Let’s face it; most of us aren’t using our laptops for Photoshop or rocket science. If you need a laptop that can do all the basics and then perhaps a little more, you don’t require to spend top dollar on a high-end powerhouse. Just because many of the best laptop computers can cost well over $1, 000, that doesn’t mean you can’t get a great laptop for half that—or less. The best notebooks under $500 can handle routine tasks and do them quite well. You can even get one of the best gaming laptops for under $500 to play casual games.
Of course, laptops below $500 tend to make some compromises in processor speed, system memory, storage, display resolution and other features as compared with mid-priced, affordable laptops that will cost twice as much. But a person can get much more machine with regard to your buck now as compared to just a few years ago, and create fewer compromises than ever when it comes to everyday tasks like web browsing, streaming video and working with documents and spreadsheets.
Picking the best laptops under $500 is no mean feat, though. We combined extensive first hand experience with some of the top branded budget laptop computers, with robust research, in order to find the particular laptops that offer great value regarding money.
- Best Laptop Under $250 Overall: HP 14 Laptop
- Best Chromebook Laptop computer Under $500: Acer Chromebook 317
- Greatest 17-inch Notebook Under $500: Acer Aspire 3
- Best Gaming Laptop Under $250: Acer Aspire 5
- Best Touchscreen Laptop Below $500 : Lenovo IdeaPad 3
- Cheapest Windows Laptop computer Under $500: Lenovo IdeaPad 1
Greatest Laptop Under $500 Overall
Good Performance At An Affordable Price
Best Chromebook Laptop Below $250
Premium Overall performance And A Big Display
Best 17-inch Laptop Under $500
Impressive Performance With A Big Screen
Best Gaming Notebook Under $250
Powerful Onboard Graphics
Greatest Touchscreen Laptop Under $500
An Affordable Touchscreen Laptop computer With Fast Wi-Fi
Cheapest Windows Laptop Below $500
Light And Portable At An Incredibly Low Price
How All of us Chose The Best $500 Laptops
The best $250 laptops are never going to be powerhouse performers. But they do provide enough processing power to handle lightweight tasks such as web searching, answering emails, scrolling social media and watching movies. Some models have enough oomph in order to handle entry-level gaming. These laptops need to be functional, actually at the very low-end of the scale, so while you can expect modest CPU performance, the particular processors on these notebooks should be able to handle basic everyday computing tasks.
As for everything else, higher quality displays, gaming power, longer battery lives are all nice to haves, but they aren’t the baseline intended for the fundamentals. Good overall performance must come first, and after that, the particular winners in each associated with the above categories bring something else to the table.
What To Consider When Buying A $500 Notebook
When you’re buying a laptop that costs less than $500, you are going to have in order to make some sacrifices. But knowing where to make them is important. Here are usually the things you don’t want to scrimp upon, and where you can save a few dollars.
Processor
The CPU is the heart of your PC, and though you aren’t going to get a flagship model at this price, your CPU choice is likely to have the particular biggest impact on general PC performance, so a person don’t want to go low-end or too old.
At the least you would like a recent generation PROCESSOR, so Intel 11th or even 12th gen, or AMD Ryzen 4000, 5000, or 6000. You might want to consider Intel Celeron plus AMD Athlon CPUs for the most inexpensive designs, but know that will provide with it weaker overall performance. Try to opt for the Ryzen five or Intel Core i5 design or better if you can find it at this price.
You want at least a dual-core CPU, yet a quad-core CPU is preferable as it provides much better multitasking efficiency.
RAM
For RAM, or even system memory, 8GB will be the minimum you should really be targeting. But to achieve a sub-$500 price, many manufacturers provide just 4GB associated with RAM. Simply know that the less RAM within the program, the slower and much less responsive the system overall.
Graphics
Graphics only really matter if you’re looking to perform some video gaming, and although you likely to find a gaming laptop under $500 that has a dedicated GPU, that’s the holy grail if you possibly could discover it. None of the versions recommended over do, even though, it’s simply so hard to find at this kind of price.
Instead, you need capable onboard graphics. You’ll get the very best out of AMD’s Vega and RDNA2 onboard GPUs, but Intel’s 11th and 12th generation processors can have Iris Xe graphics, which is usually a reasonable alternative. Intel’s older UHD graphics is fine for the oldest associated with esport plus indie games, but functionality won’t be because strong since on newer models.
Storage
For storage space, SSDs are the gold standard, delivering fast boot times and responsive applications when up and running. While 256GB of storage is generous at this particular price, this gives you plenty of room for the particular operating system, all your programs and the few videos and online games too. Most under $250 laptops have 128GB of storage, which fills up fast. A few really low-cost systems—including Chromebooks—use slower eMMC flash storage.
Display
Optimal display size depends upon what you want to use the laptop computer for. Bigger screens are usually better to get work plus enjoying films, but a larger display saps battery life faster and typically carries a higher price tag—meaning you’ll create greater surrender in a laptop below $500, especially in the gaming notebook under $500.
Smaller sizes like 15. 6-inch and 14-inch are a great compromise, typically leading to better pricing, battery existence, and even performance thanks to greater budget focused on components rather compared to display.
Because for resolution, 1080p is the target with this price point, though in smaller displays you can get away with 720p without sacrificing too much visual quality.
Battery Life
Most associated with the greatest laptops under $500 will give you around 10 hours of battery lifestyle. More than that is good, while less can start to feel constricting, specifically if a person wish to use the laptop on the go. Just ensure that will whatever laptop computer you pick may manage the particular number associated with hours you’d expect to become away from the power socket, so you aren’t constantly hunting for somewhere to plug it within.
Weight
Larger laptops weigh more, which usually won’t end up being a problem if most likely seeking to make use of it as a desktop replacement or in relatively static locations, but might be an issue if you plan to carry the laptop around all day. The majority of laptops below $500 consider around three in order to four pounds, making them portable enough to carry with you.
What To Expect From The particular Best Laptop computers Under $250
What’s offered at the particular sub-$500 price point typically just gets a person enough processing power in order to handle the most fundamental of tasks—like email, web surfing, word processing or music plus video streaming.
While one of these ultra low-cost computers might be able to manage simple photo or movie editing, or even gaming, expect sluggish performance limited by the digesting power, images capabilities and system memory space available.
In other words, anything that requires significant processing power will either function incredibly slowly on a low-cost laptop computer, or the particular system requirements won’t become sufficient to what’s required to run certain apps. If you choose in order to go with one of these laptops under $500, make sure your own expectations are realistic pertaining to what it can actually deal with.
A laptop designed to handle all of the most processing-intensive computing tasks—including image editing—will typically price at minimum $700 to $1, 000. In fact , in case you’re interested in a MacOS-based computer that runs making use of Apple’s M1 processor (as opposed in order to one that runs Windows), the lowest priced MacBook Air currently starts at $999.