Best budget laptops 2025: 4 laptops under $500 I recommend Leave a comment
Searching for one of the best laptops below $500 can really feel like a monumental process. Even one of the best funds fashions lack the flashier options of pricier machines, and it’s arduous to know for those who’re shopping for one thing that may final. However inexpensive laptops that nail the necessities — and even throw in a bonus function or two — do exist.
Setting sensible expectations is essential on this value vary. In case your wants are primary—net shopping, writing papers, streaming, or utilizing productiveness apps—there are stable sub-$500 laptops that may deal with the job. These machines are nice for college students, children, or anybody searching for a dependable secondary system with out breaking the financial institution. When you’ll discover Windows choices right here, the best Chromebooks usually provide higher worth.
Naturally, some tradeoffs come with the lower cost. Don’t expect top-tier specs, high-end graphics, or premium materials. You should expect slower processors, limited storage, and decent displays. Still, the best budget models make smart compromises, and every laptop on our list has one standout feature: long battery life. If you know what you need, a budget laptop can absolutely be worth it.
This page is regularly updated with our latest reviews to reflect Laptop Mag’s top picks for 2025.
Click to view recent updates to this page
Update log
5/5/2025: Added FAQs, testing charts, and Acer Chromebook Spin 312. Up to date “how to decide on” part.
The Quick List
1. Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus
Greatest general
The leveled-up Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus presents AI-infused next-level efficiency in a enjoyable, inexpensive 2-in-1.
2. Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook
Greatest below $300
The Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook’s OLED show and 13+ hours of battery life make it a near-perfect Chromebook. Because it’s removable, you’ll be able to have a laptop computer and pill expertise.
3. Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14
Greatest Home windows laptop computer
The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14 is a compromise between value and energy. It is among the few Home windows laptops that will not combust at this value.
4. Acer Chromebook Spin 312
Greatest for college students
Nice battery life, easy trackpad, and a colourful 12.2-inch show matched with an affordable $450 price ticket.
Joanna Nelius
Joanna Nelius has reviewed laptops and pc {hardware} since 2018. Her work has appeared in The Verge, USA Right this moment, Gizmodo, PC Gamer, and Most PC. She holds an MFA from Chapman College and works as a artistic writing teacher.
Best overall
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If you’re looking for a modern laptop that won’t break the bank, we cannot recommend the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus sufficient. That is a mouthful, so I recommend it’s lots of work. However right here it’s, in all of its Intel Core i3 glory. Slap on 8GB of RAM and a 1080p show, and you’ve got fairly an honest laptop computer for slightly below $500.
When you may anticipate poor efficiency from a Chromebook, the IdeaPad Flex 5 averaged a Geekbench 6 multi-core rating of 5,384, simply above the 5,259 Chromebook common. It is also far above the efficiency of the Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook’s common of 1,727 and the Lenovo Flex 5 14 (Intel)’s common of three,841.
To make that efficiency much more precious, this can be a Chromebook. Which means you will not run into intensive duties as usually as you’ll with a Home windows laptop computer. On prime of that tremendous AI-backed efficiency, it additionally presents near 10 hours of battery life. That’ll take you into extra time (paid, or else name me).
One in every of my favourite options in regards to the IdeaPad Flex 5i is its design. You received’t get caught with a clunky laptop computer that appears prefer it got here straight out of battling Home windows 95. If I didn’t know any higher, I’d say this was a premium laptop computer by the appears of it. It is available in at 12.4 x 9.0 x 0.8 inches and three.6 kilos. It’s not the lightest or the thinnest, but it surely makes up for it by being a sturdy shoulder to lean on.
Yeah, its 14-inch, 1080p show is not colourful, however its 16:10 facet ratio offers you extra vertical house to work with.
See our full Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus review.
Best under $300
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The Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook has been at the top of this list for years, and that’s only recently changed because we want to make room for more up-to-date products. However, that doesn’t change the fact that it is an absolute champion.
Regarding our synthetic benchmark tests, the Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook has some of the most underwhelming performance on this list. The Duet 5 Chromebook’s Geekbench 5 multi-core average of 1,727 is well below the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14 (Intel)’s 3,841 average. It is above the Acer Chromebook 317’s 1,137, though both laptops fall below the Chromebook average of 2,253.
This baby is packed with a 13.3-inch, 1920 x 1080 OLED display. It reproduced 85.2 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut and averaged 361 nits of brightness. Those numbers we’d see in premium laptops — and some of those more expensive items don’t get as bright or colorful. And an OLED panel is an impressive addition. You’d find those in gaming laptops, MacBook competitors, and big TVs.
Speaking of dissing premium laptops, this detachable will also get you 13 hours and 31 minutes of battery life. That’s almost enough battery life to land on our laptops with the best battery life web page. That alone is a wonderful package deal for below $300. However there’s extra! This can be a removable 2-in-1, which means it could possibly go from a pill to a full laptop computer. And in contrast to some pricier detachables, this machine contains the keyboard and canopy (I want that weren’t boast-worthy, however it’s).
The one downsides to this machine are its comparatively weak efficiency and lack of a stylus. However for the worth, it is fairly rattling good.
See our full Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook review.
Best Windows laptop
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It’s a challenge to find a Windows laptop for under $500 that won’t be DOA when it gets to your doorstep. That’s where the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14 (Intel) comes in. Another chunky name for another star on this list. It’s got everything you need to make a laptop work at this price — strong performance, over 14 hours of battery life, and a comfortable keyboard. The battery life alone is enough to sell me on this machine, as we’ve seen plenty of budget and premium laptops die before they could get across the 8-hour mark.
The IdeaPad Flex 5 performed well in our lab, but it failed to blow us away. The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14 (Intel) averaged a score of 3,841 on Geekbench 5’s multicore benchmark. This is above the Chromebook average of 2,253 and is also well ahead of the Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook (1,727) and Acer Chromebook 713 (1,137). However, the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus does have far snappier performance.
How was the keyboard so comfortable? Each stroke was met with a tactile click at the end, encouraging our fingers to tap dance across the deck at top speed. It was a little more shallow than we would’ve liked, but the typing experience was pleasant overall.
When we first reviewed the IdeaPad Flex 5 it hovered around $500-$650 depending on the configuration, but you can now find it for under $500 or even $400 for the base model, making it an even better value and easily the best Windows laptop under $500.
However, it might be more difficult to find the Intel version, but if you see the AMD Ryzen 3 mannequin, it’ll seemingly provide the identical advantages simply with barely completely different efficiency and battery life. Since we didn’t take a look at it, we are able to’t say for certain.
See our full Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14 review.
Best for students
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The best under $500 laptop for students is a Chromebook I wish every student at my school had entry to: the Acer Chromebook Spin 312. It would be a serious improve from the pre-pandemic Dell‘s that fill the laptop computer charging cart in my classroom.
Its silver-coated chassis makes it look dearer that it truly is. It isn’t the thinnest laptop computer we have ever reviewed, but it surely is among the lightest at slightly below 3 kilos. (I would not wish to carry something heavier between lessons all day!) The battery can last as long as 10 hours and 33 minutes totally charged, too.
A pair small, distinctive options make this laptop computer standout; Acer’s OceanGlass touchpad is the smoothest I’ve ever felt on a funds laptop computer — even in comparison with some costly Home windows laptops. The Corning Gorilla Glass coating on the Spin 312’s 12.2-inch show makes colours seem extra vivid than what the IPS panel can truly produce.
In keeping with Laptop computer Magazine’s assessments, it covers solely 55% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut. However the colours do not look desaturated, and the contrasts are extra dramatic, in comparison with how they might look on an IPS panel with the identical colour protection and no coating.
The keyboard is not the worst I’ve ever tried, even when it does have a wierd clicky-squishy really feel that makes the thinness of the plastic keycaps actually noticeable. However the Spin 312 is a 2-in-1 laptop computer, so if taking notes by hand is extra your model you will not want to fret about that — not till its time to sort that essay on George Orwell’s 1984, no less than.
See our full Acer Chromebook Spin 312 review.
Benchmark comparisons
Click to view chart data in table format
| Row 0 – Cell 0 |
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus |
Lenovo Duet 5 Chromebook |
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 14 |
Acer Chromebook Spin 312 |
|
Geekbench 6 (Higher is better) |
5,384 |
NA |
NA |
4,477 |
|
Geekbench 5 (Higher is better) |
NA |
1,727 |
3,841 |
NA |
|
Jetstream 2 (Higher is better) |
272.91 |
70.1 |
NA |
215 |
|
CrXPRT 2 (Higher is better) |
NA |
55 |
NA |
140 |
|
Handbrake time ((MM:SS), lower is better) |
NA |
NA |
25:30 |
NA |
|
Battery life – Web surfing (HH:MM) |
09:43 |
13:31 |
14:16 |
10:33 |
|
SSD transfer speeds (MBps, higher is better) |
NA |
NA |
565.9 |
NA |
|
DCI-P3 Color Gamut (Higher is better) |
46.5% |
85.2% |
45% |
55% |
|
Display Brightness (Nits, higher is better) |
306 |
361 |
200 |
277 |
|
Hottest temperature (95 degree comfort threshold) |
89.5 |
NA |
94 |
91.5 |
Recently reviewed
Not every laptop can make the best laptops under $500 page; we review new laptops every week and over 100 laptops yearly. But here’s a look at our most recently reviewed laptops that didn’t make this page either due to a fault, price, battery life, display brightness, or something else.
How to choose one of the best laptops under $500
To make your shopping process a little easier, we put together some tried-and-true guidelines to help you choose the best laptop for under $500.
Budget: What you get for the money
You can find decent Windows laptops and great Chromebooks for below $500. However pay shut consideration to the specs — the whole lot from inside {hardware} to keyboard high quality. We completely the great and dangerous of low cost laptops in our evaluations, so you may know what laptops provide roughly for his or her value.
If we’ve not reviewed it, we advocate typing the laptop computer’s title into your favourite search engine adopted by “assessment.” You must discover what you’ll want to make an knowledgeable choice.
Display screen Measurement: 12 to 14 inches for portability
Display screen measurement can inform you numerous a few laptop computer’s general portability. 12-, 13-, and 14-inch fashions are usually the lightest and thinnest, and most $500 and below laptops are available in these sizes.
Kind issue: Clamshell or convertible?
Clamshell (conventional) laptops usually have higher options for a lower cost, however there are an honest variety of convertible laptops with a 360-rotating show (2-in-1s) or removable keyboard which are simply as cheap. If you wish to use your laptop computer as a pocket book or drawing pill, both of these varieties might give you the results you want!
Simply remember that a 2-in-1 in pill mode shall be thicker for the reason that show folds again to fulfill the underside of the keyboard — and that additionally means the keys face outward. Laptops with removable keyboards do not undergo from the identical awkwardness.
Battery Life: 10+ hours
Even a sub-$500 laptop computer ought to have sufficient battery life to final a complete workday earlier than it wants a cost. We advocate shopping for one with no less than 10 hours of battery life, in keeping with our assessments.
Specs: What’s one of the best for $500 or much less?
In the event you come throughout an affordable laptop computer with 16GB RAM, a 256GB storage drive, and an Intel Thirteenth-gen processor or newer, then you definately might need discovered one of many few choices on the market with one of the best specs for the worth.
What you may come throughout extra usually are sub-$500 laptops with some mixture of 8GB RAM, 128GB or much less of space for storing (the slower, eMMC sort), and a MediaTek Kompanio or Intel N-series processor. You will get extra mileage out of these specs with a Chromebook than with a Home windows laptop computer, although.
FAQs
Q: Are budget laptops worth it?
A: If you don’t use a laptop for anything more than checking email, watching videos, or doing homework in Google Docs, there’s a good chance you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the quality of today’s cheap laptops. Some feature snappy processors, clicky keyboards, or colorful displays.
But as Laptop Mag reviews editor, Rami Tabari, points out, not all budget laptops are a great deal. Even on sale. It is essential to maintain the laptop computer’s potential longevity in thoughts, particularly in relation to battery life.
Q: Are laptops getting cheaper?
A: There are many components that finally decide laptop computer pricing (like tariffs), however the common value of a laptop computer has stayed comparatively the identical over the last several years whereas their general high quality has improved. If or when tariff hikes hit laptops, it is seemingly they will be considerably dearer — and it might develop into even more durable to discover a high quality laptop computer below $500.
Q: When are laptops most cost-effective?
A: Black Friday and Cyber Monday are while you’ll often see one of the best offers on laptops, however many producers and retailers have nice offers all year long. (We hold observe of the best laptop deals you will get proper now, so examine ’em out.)
How we test the best laptops under $500
We put each laptop through extensive benchmark testing — both synthetic and real-world — before they end up in the hands of our reviewers. We evaluate each aspect of the laptop, including its performance, battery life, display, speakers, and heat management.
In our benchmark testing, we use a Klein K10 colorimeter to detect the brightness and DCI-P3 color gamut of the laptop’s display. For performance testing, we run the laptop through a gauntlet of benchmarks, including Geekbench 5 and 6 and 3DMark professional graphics tests.
To determine real-world performance, we task the laptop to convert a 4K video to 1080p resolution and to duplicate a 4.97GB multimedia file. Our real-world graphics test is the Sid Meier’s Civilization 6 Gathering Storm benchmark with medium settings at 1080p resolution.
We also run heat tests by playing a 15-minute full-screen video and measuring temperatures in different areas of the laptop. Last but not least, our battery test consists of continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness. For MacBooks and premium Windows 11 laptops, a runtime of over 9 hours is taken into account a great consequence, whereas gaming laptops and workstations that may keep powered for longer than 5 hours deserve reward.
After finishing lab assessments, every laptop computer heads to our skilled reviewers for in-depth, hands-on analysis. They spend a number of days utilizing the laptop computer of their on a regular basis workflows — writing, modifying, video calling, streaming, and extra — to get a really feel for the way it performs in the true world. This mixture of technical evaluation and lived-in expertise helps us ship a well-rounded, sincere perspective on each laptop computer we assessment at Laptop computer Magazine.
See this web page on How We Test Laptops for extra particulars on our benchmarking procedures.
Why trust Laptop Mag
Laptop Mag reviews over one hundred different laptops every year, from paperweight ultralights to everyday workhorses to lumbering gaming notebooks that scorch the frame rates of even the hottest AAA games. We’re not just experts in the laptop field, as we go one step further by meticulously testing smartphones, tablets, headphones, PC accessories, software, and even the latest in gaming.
We are 100% independent and have decades of experience to help you buy with confidence. In fact, Laptop Mag has been testing and reviewing products for three decades, and we continue to deliver trustworthy reviews you can rely on.
Our experienced team of writers and editors scour the available information about the laptop and put it through its paces to determine which is best for you. But before they start, the testing team subjects each system to a rigorous regimen of synthetic and real-world tests to see how a system handles the type of work and games you’re most likely to throw at it.
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