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Best Budget Laptop 2023: Our Top 6 Picks Starting at $300

Find a great laptop for less. Here are the best budget laptops tested.

Posted By Kimbo Online Store

You don’t want to spend a lot of money on things you don’t need when choosing the finest laptop for your budget. Even though they can be found for less than $500, the finest budget laptop models can perform all of your daily chores, like reading emails, scrolling through social media, typing up documents, and more.

The chip shortages of the past couple of years have made finding a good budget-friendly laptop a little trickier. With fewer chips available, PC makers made more midrange and premium laptops than lower-end models to handle essential, day-to-day tasks. Inflation has driven up prices, too. So while it’s possible to find a good laptop under $500, you may need to shop around and wait for a discount. Otherwise, you may need to spend closer to $700 to get a laptop that’ll last several years. Also, you won’t find any current MacBooks at these prices: a new entry-level MacBook Air is $1,000. You’ll have to hit a good sale or pick up a refurbished one to get a MacBook for less.

The good news is that we’re willing to assist. If you’re looking for a laptop for less than $500, we’ve tested and rated the greatest options available right now. Unsure of the qualities a quality budget laptop should have? Click on the purchase tips immediately after our recommendations. If you wish to continue your search for a low-cost laptop on your own, consider the following advice, which is based on our years of testing and review experience.

To sort the competition, use these picks. Be cautious when making purchases because there are many inexpensive laptops that aren’t worth it.

Best budget laptops

HP Laptop 17

The HP Laptop 17 is a good pick if you want everyday performance and a bigger display. It’s perfect for home office tasks, entertainment and just general computing. Battery life is also good at nearly 9 hours in our tests. Although the configuration we reviewed is $650, HP offers many configuration options so that you can balance price and performance to match your needs. It’s also frequently on sale for much less. And if you’d rather have a smaller laptop, HP makes both 14- and 15.6-inch models in this line too.

Acer Aspire 5

The Acer Aspire 5 continues to be one of the best laptop deals available. Available in 14-, 15.6- and 17.3-inch sizes, I am partial to the 15.6-inch size because it’s relatively compact and lightweight but still full-featured. Acer has a wide range of configurations to choose from starting under $500. This budget laptop also features a USB 3.2 Gen 1 USB-C port, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, Ethernet and an HDMI port. The Acer Aspire 5 regularly includes a backlit keyboard and fingerprint reader for quick sign-ins — rarities at this price.

Lenovo Flex 5i Chromebook

The Lenovo Duet Chromebook is another two-in-one choice from Lenovo that is on our list of the best cheap laptops. Similar in price to the Flex 5i, the Lenovo Duet Chromebook is a detachable two-in-one, or a tablet with a detachable keyboard cover. Choose the Flex 5i if you require a Chromebook for use throughout the day. The Lenovo Duet Chromebook works best as a secondary device for leisure and productivity while on the go.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 14

The 14-inch Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i for Windows is a great value as well. In addition to the most recent 12th-gen Intel processors, Lenovo offers more premium features like a Thunderbolt 4 USB-C port, an SD card reader, a 1080p webcam with a privacy shutter, and a fingerprint reader. Additionally, in our tests, the battery life was almost 11 hours. Normally selling for over $700, it is currently available for just $450.

HP Pavilion 14

A inexpensive laptop with looks and performance above its price is the HP Pavilion 14. The laptop may easily be carried around for work or school on a daily basis at 3.2 pounds (1.4 kilograms). It might also make a good laptop for a home office since it can be quickly linked to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse at a desk and has a screen that is large enough to be used continuously. It’s only a reliable, attractive laptop for everyday use. The setup we tested is generally $800 with a starting price of $650, but it occasionally goes on sale for significantly less.

Lenovo Duet Chromebook

The fantastic 11-inch ChromeOS tablet with a detachable keyboard and trackpad is called the Lenovo Duet Chromebook (also known as Chromebook Duet 3). Its performance and little size make it unsuitable for continuous use. However, the Chromebook Duet 3 is a smart choice if you’re searching for a reasonably priced ultraportable computer to use for simple tasks like email, web surfing, gaming, reading, and streaming video. You can also use it to sketch or take notes in class.

The original 10-inch version of the Duet Chromebook is also still available for $300 or less.

Are laptops under $500 any good?

As a general guideline, avoid making impulse purchases; for instance, don’t spend $500 on a laptop because you can’t locate a deal on one for less money. A need-it-now laptop purchase can be compared to shopping for groceries while famished.

If the figures Intel and PC makers throw at us are accurate, $500 can be a lot of money, and you’ll probably be holding onto it for at least three years.

You can also attempt to extend the lifespan of your present laptop. If you need anything to get you by for a few months, look into locations where you might be able to purchase used equipment, and if you qualify, look into nonprofit or educational discounts.

Additionally, carefully review the manufacturer’s specifications to ensure sure the laptop has any features you truly want, such as a touchscreen, a backlit keyboard, DDR4 RAM, an HD webcam, Intel UHD Graphics, AMD Radeon Vega Graphics, or an HDMI connector. If you don’t, it will be a mistake.

If you anticipate keeping your new laptop for a while, consider increasing the price of the laptop you purchase to accommodate a processor with more cores or more RAM than you had originally planned.

Consider AMD Ryzen CPUs as an alternative to Intel Core for Windows laptops or as an alternative to Intel Celeron and Pentium for Chromebooks if you haven’t already.

What are the trade-offs on laptops under $500?

If you keep your expectations in check when it comes to features and specifications, you may still get a lot out of a budget laptop model, such as a long battery life and a body that isn’t too heavy.

The fact that you are not limited to a conventional clamshell laptop with a fixed display and keyboard is a plus. You can also purchase a convertible laptop (also known as a two-in-one), which features a screen that can be turned around to become a tablet, placed for convenient streaming, or used to make a presentation.

Remember that all convertibles can be used as tablets and laptops. For a tablet to function, it must have a touchscreen, and many of them support styluses (also known as pens) for handwritten and drawn input.

A MacBook or any other Apple laptop is one thing you won’t discover at these low cost laptop pricing. With the optional keyboard, an iPad will cost you more than $500, which is outside of our current spending limit (though it might end up costing you less if you seek for discounts on the tablet or keyboard). It might be sufficient to use a base-model iPad with a cheap Bluetooth keyboard and an iPad stand.

Many low-cost laptops are advertised as having Windows 10 S, a condensed and restricted edition of the operating system designed for use in educational institutions. It only permits the installation of software from the Windows Store, compels the use of Microsoft’s Edge browser, and comes with a subset of the administrative tools in Windows 10.