You might think that buying a new laptop will cost a lot of money. If you are willing to put in the time and work, you can still find great deals. Even if you know a lot about computers, it’s harder to get a good laptop for less than $500 since the COVID-19 virus made people work from home. There were a lot of problems in the last year, but people still want to use Windows or Chrome OS (also known as a Chromebook). Even though the WFH rushes caused by the coronavirus are over, there are still not enough parts. There is also a lot of demand for cheap hardware and low-cost laptops.
We don’t want you to move quickly, even though there is a lot of interest. Like this one, there are a lot of cheap laptops that are not worth the money. For those that are worth it, we’ve picked out the best laptops under $500 to help you find the one with the features and hardware specs that are right for you.
Think Long-term
Don’t buy something just because you need it as a general rule. For example, don’t buy a laptop for $500 just because you can’t find one for less. It can be like going grocery shopping when you’re starving. Even when they’re only $500, laptops can cost a lot. If what Intel and PC makers say about statistics is true, you’ll have it for at least three years.
You can also try to get a little more life out of your current laptop by taking care of it. Check out places where you can buy used computers, and if you work for a charity or school, see if you can get a discount. You should also look for a laptop with the most important features you want, such as a touch screen or keys that light up. You’ll be sorry if you don’t.
If you plan to keep your laptop for a long time, you could spend a little more money to get more memory or a processor with more cores. Check to see if this is possible. If you haven’t thought about it yet, AMD Ryzen processors might be a good alternative to Intel Core. Look into them.
A cheap laptop whose battery can be changed or that has more memory, a better graphics card, and more space to store things. Or any or all of these. You won’t have to stay home all the time, either. Think about how important it will be to you, in the long run, to have a light laptop with a long battery life.
You could add an extra drive or two (or five, if you’re me) in a few years. Cheap laptops often have hard drives that spin slowly. Even if you have a fast external hard drive, it won’t be able to help speed up loading Windows or other programs. If you need to, you can usually set up a computer to start up from an external solid-state drive.
When talking about slow hard drives that spin at 5,400 RPM, you may hear the term “Intel Optane.” Optane is fast solid-state memory that helps speed things up by storing frequently used files temporarily on the hard drive. This isn’t as good as an SSD drive, but it doesn’t help as much.
Lastly, if you’re getting rid of an old Windows laptop that can’t run Windows anymore, you might want to turn it into a Chromebook.
Trade-offs
Don’t buy something just because you need it as a general rule. For example, don’t buy a laptop for $500 just because you can’t find one for less. It can be like going grocery shopping when you’re starving. Even when they’re only $500, laptops can cost a lot. If what Intel and PC makers say about statistics is true, you’ll have it for at least three years.
You can also try to get a little more life out of your current laptop by taking care of it. Check out places where you can buy used computers, and if you work for a charity or school, see if you can get a discount. You should also look for a laptop with the most important features you want, such as a touch screen or keys that light up. You’ll be sorry if you don’t.
If you plan to keep your laptop for a long time, you could spend a little more money to get more memory or a processor with more cores. Check to see if this is possible. If you haven’t thought about it yet, AMD Ryzen processors might be a good alternative to Intel Core. Look into them.
A cheap laptop whose battery can be changed or that has more memory, a better graphics card, and more space to store things. Or any or all of these. You won’t have to stay home all the time, either. Think about how important it will be to you in the long run to have a light laptop with a long battery life.
You could add an extra drive or two (or five, if you’re me) in a few years. Cheap laptops often have hard drives that spin slowly. Even if you have a fast external hard drive, it won’t be able to help speed up loading Windows or other programmes. If you need to, you can usually set up a computer to start up from an external solid-state drive.
When talking about slow hard drives that spin at 5,400 RPM, you may hear the term “Intel Optane.” Optane is fast solid-state memory that helps speed things up by storing frequently used files temporarily on the hard drive. This isn’t as good as an SSD drive, but it doesn’t help as much.
Lastly, if you’re getting rid of an old Windows laptop that can’t run Windows anymore, you might want to turn it into a Chromebook.
Lenovo’s Duet Chromebook is a part laptop, part Android tablet
But because they are cloud-first, you don’t need a lot of storage space built in because they don’t need it. You can also use them to surf the web, write, watch videos on your phone, or play Android games if you do those things a lot. If you want to play Android games, you’ll need a laptop that you can touch.
Most games won’t work on a laptop that costs less than $500, though. About $700 will get you the least expensive gaming laptop that is still good for the money. These are the laptops that have even moderately powerful discrete graphics processors. If you want to buy the best laptop for playing games, here are our suggestions.
If you like to be on the cutting edge, however, you can use services like Google Stadia and Microsoft Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to play games on low-end laptops that cost less than $500.
Specs to keep in mind
As long as Chromebooks can only run apps for Chrome OS and Android, some people need the full Windows OS to run heavier apps like video editing software. To make things faster, you’ll need a computer with a lot of cores, memory (at least 8GB), and a lot of storage. Many of them have 4GB or 6GB of memory, which can make Windows run very slowly when used with a spinning hard drive.
- In this price range, I’m seeing a lot of Windows laptops with AMD Athlon and lower-end A series and Intel Celeron processors to keep the price down. Because Windows is too heavy for them, I don’t think I’d recommend getting an Athlon or a Celeron instead of a Ryzen or a Core or a Xeon. With the 4GB of memory that many of these have, you might find them slow at best.
- There are a lot of people who like the 11-inch Chromebooks because they are cheap. But we don’t think that size is good for anyone but the youngest kids. And if you’re both going to be looking at the screen a lot when you’re learning from home, 11 inches can be very small.
- There is a big difference in how fast Windows runs on a spinning hard drive and on a solid-state drive, but they also cost more money than a spinning hard drive. So if your budget can go a little further and you want more storage, you might want to think about getting a 128GB SSD.
- Keep an eye on screen terminology when it comes to specs: An “HD” screen may not always be a truly high-definition screen, but it could be. Some people call HD “Full HD,” which has a resolution of 1,920×1,080 pixels. This allows marketers to refer to lower-resolution displays (1,280×720 pixels) as HD, which they can sell to people. There are many different kinds of Chromebooks, but the term “HD” is most commonly used to describe a screen with a resolution of 1,366×768 pixels. Another common complaint I hear is about “washed-out” looking displays that are hard to see from all angles. In the end, that’s one of the trade-offs: It’s cheap, but it’s not very good. A lot of these have TN (twisted nematic) screens.
- Pay attention to how you meet people. If you buy cheap models with older chipsets, they might only be able to use Wi-Fi 3 (or 802.11b/g/n). These chipsets, known as 802.11ac, also have a 5GHz channel. Wi-Fi 3 only has 2.4GHz channels; these are slower than chipsets with Wi-Fi 4 (aka 802.11ac). It’s not always easy to figure out what the specifications are on the shopping sites. If you see a model that doesn’t seem to have Wi-Fi 4, double-check on the manufacturer’s site before you rule it out. Remember that Chromebooks are mostly used to connect to the internet, so Wi-Fi speed and stability are very important.
Some of the best Windows laptops and Chromebooks under $500 in 2022, with their pros and cons, are shown in this list.
However, the screen is small, so if you often use it at a desk, we recommend connecting an external monitor to its USB-C port. You might also want to connect a wireless keyboard and mouse.
It comes with an AMD Ryzen 3 3200U processor, which has Vega graphics processing. This is the Acer Aspire 5 15-inch clamshell from 2022. It also has a USB 3.1 Gen 1 port, two USB 2.0 ports, and an HDMI port. Some of the features of this Acer Aspire 15-inch laptop don’t allow you to run a lot of programs or open a lot of browser tabs at the same time, but the laptop weighs less than 4 pounds. Some other models have come out in the last few years, but this one is still there.
If you’d rather have a wider screen instead of the taller one of a 13-inch model, this HP is the way to go. It’s a bit wider than a premium 13.3-inch model, but that extra width makes it easier to work in two windows side by side. The two-in-one design means you can use it as a tablet (though it’s a bit heavy to use handheld) or tent it and connect an external keyboard and mouse and use it as a small all-in-one computer.
In our testing, the Core i3 processor and 8GB of memory kept it running smoothly even with a couple of dozen tabs open and streaming video in the background. And it has a long battery life to boot, lasting 10 hours, 40 minutes in our tests.
This Lenovo laptop has a 13-inch, full HD screen, but it also comes with an Intel Core i3-10110U processor, 4GB of memory, and 64GB of SSD storage for a very good price, making it a good value for the money. There isn’t much use for the Lenovo Flex when you’re outside, because the screen isn’t very bright. There’s also a model with 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD that costs less than $500.
15-inch Samsung Chromebook: This one has a Celeron N4000 processor and 4GB of RAM. It has a hard drive with 32GB of space (plus an extra 32GB via an SD card). There are cheaper laptop versions of the Samsung Chromebook at the same link that start at $390. They’re all 11-inch models, so I wouldn’t buy one unless it was for a young student or a small space.
Amazon is now selling a Core i3 8GB laptop for about $435, which is a good price for a Windows laptop with an Intel Core processor. You’ll also see listings for computers with 4GB of RAM, but that’s way too little memory for Windows, which can only get by with 8GB of RAM. It’s not the same as the Asus VivoBook S15, which is thinner, lighter, and more expensive.
Models are coming, but not yet in stock. There’s a 2020 model that comes in under $500, but it has a high-end Ryzen 5 processor and more storage space. If you want to see what B&H has, you can.
Just a bit above $500
There are times when this laptop’s price drops below $500, but it usually stays around $500.
HP’s high-end mainstream two-in-one is at the top of the range, but this HP laptop has a great set-up for the money. If you buy this laptop, you get a 10th-generation Intel Core i3 processor, 8 GB RAM, and a 128 GB SSD. You also get a convertible and a better build. The screen isn’t real HD, but at 14 inches, that shouldn’t be a big deal.
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