption that you’ll be doing lots of intense tasks, it’s not unreasonable based on the size of the battery and the longevity of other Arm-based Snapdragon laptops we’ve seen over the last year or so. Just don’t throw any PC games at it and it should be fine. Other highlights of the Zenbook A14 include a 1200p OLED screen, a full-sized HDMI port (plus two USB-C and one USB-A), and the usual IR webcam for Windows Hello compatibility. The only real downer on the spec list for me is that there’s no option for a touchscreen, though the lack of a digitizer component probably helped shave off a little weight, thickness, and battery life. Michael Crider/Foundry The debut model has 32GB of DDR5 RAM and 1TB of PCIe 4.0 storage, with a launch price of $1,100 on the Asus web store. It’s also listed at Best Buy, showing a shipping date for next week. Considering that an equivalent Surface Laptop retails for $2,000 (albeit with a slightly faster processor and a touchscreen), it seems pretty darn reasonable to me. Asus says that a 16GB/512GB model of the Zenbook A14 will sell for $900, sliding under that crucial four-digit price point, sometime in March.

Infrastructure Report: Downer gears up for $111.6b in funded projects
Confidence is building in the industry. Downer wants this to expand to major projects.

Downer appoints Murray Robertson as New Zealand managing director
Robertson will lead Downer's NZ strategy and stakeholder relationships.

DOW - Retirement and appointment of Non-Executive Directors
Downer EDI Limited (Downer, Company) (ASX:DOW) announced today that after nine years of service, Teresa Handicott will retire as a Non-Executive Director at the November 2025 Annual General Meeting

Save $250 on this Snapdragon 3K OLED laptop that we love right now
One of our favorite features in a laptop these days is an OLED screen because there’s nothing better than crystal-clear images with vibrant colors and perfect blacks. The beautiful Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x is one such laptop, and right now it’s on sale at Best Buy for $1,100. That’s a hefty $250 off its original price, making it an even better value. We reviewed the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x and loved it enough to give it a 4.5-star rating and our Editors’ Choice award. We praised it for its impressive battery life, beautiful display, and overall performance—and we loved it even at full price. The lack of an audio jack and USB-A ports was a downer, and it isn’t as “bendy” as the Yoga name would suggest, but those are minor nitpicks in an otherwise excellent laptop. While this laptop has some light gaming potential, don’t get it if that’s a top priority. The 3K OLED touchscreen is best for streaming and productivity, and this is a proper AI-ready Copilot+ PC thanks to its cutting-edge Snapdragon X Elite processor and amazing 32GB of LPDDR5X RAM. Other nice features include a 1TB SSD, three USB-C ports (two of which are USB4), Wi-Fi 7, and a 1080p webcam. It’s also quite portable at 2.8 pounds and just 0.59 inches thick. If you need long-lasting battery life, solid performance, and a travel-friendly build, all at a fantastic price, and if you don’t mind the lack of gaming prowess, then you can’t go wrong with the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x for $250 off at Best Buy. Get it while this deal is still hot! We love this Snapdragon 3K OLED laptop, especially for $250 offBuy now at Best Buy