Depends on the laptop. Dell has pretty sick Black Friday sales, as does Lenovo.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/acer-nitro-5-15-6-laptop-intel-core-i5-8gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1650-256gb-ssd-obsidian-black/6413247.p?skuId=6413247

or

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/acer-nitro-5-15-6-gaming-laptop-amd-ryzen-5-8gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1650-256gb-ssd-obsidian-black/6413246.p?skuId=6413246

Most of me wants to say Intel because AMD has never had great mobile processors, but I'm not sure if the Ryzen 5s would be better or worse

If you're not gaming on it I'd....get something else.

some gaming would be done, the major one time use would be during the week I hope to spend in Huntsville to be with my moo love @handymanshandle :^) again sometime Im really really hoping for before years end but we'll have to see with money and him and time off work. But I can drive down there now if flying (even with all the credit card rewards and e-credit I have) is too expensive

monch love

Honestly, would you get more use out of a new laptop or your iPad Air? If it's the former, I'd genuinely take a good look at what AMD has to offer. My experience with my Ryzen 5 2500U has been almost wholly positive, so I'd bet money that the Zen 2-based Ryzen 5 laptops are really damn good.

I think it'd be very likely I could make it worth it, I mean the iPad is nice and all but I don't have *that* much of a use for it and my current laptop well as I've said is annoying lol

I've always been a huge fan of buying used things. Check out eBay, you should be able to get a pretty sick open box or like new laptop for super cheap if you keep an eye on the auctions. You'd need patience and be fine with trying to snipe the ones you want though. Maybe you can score a sweet deal on a property once people start getting evicted because they can't make their payments due to COVID layoffs

...I thought the rabbit was moo?

eBay wouldn't be a bad idea there, either, but be warned that you generally don't have any warranty options. 

And yeah, his actual name is Marvin, we tend to call him "moo" or "monch" or various other names along those lines lmao

I would have never guessed.

While that's true, if you play your cards right you'll save so much money that it won't really matter. Plus, you're covered against DOA, and as long as everything's working as it should unless you have pretty bad luck chances of you needing the warranty are slim to none.

mmm moo nicknames