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Reading Time: 6 minutesBudget laptops are always in high demand, especially in the golden under $500 category. Less than a month’s rent or a long weekend away for most, the laptops at this price can serve you well for the essentials with maybe even a few extra features. The real question isn’t if you can find one in your budget, but what do you need to get done?
We’ve rounded up some of our picks for the best budget laptops that you can find for under $500.
1. HP Stream 11
Credit: HP
Best for: Super Budget Buyers
Reg. Price: $239.99
As we look for budget laptops, it is always best to celebrate a genuinely well-priced laptop. Likes its name, the HP 11 is a no-frills laptop with just what you need. It has an 11-hour battery life, making it ideal for zoom meetings or coffee shop writing sessions, and it has a slim yet sturdy design making transport easy.
You certainly won’t get a cinematic experience from its display or speakers, but its connectivity and brightness are good enough to make a passable Netflix machine. The ports offer additional bonuses with the inclusion of USB Type-C, in case some other gadget in your life lives in that ecosystem, and the SD-card slot, which can be used for reading media or expanding the laptop’s storage.
Overall a solid laptop that will serve the basic functions of zoom calls, web browsing and typing, but not much else. One thing to watch for is bloatware, which is preinstalled software for online retailers and computer security vendors that pay to be pre-included on the laptop. Their inclusion is part of what drives down the price, but it also fills up space on your already small disk, so make sure to do a thorough cleanup to get those out of your system.
2. Acer Aspire 5 Slim Laptop
Credit: Acer
Best for: Light Gaming
Reg. Price: $369.99
Gaming, budget, and laptop are words often met with scowls and grimaces from those in the video game community. Still, the Acer Aspire 5 truly does aspire to perform. You won’t be able to run top graphics on CPU-intensive games, but for your Fortnight matches, Hotline Miami sessions or Minecraft builds, you’ll be able to play at a decent performance.
Of course, if you wanted a more practical gaming laptop experience, you could spend the same amount building a desktop, and you’d have better performance. The Aspire does more to service those who need a laptop and may want to play video games. It has a great battery life, a beautiful 15-inch display and enough ports to plug your whole house in. Ethernet and USB-c are special add ons that make it a highly functional computer, but the addition of a fingerprint reader makes this model a boutique experience.
3. Lenovo Chromebook Duet
Credit: Lenovo
Best for: On The Go
Reg. Price: $227
It might be generous to label the Chromebook Duet as a laptop, but since its purchase comes with a keyboard and it has Chromebook engraved on the body, it has ascended from tabletdom. The Duet is a sleek and savvy tablet/laptop built for a truly mobile user. The petite dimensions make it perfect for an airline table with a plastic cup of ginger ale or handheld between two fellow commuters on the subway.
The Duet’s performance is acceptable, with enough storage and speed to run a couple of tabs and background apps. Still, its screen and cameras are what set it apart; well, besides the removable keyboard and stand, which literally make it into parts. The rear and front-facing cameras are super crisp, making video chat a great use case. The screen also gets plenty bright, so it can be used in daylight as long as the screen isn’t reflecting the sun.
The Duet works best for someone on the go. Whether you need it for entertainment on long trips or to stay in contact with a remote office, the Duet can come with you anywhere. Especially with the Android integration and touch screen, it makes the user experience pain-free. Heck, if you’ve got coat pockets big enough for the 9×6 inch form factor, you won’t even need a bag.
4. Acer Premium Spin 713 Chromebook
Credit: Acer
Best for: Artists
Reg. Price: $422
Unlike the Duet, the Acer Spin truly does deliver as a touchscreen laptop. It is one of the faster models on this list, serving plenty of functionality with its touch screen, quality display and roomy disk space. In some ways, it presents as a ‘buy a laptop get a tablet free’ deal.
The screen is even a 3:2 form factor (as opposed to the typical 16:9), making it a superb choice for those using the touch screen as a canvas-though you’ll probably want to shill for the stylus that isn’t included in the base kit.
Unlike most touch screen displays, the Spin functions in two distinct modes, a plain laptop and then a tablet mode where the keyboard acts as a stand (hence the name spin). This mode switching makes this a fabulous all-around computer paired with a highly functional tablet. Illustrators, artists, draftspersons, or anyone who likes a more tactile experience will enjoy its multifaceted nature.
5. MSI Modern 14
Credit: MSI
Best for: All-Around Laptop
Sale Price: $427 | Reg. Price: $502
The MSI Modern 14 is perhaps the most platonic ideal of a PC laptop. Sturdy but slim aluminum build, plenty of ports, excellent battery life, it’s everything on your shopping list and a little more. The keyboard is quality and well-spaced with plenty of feedback, and has an even backlit, which is uncommon in this price range. If you want a quality laptop that will last, this is your best bet.
Its hardware is just above standard for this price range, with a decent graphics card and 128GB of internal storage that benefits from being an SSD. Its battery life at 9 hours is perfect for an intensive day’s use or more spread out, and its screen delivers beautiful vivid colors and plenty of brightness.
If you asked someone what their idea of a laptop is, it’d be somewhere close to the MSI Modern 14. If you need a workhorse for office tasks and some basic computing, you’ll be hard-pressed to find something more dependable.
6. Asus Vivo Book 14
Credit: Asus
Best for: Windows 11 Users
Sale Price: $499.99 | Reg. Price: $599.99
Microsoft is having a sale on one of their budget kings, the Asus Vivo Book. With its backlight keyboard, 14inch IPS screen, super light form factor, fingerprint reader and the only laptop on this list running Windows 11, this beast has enough bells and whistles to start a band.
There are, of course, drawbacks. A quick jaunt down its Best Buy reviews and you can find complaints ranging from broken screens to computer errors – though it’s nice to see that these concerns were always met with a response from Asus customer support. The most credible and pertinent of these complaints is the battery, which under the best conditions will last 6-7 hours and the worst only a couple of hours. Worth mentioning is the fan noise, which users complain really gets into gear once it’s been running for over an hour.
The Vivo Book might be best for a home office setup, as it could pretty feasibly plug into an external monitor to create a desktop-style interaction but could also later be used as a home theater machine or intimate streaming device. I wouldn’t recommend this for long trips unless you’d like to use the sound of the fan as white noise to fall asleep to on a flight.
Things To Consider When Shopping for a Budget Laptop
While these models are all varied and valuable in their own way, you should always do personal research to find a laptop that serves your needs and budget.
So when looking for your next laptop, make sure always to remember:
- The ‘Goldilocks Principle’ – the best choice is the one that’s just right for you and your needs.
- For serious computing power and intensive tasks, you’ll definitely need to break the $500 barrier.
- Chromebooks are king! You’ve probably noticed a couple on this list; that’s because Chromebooks are the most prolific budget laptops and are a great entrance into the market.
- ‘Saving Seasons’ deals come and go, so make sure to set a deal alert so you don’t miss when your favorite model goes on sale.
George Malouf
George Malouf is a Boston-based filmmaker and writer with a professional background in analog and digital camera systems, video, lighting tools, and computer parts. They spend most of their free time rewatching prestige television on multiple monitors to notice color and contrast shifts, anxiously backing up files to as many remote drives as possible, and performing maintenance on everything from cameras to countertops.