TL;DR: Dont wait on Office Depot, unfortunately that price wont drop back down before Friday. I've had issues with their sale cycles before, they are just not as good as expected when you need something fast. Don't panic though! With your $500 budget, just get any basic Acer or Asus for store pickup elsewhere. You really can't go wrong with those brands for Zoom and browser work. Hang in there!

Office Depot usually resets their main weekly sales on Sunday mornings at midnight. Mid-week price jumps like that usually mean a short flash sale expired, so waiting a few days probably wont drop it back down before Friday. Since you are in Dallas, I would honestly check Micro Center over in Richardson or a local Best Buy instead of waiting on OD. For under $500, you want to target at least an AMD Ryzen 5 7520U or Intel Core i5 processor paired with 16GB of RAM. 8GB RAM gets maxed out super fast when running Zoom alongside 20 browser tabs. Best Buy has a Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 with a Ryzen 5 and 16GB RAM for around $430 right now with same-day pickup. That hardware will handle your project work easily without lagging.

I had a very similar issue last year when buying a batch of mid-range laptops for our home office setup. Retailers like Office Depot use dynamic pricing algorithms that fluctuate outside of their standard Sunday ad resets. When stock hits a certain threshold on a promo item, their automated system often pulls the discount immediately. In my experience, waiting for a specific price to drop back down within 48 hours almost never works out when you are on a strict deadline. When I was shopping with a tight $500 budget, I stopped chasing retail sale timers and focused purely on hardware specs. For heavy browser tabs and Zoom calls, you want a Ryzen 5 or 12th gen i5 processor paired with 16GB of RAM if possible. I ended up picking up an open-box Lenovo with those exact specs, and I have been completely satisfied with how it handles daily multitasking. It works well under pressure and I have zero complaints after a year of heavy use. Since you need something by Friday, I would look into certified open-box options at local Dallas stores rather than waiting on Office Depot. You can usually get current-gen hardware discounted 20 to 30 percent, which easily lands you under budget. Btw, I actually use PriceDropCatch for my office furniture orders; it alerts me the second the price dips.