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Need a new laptop , but not have much to spend? Shopping for a low-cost model is all about making careful, eyes-open compromises. At PCMag, we've been reviewing laptops in depth for more than four decades, so we know how pricey they can be and what the trade-offs are. Our reviews routinely tap laptops that sell for less than $500, and we've scoped out the best-value options. We test all laptops with rigorous, repeatable benchmark tests and evaluate on the basis of performance, display quality, connectivity, and overall build. Chromebooks tend to dominate at this price tier, but our current Windows favorite under $500 is the Acer Aspire 3 (A315-24P), which won us over with its AMD Ryzen-powered performance, long battery life, and low price, which often dips below $300. That's not the only model we recommend, though: Check out our other top tested picks, plus a detailed buying guide and spec comparison.
What Are the Important Specs in Budget Laptops?
When you limit yourself to $500 or less for a laptop, you need to manage your expectations. There are a lot of ways to save money on a cheap notebook, but a price this low is going to require you to prioritize just what's important. Budget laptops in this price range will have certain limitations in hardware, performance, and storage, and these all carry over to the end-user experience. Read on to learn what to expect and what trade-offs are required when your spending power is limited.
Chromebooks vs. Windows Laptops
Budget shoppers will quickly learn that many of the most affordable laptop choices are powered by ChromeOS rather than Windows. (Apple macOS laptops, even the cheapest ones, aren't sold new for anything close to $500.)
But Chromebooks aren't a bad choice, especially for getting the best value out of an affordable laptop. Their low-priced hardware is well suited to the online-centric ChromeOS experience, and this lightweight operating system runs great on relatively low-end components.
But you can find some Windows laptops in this price range, and they're worth considering if you need to run specific apps. Just be aware that paired with modest components and limited storage, the Windows experience may not be everything you'd want it to be.
Frugal Form Factors: Clamshells, 2-in-1s, and Detachables
Even on a tight budget, you can choose among several different designs, from traditional clamshell laptops to 2-in-1 rotating convertible designs and detachable tablets. Some thin-and-light designs are quite portable.
However, any category of laptop that is truly defined by its hardware—such as gaming laptops, mobile workstations, or rugged laptops—will cost more than your $500 budget will allow. Even the cheapest gaming rigs tend to cost $700 or more, and few business laptops cater to the budget shopper unless you are looking at older, refurbished models.
If you look, you can find a light carry-weight laptop under $500. Thin plastic designs are par for the course, with many weighing close to the 3 pounds that we use to categorize ultraportable laptops, and a fair number weighing even less than that thanks to compact or tablet-centered designs.
The CPU: Low Prices Mean Low-Powered Processors
The actual computing in any laptop is done by the CPU, making a great processor essential to getting a great laptop. Unfortunately, that usually means paying more. When shopping for sub-$500 laptops, the selection of processors won't conform to the Intel Core processors you might be familiar with. You can find a few of those, but Intel's Core 3 (or i3) or AMD's Ryzen 3 are usually the best you'll find, with some exceptions. Other brands, like Qualcomm, and even less prominent manufacturers, like MediaTek, have a foothold in Chromebooks.
RAM and Storage: Modest Memory of Both Kinds
We usually recommend against buying any computer with less than 8GB of RAM, but memory options on cheap laptops are often lower than that, with 4GB models making up some of our suggestions. A 4GB RAM amount will suffice in a basic Chromebook for browsing a few tabs at a time, but 4GB should be avoided in a Windows machine. The most affordable laptops are prone to lagging when trying to do more than one task or when opening many application windows at a time, and more demanding uses such as video editing are severely limited or impossible.
Storage space will tend to be limited, too, with 128GB being on the high end for these value laptops. If you can find a notebook with 256GB or even 512GB of storage in this price range, that's a win, but you'll more likely want to invest in a portable external SSD to give you better storage capacity.
Solid-state drives don't come standard, either. In these inexpensive models, you're more likely to find alternative storage formats such as eMMC and UFS . These options are usable, especially for Chromebooks, which rely more on cloud storage than local drives, but the smaller capacity and slower formats will affect overall performance.
What Kind of Wi-Fi? Connectivity on the Cheap
One area where you may not need to make many compromises is connectivity. Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth are common on current laptops, even low-priced models. Sure, newer, faster wireless standards, like Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7, are nice, but Wi-Fi 6 is more than capable of the workaday web browsing and media streaming that these affordable systems are built for.
The port selection also tends to be decent, with USB Type-C and larger USB Type-A ports being common. A number of systems are outfitted with full-size HDMI monitor connectors and microSD card slots. The high-speed Thunderbolt 4 and USB4 interfaces, on the other hand, are still limited to pricier systems, so be ready to pay more if you need faster connectivity.
Battery Life: Being Budget-Friendly Can Have Its Perks
One unexpected benefit of low-powered hardware is that many of these inexpensive laptops also have fairly long battery life. Test results of 10 hours or more in our video rundown are quite common, with many lasting even longer. The longest-lasting model in our recommendation lineup stretched the battery a full 21 hours on a single charge, making it great for longer uses (so long as you keep the Wi-Fi off). Part of the reason is that dimmer, lower-resolution screens and lower-power CPUs make less demands on the battery than powerful parts do.
The Display: Discount Panels and Touch Screens
Touch screens are one feature that you might not expect to see at this price point, but thanks to the abundance of decent 2-in-1 Chromebook designs, touch-capable displays are not impossible to find among the under-$500 set. (They are much less common on inexpensive clamshell models, though.)
Touch is one thing, but high resolutions and OLED panels aren't common on these budget models. In the under-$500 category, you're most likely limited to 1,920-by-1,080-pixel full HD or 1080p resolution, and most will use cheap LCD screens instead of the nicer IPS variants found on mainstream models. Looking at the screen before you buy, if you can, is always a good idea.
What About Graphics and Gaming?
Finally, the one thing you're guaranteed not to find in these bargain-priced models is a discrete graphics processor. GPU hardware adds a lot of expense to a laptop, and that means uses like gaming and GPU-powered media creation aren't really an option for shoppers on a shoestring. If you're really pressed on price and absolutely need the extra graphics power, consider buying a used or refurbished model from a year or two back, as that's your best bet for gaming-grade components.
Is a Laptop Under $500 Worth It?
Don't get too discouraged reading about specs and performance on these budget-friendly laptops. For most shoppers, a laptop serves as a web browsing machine, used more for social media and occasionally typing up some documents than it is for anything requiring a more capable model. And with the right laptop, you'll still get plenty of usability, even with lightweight processors and minimal specs.
We've reviewed plenty of in the $600 or $700 range, along with reasonably priced laptops for kids and laptops for college students . These can be especially enticing if student discounts are available to knock off part of the expense. We find that that price range is the real sweet spot for basic Windows machines.
Plus, it doesn't cost a whole lot more to step up in power and performance. Our recommendations for and the open up a lot of possibilities, at prices that are still quite attainable. You can even find some for three instead of four figures.
Ready to Buy the Best Laptop Under $500 for You?
You may be on a budget, but you're not out of luck—if you look, you'll find some very serviceable Chromebooks, Windows clamshells, and 2-in-1 laptops under $500. By knowing what you want and what your cash can buy you, you can still find a decent deal on a laptop that will do the job.
We've laid out our favorite frugal options here, but you'll still need to decide whether you want a Chromebook or a Windows machine, a laptop or a 2-in-1 design, and even whether you want features, like a touch screen, that may be rare in the very cheapest laptops. The specs for all of our top picks are listed in our spec comparison, along with links to the full reviews. And if $500 is too tight a filter for what you are looking for, also check out our roundup of the best budget laptops and our picks for the best laptops overall.
