Best Budget Laptops I've Tested: Cheap Computers for Every Use

Lenovo LOQ 15: This budget gaming laptop has an outdated design but serves up modern components and good 3D performance for the price.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 2-in-1: This business convertible boasts great build quality and battery life but the display disappoints.

HP Omen 16: This Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 rig offers good looks and competitive 1080p performance along with surprisingly long battery life and a cool twist on four-zone RGB keyboard backlighting

Alienware Aurora 16: I tested two Alienware Aurora gaming laptopsand this is not the one to get.

Alienware Aurora 16X: This is the Aurora to get.

Acer Nitro V 16S AI: This budget gaming laptop serves up a big screen and big value.

MSI Katana 15 HX: I liked its 1080p performance but little else.

HP OmniBook X Flip 14: This two-in-one laptop offers value and configuration options aboundincluding a 3K OLED display for only an extra $100.

Microsoft Surface Laptop (13-inch): It’s compactsolidly built and great for travelbut the 13.8-inch version is the better choice as your daily driver.

Dell 14 Plus: Skip the two-in-one and opt for the clamshell laptop I tested -- when it goes on sale.

Acer Swift Go 16 (2025): Built around a beautiful 16-inch OLED screenthe latest Swift Go 16 improves on its predecessors without significant price inflation.

Dell 16 Plus 2-in-1: This big-screenmini-LED convertible laptop certainly has some positivesbut there are a few too many negatives to give this Plus a full-throated recommendation.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition: It’s a great business laptopbut it can get pricey fast with upgrades.

Acer Swift 14 AI: This midrange Copilot Plus PC offers incredible battery life but is missing one key feature.

Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i 14 Gen 10: It's ultrastylish and ultracompact but maybe don't hide the camera behind the display next time?

Acer Chromebook Plus 516: The 16-inch display provides plenty of room to work but Acer has a similar model that offers more for less.

The review process for laptops consists of two parts: performance testing under controlled conditions in the CNET Labs and extensive hands-on use by our reviewers. This includes evaluating a device's aestheticsergonomics and features with respect to price. A final review verdict is a combination of objective and subjective judgments. 

We test all laptops with a core set of benchmarksincluding Primate Labs Geekbench 5 and 6, Cinebench R23, PCMark 10a variety of 3DMark benchmarks (whichever can run on the laptop)UL Procyon Photo and Video (where supported)and our own battery life test. If a laptop is intended for gamingwe'll also run benchmarks from Guardians of the GalaxyThe Rift Breaker (CPU and GPU) and Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

Budget laptops tend to have components that don't lend themselves to more advanced content creation -- such as a discrete GPU with sufficient memory -- so we don't typically run graphics-intensive performance tests on this class of laptops.

For the hands-onthe reviewer uses it for their work during the review periodevaluating how well the designfeatures (such as the screencamera and speakers) and manufacturer-supplied software operate as a cohesive whole. With budget laptopsespeciallywe concentrate on how well they work given their cost and where the manufacturer has made tradeoffs to reach the price.

The list of benchmarking software and comparison criteria we use changes over time as the devices we test evolves. 

You can find a more detailed description of our test methodology on our How We Test Computers page. 

There are a ton of models for less than $1,000 on the market at any given momentand a large fraction of those are less than $500. As long as you manage your expectations regarding options and specsyou can still get quite a bit from a budget laptop modelincluding good battery life and a reasonably lightweight laptop body. (If you're replacing an old Windows laptop that's not up to running Windows anymoreconsider turning it into a Chromebook.) 

Price

If the statistics Intel and PC manufacturers hurl at us are correctyou'll be holding onto this laptop for at least three years so don't skimp if you can afford to stretch your budget a little to better specs. 

Even betterthink about a laptop with a replaceable battery (if you can find one)upgradable memory (although memory is usually soldered to the motherboard)graphics card and storageor all of the above. If you dotrawl the user reviews and comments for people's experiences with upgrading a particular model. Sometimes they require proprietary parts or require accessing hard-to-access locations in the system.

For a cheap gaming laptopyou'll still have to break the $500 ceiling to support most games. The least expensive budget laptops suitable for a solid gaming performance experience -- those with moderately powerful discrete graphics processors -- will run you closer to $700. Here are our recommendations if you're looking for the best gaming laptop under $1,000. If you like to live on the bleeding edgecloud gaming services such as Nvidia GeForce Now and Microsoft Xbox Game Pass Ultimate's Cloud Gaming will let you play games on laptops with specs that hit the under-$500 mark. 

A bright spot is you don't have to settle for a traditional clamshell laptop with a fixed display and keyboard. You can also get a convertible laptop (akaa two-in-one)which has a screen that flips around to turn the screen into a tabletto position it for comfortable streaming or to do a presentation. 

You can also try to make your current laptop last a little longer. If you need something to tide you over for a few monthsdig into possible places to buy refurbished machines and explore nonprofit or educational discounts if you're eligible.

WindowsMac or Chromebook

You won't find cheap laptop prices for a MacBook or any other Apple laptop. At best you can get the current entry-level model of the MacBook Air for $999. On saleyou may be able to get it for less than that but it will never reach truly "budget" territory. Even an iPad will run you more than $500 once you buy the optional keyboard (although it might work out to less if you look for sales on the tablet or keyboard)which is above our budget here. A base-model iPad with an inexpensive Bluetooth keyboard and a cheap stand for the iPad might suffice. 

It's easier to find inexpensive Chromebooks than cheap Windows laptopsmaking them one of the most popular budget laptops on the marketalthough we're also seeing a lot more Chromebooks in the $500-to-$1,000 range and more Windows laptops in the $500 range. Those Windows systems are frequently repurposed Chromebook configurations that really aren't up to running Windows comfortably. 

Google's ChromeOS isn't nearly as power-hungry as Windowsso you can get by with a lower-end processorslower storage and less screen resolution or RAM; just a few of the components that make a laptop expensive. The flip side is Chrome and Google apps are more of a memory hog than you'd expectand if you go too low with the processor or skimp on memorythe system will still feel slow. 

While Chromebooks can run ChromeOS-specific and Android appssome people need the full Windows OS to run heftier applicationssuch as video-editing suites. With that comes a need for a faster processor with more coresmore memory -- 8GB RAM is the bare minimumalthough 16GB is preferable -- and more storage for applications and the operating system itself. 

ChromeOS is also a much different experience than Windows; make sure the applications you need have a Chrome appAndroid app or Linux app before making the leap. Since Chromebooks are cloud-first devicesyou don't need a lot of storage built-in. 

That also means if you spend most of your time roaming the webwritingstreaming video or playing Android gamesthey're a good fit. If you hope to play Android gamesmake sure you get a touchscreen Chromebook. 

Size

Remember to consider whether having a lighterthinner laptop or a touchscreen laptop with a good battery life will be important to you in the future. Size is primarily determined by the screenwhich in turn factors into battery sizelaptop thickness and weight. 

Ultraportable laptopsgenerally 13 inches or smallerare a rarity below $700. It turns outmaking things smaller doesn't always equate to cheaper. Generallyyou'll find budget laptops at 14-15.6- and 17.3-inch sizes. Alsobecause of their low prices11.6-inch Chromebooks are attractive. We don't recommend that size for any but the youngest students.

In the budget price rangeyou have to watch out for screen terminology when it comes to specs: An "HD" screen may not always be a truly high-definition screen. HDwhich has a resolution of 1,920x1,080 pixelsis called "Full HD" so marketers can refer to lesser-resolution displays (1,280x720 pixels) as HD. In ChromebooksHD usually refers to a screen with a resolution of 1,366x768 pixels. On the upsidethe boom in 14-inch laptops trickles down to this price rangewhich allows for more FHD options in that size. 

A frequent complaint we see is about "washed-out" looking displays with poor viewing angles. Unfortunatelythat's one of the trade-offs: A lot of these use TN (twisted nematic) screen technologywhich is cheap but meh. Look for IPS (in-plane switching) LCDs which are better for off-angle viewingbrightness and color. 

Processormemory and storage 

A lot of Windows laptops in this range use AMD Athlon and lower-end A series or Intel Celeron and Pentium processors to hit the lower prices. We don't recommend going with an Athlon instead of a Ryzen or a Celeron/Pentium instead of a Core: Windows is too heavy for themand in conjunction with the 4GB memory a lot of them haveyou may find them abysmally slow at best. 

SSDs can make a big difference in how fast Windows performance feels compared with a spinning hard diskalthough thankfully old hard disks have become a lot rarer. Not all SSDs are equally speedy and cheaper laptops typically have slower drives. If you need to go with a smaller drive -- they tend to max out at 256GB in this price range -- you can always add an external drive or two (or fivefor some of us) at some point down the road or use cloud storage to bolster a small internal drive. 

For memorywe highly recommend 16GB of RAM (8GB absolute minimum). RAM is where the operating system stores all the data for currently running applicationsand it can fill up fast (for exampleright now Chrome is taking up 7GB of my memory). After thatit starts swapping between RAM and SSDwhich is a bit slower. A lot of sub-$500 laptops have 4GB or 8GBwhich in conjunction with a slower disk can make for a frustratingly slow Windows laptop experience. Alsomany laptops now have the memory soldered onto the motherboard. Most manufacturers disclose thisbut if the RAM type is LPDDRit is soldered on and can't be upgraded. Some PC makers will solder memory on and also leave an empty internal slot for adding a stick of RAM. You may need to contact the laptop manufacturer or find the laptop's full specs online to confirm.