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In 2024, budget-conscious consumers can find impressive laptops under $500 offering solid performance and essential features. Top contenders include models from brands like Lenovo, HP, Acer, and ASUS. These laptops typically feature decent processors, sufficient RAM, and adequate storage for everyday tasks such as web browsing, word processing, and multimedia consumption. Many also boast sleek designs and portable form factors, making them ideal for students, professionals, and casual users alike. Be sure to check recent reviews and specifications to find the best fit for your needs.
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The best laptops under $500 probably won’t impress you with their performance or aesthetics. But when you are on a budget made of the barest-of-bones, putting your money toward something realiable becomes priority number one. A laptop in this price range should run simple tasks quickly, have a decent amount of battery life, and shouldn’t feel like it will fall apart if you poke it. Anything else and you’re looking at laptops that cost upwards of $1,000—or more.
The good news: not only do those laptops exist, but also, thanks to advancements in CPU technology, you don’t have to compromise on speed as was the case several years ago. Our pick for the best overall, the 2021 Acer Swift 3, (available at Amazon) has an 11th-gen Intel processor, but even if you needed to batch-tag hundreds of photos, you won’t have to wait around forever for the laptop to finish.
BEST OVERALL
The Acer Swift 3 is one of the lightest budget laptops we’ve ever tested—under 3 pounds like much more expensive thin-and-light laptops. It also has the second-fastest processor and second-longest battery life on this list, but it just cannot seem to fall below $500.
We have our fingers crossed for a sale, but if you have wiggle room in your budget, we recommend getting this laptop over the Acer Aspire 5. For that extra amount, you get a small uplift in processing performance, double the RAM, double the storage, and 3-4 more hours of battery life, which is a crucial feature for productivity laptops. The Swift 3’s display is also an inch larger than the Aspire 5.
However, you’ll probably have better luck finding this 2022 version of the Swift 3 with an Intel Core i5-1240P processor and 8GB of RAM for around $500. It’s more power-efficient, the CPU is about 25% faster (although you most likely won’t notice a difference using simple programs in your day-to-day), and its battery life is about the same.
Read our full Acer Swift 3 review.
BEST 2-IN-1
We like the Lenovo Yoga 6’s thin, light form and great battery life. The keyboard is responsive and key travel isn’t too shallow or deep. The touchscreen is fast and accurate, and a stylus feels like writing on paper. The compact size makes it easy to switch from laptop to tablet mode as needed.
It’s slower in single core processing performance (one of the metrics that matter most for budget laptops), but much faster in multicore compared to our top pick. It loads websites and browser-based applications at roughly the same speed as our best overall.
If you can find the Lenovo Yoga 6 for close to or under $500, you’ll get a good deal.
Read our full Lenovo Yoga 6 review.
The Acer Aspire 5 packs a lot of value into a small price tag. Its sleek profile and midrange processor, are ready to take on basic productivity tasks at home, work, and school. While its build isn’t as nice as pricier laptops, it has almost as much power and will keep kicking for a few years if you treat it well.
A spare storage bay inside lets you upgrade the storage later for futureproofing, which we see less often in modern laptops. This machine is great for writing papers, making Cricut cutting machine designs, or checking emails.
Should you take it with you to your office or a coffee shop, you can squeeze a little over 6 hours of battery life out of the Aspire 5 before you’ll need to run to a power outlet. It also boasts a surprising number of ports, including USB-A, USB-C, Ethernet, and HDMI ports.
Read our full Acer Aspire 5 review.
The Vaio FE14 has finally come down enough in price for us to add it to our list of recommendations. For around $420, its 12th-gen Intel processor will net you similar or slightly better performance than most of the laptops on this list. It also has one of the largest storage capacities and the fastest integrated graphics.
It’s not the greatest-looking laptop, but it comes in fun colors and we appreciated the “old school” buttons on the trackpad. It doesn’t have a bright display, so you may discover the screen gets washed out in sunlight or bright indoor lighting.
But is Vaio FE14 reliable and runs fast enough—that’s what counts in this price range.
Read our full Vaio FE14 review.
This Gateway 15.6 Ultraslim Notebook offers a ton of memory and a respectable amount of storage space, and it has an equivalent processor as our best overall pick.
If you find yourself running out of storage, you can either get a microSD card for the slot on the left, or you can install a second SSD stick in a hideaway compartment on the bottom. Other ports include a USB-C port, an HDMI port, two USB-A ports, and a headphone jack. There’s even a fingerprint reader at the top left of the trackpad, a rare feature for this price range.
The Dell Inspiron 15 is a good, affordable laptop that foregoes bells and whistles to focus on essentials. Performance is solid enough to handle everyday computing tasks like word processing. The keyboard is comfortable, and overall the machine feels well-built enough to survive a short drop to the floor once or twice. The chassis is made of dull gray plastic, but it does hide fingerprints well.
You can get a better-value Inspiron 15 if you bump up the processor to a 12th-gen Intel (although say goodbye to the touchscreen). And if you need to run programs from outside of the Microsoft store, you’ll need to disable the restrictive Windows S mode that’s on by default. Luckily, that’s easy to do.
Read our full Dell Inspiron 15 review.
The Lenovo Chromebook Flex 5 may be older, but it gets a lot right. It offers quality mid-range components in a rugged case. We got it to run several simultaneous apps and dozens of Chrome tabs before it started slowing down.
The chassis is attractive and sturdy enough to tote around. We love the brightness and color reproduction of the 1080p touch display, but we wish we didn’t need to bring our stylus to the party. However, the trackpad and keyboard alike are comfortable enough to use for a long time.
If you like the Flex 5 but need something faster, there is a more recent configuration available that has a better value.
The Lenovo IdeaPad Chromebook Duet 3 isn’t a powerhouse, but ChromeOS doesn’t require a powerhouse. For under $390, this is a strong option. We love its display, the keyboard folio cover, its compact size, and its lengthy battery life. As long as you don’t need to push it too hard, it’s a good contender for a budget laptop.
This convertible laptop is astonishingly light. Even with the detachable keyboard included, it weighs under two pounds. It can take a while to load up videos and other media, but once they’re running, they look great on the bright, color-rich 1200p display. Its battery gets 10 hours on a single charge, which is great at any price range.
Read our full Lenovo IdeaPad Chromebook Duet 3 review.
The 2-in-1 Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 is a good machine that’ll fit neatly into someone’s existing Samsung ecosystem. The processor isn’t going to win any races, but it can handle multiple apps or juggle plenty of Chrome tabs.
The Galaxy Chromebook 2 has a bright, vibrant 1080p QLED display, topping out at 440 nits. Shows like Life in Color and video games like Cyberpunk 2077 look gorgeous on this screen.
Interacting with the tablet is decently smooth. The trackpad could stand to be more responsive, but the touchscreen is great. The keyboard is shallow, so it’s quieter but less satisfying.
Here at Reviewed, we put every laptop we can through a standard battery of tests and benchmarks. We measure graphics power, processor capability, battery life, screen brightness, and more. We test multiple platforms and form factors.
We use popular, industry-standard benchmarks like Geekbench and 3DMark to gauge how well the laptop can multitask, run games, and more. We also get hands-on with each machine to gauge usability factors like convenience and durability.
We also test battery life by simulating a long stretch of moderate web browsing. We put the screen brightness at 200 nits, which is fairly moderate but close to the maximum for many of these budget models. Then we set them to cycle through popular websites until they run out of power. This gives us an idea of how much work you can get done on a single charge.
When it comes to laptops, $500 is the low end. If you spend any less than that, you may wind up with something too slow to be useful, or too shoddy to last long.
On an even tighter budget, we strongly recommend buying a refurbished laptop instead. Buying refurbished can get you a like-new version of last year’s model at a sizable discount.
In any case, laptop shopping in this price range means you probably won’t find everything in one package. Think about what you want from your machine, and what you can skip. There are a few factors to consider.
The CPU, GPU, RAM, and storage inside your PC affect its performance. They determine how well your computer can multitask, handle intensive tasks like gaming, and store all your files. The better the specs, the snappier the laptop will feel as you work.
You’ll see many of Intel’s entry-level i3 and mid-range i5 processors here. You’ll also usually see RAM cap out at 8GB. (You can get away with 4GB. However, given how much memory modern web browsing can take up, avoid it if you can afford to.)
One place you don’t want to scrimp is storage. Most people find that by the time they’re finished downloading movies or taking photos, they’ve used more storage than they realized. If you can’t afford a lot of storage now, look for an SD card slot. That gives you the option to buy more storage affordably later on.
Since you’re lugging this computer around, you want it to be able to withstand some wear and tear. You also want interaction with it to be as smooth as possible. That means making sure that the keyboard and trackpad are easy to use.
Cramming a lot of features into a small space tends to drive up the price. That’s why many budget laptops are larger than their high-end counterparts. You’re way less likely to find features like fingerprint scanners at this price point. After all, each bell and whistle cost money to include.
Consider your operating system, too. Windows is still the dominant OS these days, especially for gaming. You’ll also probably want Windows if you need certain software for work. Lots of photo and video editing software is also Windows-specific
Many budget laptops come with Windows in “S Mode,” which limits your app installation to apps on the Microsoft Store. Luckily, you can easily remove it, and we recommend nearly everyone do so.
Windows laptops at this price point also typically have pre-installed “bloatware,” too. These included freebies offer little value but can bog your computer down. You can remove them from Windows’ uninstall menu. You can also completely wipe out bloatware by installing a clean copy of Windows to override the pre-installed, bloated version that comes out of the box.
If most of what you do is online, Chromebooks can offer surprising utility at a great price. Beyond Netflix and Gmail, there’s plenty of web-based work software like Google Docs. Adding online photo editors like Pixlr and Chromebooks can make a lot of sense. Many web apps can even work offline when you don’t have Wi-Fi.
Chromebooks are also cheaper since so much processing effort happens in the cloud instead of in the machine. They have a Linux-based operating system, so they tend to be free of viruses and bloatware. If you use Chrome Remote Desktop, you can remotely access your Windows PC on the go.
The display size looks a little different at this price point. While the laptops themselves are often larger, screen sizes tend to be smaller to help save on cost. Many of the models we’ve listed here float around 11 inches. You may occasionally find something larger, but generally, this space is dominated by screens that are 13 inches or less.
You’ll also want to consider how many USB ports the laptop has, whether you need HDMI and Ethernet, and how comfortable the keyboard and trackpad are to use—this can vary quite a bit from model to model, and it’s important to get something responsive and durable.
Prices were accurate at the time this article was published but may change over time.
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Source: reviewed
