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Not everyone needs the fastest CPU and the highest-quality high-resolution display. Sometimes, a machine with a last-gen CPU and a decent Full HD display is plenty for the web browsing, email, and Office applications that make up many users’ workflows. This can be true for students, or for buyers who are looking for a secondary machine to augment one of the best laptops you can buy.
That’s where budget laptops come in. The definition is a loose one, with some machines costing a bit more, but offering a lot more to go with it. But they’ll save you hundreds over midrange and premium laptops that are overkill for what you need. This list will provide several options, including for gamers and those with the lowest budgets. You can check out our best laptops under $500 and best laptops under $300 lists for even more affordable options.
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Asus ZenBook 14 OLED
Best budget laptop
Pros
- Excellent value
- Competent productivity performance
- Great battery life
- Comfortable keyboard and NumberPad 2.0 touchpad
- Solid build and attractive aesthetic
- Outstanding OLED display
Cons
- Creative performance is lacking
Why you should buy this: The features and battery life are game-changers at the price.
Who it’s for: Anyone who wants a beautiful display for less money,
Why we picked the Asus ZenBook 14 OLED:
Sometimes, companies have to cut corners to fit a laptop into a remarkable $500 price. The display is often one casualty, with a panel that might suffer in terms of color quality and contrast. The ZenBook 14 OLED is a major exception, offering a spectacular OLED display that’s bright, colorful, and displays inky blacks. It’s equal to displays on laptops costing twice as much.
But that’s not all. The AMD Ryzen 5 or 7 CPUs on offer provide competent productivity performance to go with great battery life. And the laptop’s build quality is excellent, with a great keyboard and touchpad with an LED numeric keyboard. It’s a tremendous value all around, landing it on our list of best laptops.
Asus ZenBook 14 OLED
Best budget laptop
Mark Coppock/Digital Trends / Digital Trends
Lenovo Chromebook Duet 3
A Chromebook 2-in-1 that won’t break the bank
Pros
- Good enough productivity performance
- Excellent battery life
- Surprisingly good display
- Folio kickstand and keyboard included
- Strong value
Cons
- Keyboard is too cramped
- Limited to Wi-Fi 5
Why you should buy this: It’s the best budget Chromebook.
Who it’s for: Anyone on a budget who doesn’t mind sacrificing performance for extreme value.
Why we picked the Lenovo Chromebook Duet 3:
Chromebooks have become popular budget choices over the last few years, and many have won us over as well. One style that hasn’t done as well as some others is the detachable Chrome OS tablet. That changed with the introduction of the Lenovo Chromebook Duet, now in its third generation, which not only is a very usable tablet but one that represents tremendous value thanks to the included kickstand cover and detachable keyboard.
The Lenovo Chromebook Duet 3’s low price brings some limitations and basic specs. Its Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 processor, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage don’t deliver stellar performance, although it’s good enough for the kinds of tasks you’ll want to run on it. The display is very nice, with a 15:9 2K (2000 x 1200) resolution that’s not as pixel sharp as Apple’s baseline iPad that the Duet competes against. If you want a tablet for web browsing, light productivity work, and consuming media, then the Chromebook Duet 3 and Chrome OS have you covered.
Lenovo Chromebook Duet 3
A Chromebook 2-in-1 that won’t break the bank
Mark Coppock/Digital Trends / Digital Trends
HP Victus 15
Solid gaming for less than $1,000
Pros
- Solid productivity performance
- Decent 1080p gaming performance
- Good keyboard and touchpad
- Conservative good looks
- Affordable
Cons
- Confusing configurations
- Poor battery life
- Ho-hum screen
Why you should buy this: It’s the best budget gaming laptop.
Who it’s for: Gamers and only gamers.
Why we picked the HP Victus 15:
Although the best gaming laptops are typically expensive, the HP Victus 15 is a great example of why they don’t need to be. Often priced at less than $900, you get some impressive specs. That includes an AMD Ryzen 5 8645HS chipset, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 GPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 512GB solid-state drive (SSD), with options for faster CPUs, more powerful graphics, extra and faster storage, and memory if you don’t mind spending a little more. Every model comes with a 15.6-inch, 1080p IPS display, and for just a little more, that display can run at a refresh rate of 144Hz.
With a decent build quality and surprisingly good gaming performance, the Victus 15 offers an all-around solid gaming package at an impressively competitive price. It does have its weak points, most notably that the starting graphics card isn’t as powerful as what you’ll see in more expensive laptops, but it’s still enough for entry-level gaming.
HP Victus 15
Solid gaming for less than $1,000
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Dell Inspiron 15 3000 Laptop
A business laptop for less
Pros
- Large display
- Good keyboard and touchpad
- Solid build quality
- Spill-resistant keyboard
Cons
- Display is only Full HD
- CPU is one generation behind
Why you should buy this: It’s the best budget business laptop.
Who it’s for: Office workers who want to save the cash for other investments.
Why we picked the Dell Inspiron 15 3000:
Whether you’re typing up another spreadsheet or winding down with a game at the end of a long workday, the Dell Inspiron 15 3000 strikes a great balance as a business laptop. It features powerful and efficient general computing power, like a 12th-generation Intel Core i7-1255U CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. That’s a lot of computer for just $280, even if the chipset is several versions behind.
With the typical Inspiron build quality, we’d expect this system to borrow several great design features from the more premium XPS range but make them available in a more affordable form. It’s not the lightest laptop at just under 4 pounds, but it has a great, spill-resistant keyboard, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth connectivity, and a top-mounted 720p webcam for conferencing.
The Dell Inspiron 15 3000 also comes in an attractive business black paint job, which helps it fit in with any setup.
Dell Inspiron 15 3000 Laptop
A business laptop for less
Mark Coppock / Digital Trends
Apple MacBook Air M1
The only MacBook that could be considered ‘cheap’
Pros
- Apple’s M1 blows Intel away
- Phenomenal battery life
- Excellent keyboard and touchpad
- Rock-solid build quality
- Simple good looks
Cons
- Supports only one external display
Why you should buy this: It’s the only modern MacBook you’ll find for well under $1,000.
Who it’s for: MacBook fans who don’t want to pay thousands for a newer model.
Why we picked the Apple MacBook Air M1:
The MacBook Air M1 isn’t the latest and greatest MacBook, but it still holds it own in a number of ways. Its performance is still excellent, competing easily with recent generation Windows laptops. It also sports impressive battery life, with close to 20-hours between charges. In typical MacBook fashion, too, the build quality is excellent, and the display is Apple’s usual Retina-grade with a high resolution and crisp, bright picture.
The design is lightweight and portable, making it good for use in transit or when commuting, and it supports the fastest possible Thunderbolt 3 connections (up to 40 Gbps) so will work well with any external display or accessory. There’s not a lot of storage space in this base model, but there’s enough there to get you started and external or cloud storage can make up the short fall.
This model is a few years old, but still holds its own well. Grab one while you still can.
Apple MacBook Air M1
The only MacBook that could be considered ‘cheap’
Acer Aspire 3
Best cheap Windows laptop
Pros
- Great performance from the CPU
- Lots of storage space
- Wi-Fi 6 fast networking
- Good selection of ports
Cons
- Lacks a dedicated GPU
- Display is a little dull
Why you should buy this: It’s performance is impressive for the price.
Who it’s for: Anyone who wants a capable laptop for a fair price.
Why we picked the Acer Aspire 3:
For basic business and entertainment use, you’ll find little better than the Acer Aspire 3. It’s a very affordable laptop using a new CPU design – although based on an older Zen 2 architecture – with four cores and support for eight simultaneous threads. It has some fast DDR5 memory and a full half terabyte of SSD space, which gives you plenty of room for documents, films, and and for backing up your important data.
The onboard Radeon GPU is fine for the most casual of gaming, but it won’t be powerful enough for anything taxing. With Thunderbolt 3 you could attach an external GPU if you wanted, although that’s a very expensive add-on for this affordable machine. The Thunderbolt 3 ports are super handy, though. With support for up to 40 Gbps data transfer speeds, you can attach anything from an external monitor to a high-speed external storage drive.
There’s fast networking on this laptop too, thanks to its Wi-Fi 6, though you’ll need to use an adapter if you want Ethernet.
Acer Aspire 3
Best cheap Windows laptop
Frequently Asked Questions
Are budget laptops any good?
Absolutely! Depending on what you need your laptop to do, budget options can be just as good as their high-end counterparts. If you only need a laptop for watching Netflix and answering emails, a budget Chromebook can save you hundreds of dollars and perform no worse than something that costs $2,000 or more.
That said, you do need to be careful about which system you pick. Budget laptops tend to make some sacrifices where the expensive options don’t, so be sure to make sure that the system you’re interested in can do what you need it to before buying.
Do any budget laptops have Thunderbolt 4?
Certain features are less common in budget laptops, and Thunderbolt 4 is one of them. Plenty of budget laptops offer USB-C support, but only some provide Intel’s Thunderbolt 4 spec. This is changing, however, and future budget laptops are more likely to include it. Good Thunderbolt 3 ports are just as good, too, so look out for them.
Do budget laptops have good battery life?
Some do, and some don’t. The models that prioritize portability tend to offer a little more, and you’ll want to skip a dedicated graphics chip if you want the most battery life. The MacBook Air M1 is amazingly efficient, offering close to 20 hours of battery life.
However, you can find plenty of budget systems that offer a full workday and beyond on a single charge. In some cases, budget laptops offer better battery life than many laptops that cost a few hundred dollars more. Many Chromebooks also offer impressive battery life thanks to how lightweight the software is.
Can I find a good display on a budget laptop?
Definitely, but as with battery life or specific ports, you’ll need to pick and choose the right laptop. A good display will need to be a key component of the laptop, as color accuracy and contrast can be some areas where savings can be made on certain systems.
Is AMD better for budget laptops?
Even so, we strongly suggest that you consider AMD when picking your next budget laptop. If you can find one that matches your needs, you’ll get much better performance per buck.
