The best Walmart+ Week laptop deal isn't even a deal

Walmart is weird about laptop deals. On any given day, the Mashable Shopping team recommends shopping for PCs elsewhere: The big box store's listings are brimming with dramatically inflated prices and sketchy third-party sellers. ("Delight Tech Electronics," "DealClock" — none of these words are in the bible.)

The fine print here is that Walmart usually course-corrects for major savings events, rolling out more legit doorbusters to mark these occasions. We've seen this happen during the retailer's annual Black Friday sales and during its Amazon Prime Day counter-programming the past few summers. But in a surprise twist, the laptop deals featured in its paywalled Walmart+ Week sale (live now through June 23) aren't following suit so far.

If you can't see the offers because you don't have a paid or trial Walmart+ membership, you're not missing out on much: $100 off here (actual MSRP $1,299.99), $50 off there (actual MSRP $449.99), an offer beaten by a competitor over yonder and thither.

It could still be beneficial to sign up for a Walmart+ subscription if you're able to make use of the other perks it unlocks, including cash back on travel and double fuel discounts while Walmart+ Week is live. But the sale's member-exclusive deals on laptops are not worth the price of admission if you're in need of an upgrade. Per two of my colleagues, the same goes for robot vacuums and headphones, too.

As things currently stand, the best laptop "deal" that's available at Walmart seems to be its $699 pricing on the M1 MacBook Air... which isn't really a deal at all, but a permanent price drop it's been offering since mid-March. (Best Buy managed to beat it by $50 one time, but it didn't last long, and the MacBook has since sold out there.) While this is an older model from 2020, it's an incredible value for this price given its long battery life and amazing build quality. We haven't tested it recently — read our review from back in the day — but it should still perform well in casual tasks.

We'll be monitoring Walmart+ Week as it progresses to see if its laptop deals improve. In the meantime, though, look for more enticing offers at other retailers and on manufacturers' sites if you're not interested in an elderly MacBook — we round up the best ones biweekly.