This laptop is powered by a processor that was discontinued when Obama was president, but for $49, you can use it as a doorstop in a pinch

A Dell Chromebook 3120 against a gray TechRadar Black Friday deals background
(Image credit: Future / Dell)

It's not often I recommend a laptop that will perform as poorly in 2025 as this Dell Chromebook 3120 on sale at Walmart for only $49, but honestly, at that price, you can find something for it to do.

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Dell Chromebook 3120
Dell Chromebook 3120: was $57 now $49 at Walmart

Look, don't think about this one too hard. It's $49, brand new. I can open up a Chrome tab and stream Netflix, and possibly run Slack through the browser. You won't get much else out of its decade-plus-old processor and you won't be able to save much to its 16GB eMMC storage, but it's $49. You'll find some use for it, right?

This Dell Chromebook 3120 is a fairly old model with a very outdated processor that Intel stopped making all the way back in 2014, and with just 16GB eMMC storage and 4GB of low-powered DDR3 memory, there are smartwatches that will likely perform faster than this laptop ever will.

But folks, it's $49. That's less than a dinner for one at Chili's. It has Wi-Fi 5 capability, so surely you can find some use for it, even if it's just to play some streaming video at your desk while you work.

Give it to the kid as their first laptop. Let them throw it against the wall in frustration after a few months. Will it matter at that point? You'll have gotten several months' use out of it for less than a week's worth of Starbucks coffee orders. And, if they take reasonably good care of it, it might even carry them through some elementary school coursework until they're old enough for the responsibility of owning a more current (and expensive) laptop.

What if they break it? Whatever! You can use it to weigh down a tarp in the backyard. You'll find something to do with this once it can no longer run, but you'll have gotten something out of it in the process.

John Loeffler
Components Editor

John (He/Him) is the Components Editor here at TechRadar and he is also a programmer, gamer, activist, and Brooklyn College alum currently living in Brooklyn, NY.

Named by the CTA as a CES 2020 Media Trailblazer for his science and technology reporting, John specializes in all areas of computer science, including industry news, hardware reviews, PC gaming, as well as general science writing and the social impact of the tech industry.

You can find him online on Bluesky @johnloeffler.bsky.social

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