Overview
Table of Contents
When you’re on the hunt for the best laptop under $500, you need to be careful.
In the highly competitive laptop market, you get what you pay for. That means it can be very dangerous to buy a “cheap” laptop. Choose wrongly, and you’ll be stuck with a slow, outdated computer that causes more problems than it solves. Mashable regularly tests the best affordable laptops overall, but if $500 is your upper limit, then you’re going to be priced out of some popular budget laptops. But even then, we still highly recommend a handful of computers that will fit nicely into your budget.
Not all of the laptops we tested made our final cut, like the Samsung Chromebook 4.
Credit: Timothy Beck Werth / Mashable
A quick guide to laptop pricing
You can buy a cheap Chromebook for as little as $100, while our favorite gaming laptop will set you back over $3,000. And in our guide to the best laptops in general, you’ll find machines that span a wide spectrum of prices. With $500 to spend, you’ll be priced out of Ultrabooks, MacBooks, and most gaming laptops.
Typically, laptops fall into one of the following categories:
-
Chromebooks ($100-$650): These computers have minimal storage and are designed to run mostly web applications and basic programs. They’re light, portable, and very affordable. At the upper end of this price range, cloud-based gaming Chromebooks offer a smart alternative to expensive gaming laptops.
-
Budget laptops ($250-$750): Even the best budget laptops won’t have the most impressive specs, but they should have enough RAM and storage for everyday use at school or work.
-
MacBooks ($850-$3,500): The cheapest MacBook worth buying (the M2 MacBook Air) will set you back $850 when it’s on sale, while a fully specced-out MacBook Pro can cost as much as $3,500.
-
Ultrabooks ($1,000-$3,500): These high-end laptops have enough processing power to handle tasks like photo and video editing. They typically have a sleek and modern aesthetic, too. MacBooks also fall into this category.
Below, we’ve put together a detailed guide to the best budget laptops for under $500, including a lot of Chromebook picks. The right laptop will vary depending on your needs, but the Acer Aspire 5 is our overall top pick for our money. Check out all the contenders below.
Our Pick
Who it’s for:
If you’re looking for the most fully specced out laptop you can get for $500 or less, you can’t beat the popular Acer Aspire 5. The configuration we’ve chosen has 20GB of RAM and a full terabyte of storage, which is rare in the budget category.
That being said, if you’re looking for something a little more affordable, you can buy a less souped-up version of this computer for as little as $299.99 at Amazon, where it’s one of the most popular budget laptops. Still, we recommend spending a little more for superior performance and longevity.
Why we picked this:
This laptop was recently tested by Mashable contributor Callum Bains, who named it the best cheap laptop of the year. Bains found it to be an impressive and long-lasting computer. There are plenty of ports on the side, and the onboard webcam is particularly good.
Editor’s Note: If this laptop is priced above $500 at Amazon, look for an on-page coupon that lowers the price tag.
The Good
The Bad
Details
Who it’s for:
If you don’t mind giving up some of the functionality of a proper laptop and are willing to sacrifice a large amount of storage space, the Asus Chromebook Plus CX34 will probably be a good match for you. Chromebooks are great at what they’re meant to do: Handling simple tasks like web browsing, streaming, and document editing with minimal fuss and impressive speed. If that’s all you need, definitely give this zippy productivity machine your consideration.
Why we picked this:
While we haven’t personally gotten our hands on the Asus Chromebook Plus CX34 yet, our friends over at PCMag (owned by Mashable’s publisher, Ziff Davis) have, and they thoroughly enjoyed their time with the budget laptop.
Asus Chromebooks just keep getting better, especially with the improved specs of their “Plus” line of devices. The Asus Chromebook Plus CX34 is a great example of those recent strides, featuring speedy and responsive performance (and much more) at just $399. Even aside from processing power, the experts at PCMag also noted the laptop’s display, durability, and port selection as high points in their review.
The CX34 comes with a 14-inch, Full HD NanoEdge anti-glare display that looks as vibrant as the screens you’d find in more expensive models. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have touch capability, but that may be something you’re willing to sacrifice considering the low price of admission. The device’s build quality is impressive and even features an antimicrobial guard to help keep your computer sanitary — a bonus that we didn’t even know we wanted. You’ll also get access to Google AI features, noise cancellation, and video call enhancement tools that improve clarity and lighting.
As for the could-be-betters, PCMag reviewers said that the battery life was OK, but not as great as similarly priced budget laptops. They also didn’t love the UFS storage, which is usually reserved for smaller devices like mobile phones, calling it merely “adequate.”
The Good
The Bad
Details
Who it’s for:
Gaming Chromebooks are an interesting type of laptop to tackle because they aren’t exactly what you’d think of when you hear the words “gaming laptop.” In fact, they’re in a category of their own — gaming Chromebooks are pretty much solely used for cloud gaming, as they don’t have the specs to run performance-heavy games or software natively. The tradeoff, though, is that you can get one for a great price.
Case in point: The Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming Chromebook 16. This laptop is a fantastic value at just $429 if you don’t mind using it only for cloud gaming in addition to regular web browsing and streaming.
Why we picked this:
During our testing, we had no issues booting up Xbox Game Pass and hopping into games like Starfield and Sea of Thieves (they ran decently well, too). Controller setup was quick and painless via speedy Bluetooth connection. Besides its cloud gaming capabilities, the Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming Chromebook 16 also made a good impression with its keyboard, which feels really nice to type on and build quality that hardly feels budget-level. The display isn’t anything to write home about, but it’s not bad either. We appreciated the 120Hz refresh rate, but we wished the max brightness was just a little bit brighter.
Battery life is about average for a Chromebook, which is to say that it’s pretty darn good. During testing, we got about 10.5 hours out of the device before needing to recharge. The Chromebook’s bonus perks sweeten the overall package, which includes three months of YouTube Premium, a year’s worth of Google One cloud storage, and a month of access to Boosteroid.
As for cons, there aren’t many, and it’s hard to harp on them when you’re getting such a stellar value. They really come down to the audio features — at max volume, the speakers sounded a bit tinny and lacked depth overall. The microphone isn’t a strong point, either, and didn’t sound very good on the other end of voice calls. And like we said, it’s not a full-on powerhouse gaming laptop, but as long as you know what you’re getting (a cloud gaming machine), you can’t beat that price.
The Good
The Bad
Details
Who it’s for:
If you’re looking for a budget 2-in-1 laptop that doesn’t sacrifice much in the way of specs, the Acer Chromebook Spin 514 is a great option, whether you’re need a device for school, work, or your regular web surfing and streaming. Our friends over at PCMag are big fans of the Chromebook Spin 514, citing its AMD Ryzen processor, battery life, build quality, and overall value for your money as highlights.
Why we picked this:
AMD’s Ryzen line of CPUs is no joke — more often than not, they’re used to power high-end gaming rigs, so you can imagine the amount of processing power you’ll get out of it when it’s housed in a budget-level Chromebook. On top of speed and power, the Spin 514 also impresses in the battery life department, offering about 13 hours of use on a single charge. Don’t think that this Chromebook is cheaply made just because it’s inexpensive, by the way. The quality of its construction is actually really great for the price, so you won’t have to worry about accidentally snapping it in half when converting between its two modes (yes, it’s a 2-in-1, so you’re getting a laptop and a tablet for under $500).
Just note that the computer doesn’t come with a stylus, and you’re not getting the best storage format (eMMC versus the usual SSD you’d find in a Chromebook).
The Good
The Bad
Details
Read Mashable’s full review of the HP Chromebook Plus 15.6-inch.
Who it’s for:
The HP Chromebook Plus 15.6-inch is a budget laptop for those who prioritize visuals over everything else. This device’s display is detailed, bright, vibrant, and a well-made match for those who like to watch entertainment on their computer, cloud game, or even edit photos and videos. The cool, quiet performance and additional Chromebook Plus software features make this deal an even sweeter one.
Why we picked this:
We’re suckers for a good display, and the HP Chromebook Plus 15.6-inch has a great one. Senior Shopping Reporter Haley Henschel reviewed the laptop for Mashable, calling the display “distractingly nice,” and referring to it as her favorite feature that the Chromebook has to offer. “The colors are intense, with good contrast and rich blacks, and an anti-reflective panel preserves that quality at most viewing angles, even in direct sunlight,” she wrote. “It also feels huge despite some moderately thick horizontal bezels. It really has no right looking as good as it does.”
The pros don’t end at the display, though. This HP Chromebook also boasts solid performance for a budget laptop and ran cool and quietly throughout our testing period. We also love the numerous Chromebook Plus software improvements, including File Sync, offline use, some AI-assisted settings, and Google Magic Eraser. You’ll also find support for Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Express, and LumaFusion (you’ll get a free three-month trial for both Adobe programs, as well as a one-time discount for LumaFusion when you purchase this Chromebook).
It’s not a perfect Chromebook, though, as you’d probably expect with a $500 laptop. While we liked the device’s metallic finish, we wish it was more durable — the outside scratched quite easily. The audio system is a bit muffled, and the quality of the webcam leaves a lot to be desired, but they aren’t bad enough to be dealbreakers. We’d also appreciate a longer battery life, but seven hours isn’t horrible (although it does fall under our standard eight hours for Chromebooks).
The Good
The Bad
Details
Mashable staff subjected most of the laptops on this list to varying degrees of hands-on testing. At minimum, this involved inspecting their build quality and using them for a variety of real-world tasks for several weeks at a time. This included working in different kinds of documents, checking emails, watching videos, taking photos on their webcams, participating in video calls, listening to music (via Spotify), playing games (if possible), and experimenting with any unique software features or use cases they claimed to support.
Additionally, most of the laptops featured here were made to run industry-standard benchmark software. We run these benchmarks because they replicate real-world tasks to produce scores we can use to easily compare different laptops’ performance. We recently started implementing these benchmarks in our testing, and you can expect to see them in all of our new laptop reviews going forward.
Performance benchmarks
We evaluate a laptop’s overall performance by running the appropriate version of Primate Labs’ Geekbench 6. (That would be macOS for MacBooks; Windows for Windows laptops, including gaming laptops; and Android for Chromebooks.) This test measures CPU performance in a handful of common tasks, and we record the resulting multi-core score. The higher the score, the better.
To get a sense of gaming laptops’ graphical prowess, we also play Cyberpunk 2077 on them. We picked this game because it’s a graphically intense AAA title that pushes many systems to their performance limits. If the laptop has a discrete/dedicated NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics card (as opposed to an integrated GPU that’s built into the CPU), we play Cyberpunk once with its DLSS tech off and again with DLSS on using the High preset without ray tracing. This tests the machine’s raw GPU power and its performance with AI upscaling, respectively.
We follow this up with 3DMark’s Time Spy benchmark for gaming PCs and record their scores. Again, higher is better.
Battery life benchmarks
We look to see about 11 to 12 hours of battery life in the MacBooks we test, with 15-plus hours being exceptional, and 9 to 10 hours in the Windows laptops we review, with 12+ hours being ideal. Gaming laptops are a different story: They only need to last at least 2 hours per charge to get our approval, earning extra brownie points for reaching the 4-hour mark. Meanwhile, 8 hours is our baseline for Chromebooks, but 9 to 10 hours is best.
We’ve assessed laptops’ stamina a couple different ways in the past. To standardize our battery life testing methodology, we conduct a video rundown test on MacBook and Windows laptops that involves playing a looped 1080p version of Tears of Steel, a short open-source Blender movie, at 50 percent brightness. For gaming laptops we use PCMark 10’s battery life test, and for Chromebooks, CrXPRT 2.
Final thoughts
After evaluating a laptop’s hands-on performance and benchmark testing results, we make our final recommendations based on whether we think they offer a good overall value for the money. A too-expensive laptop will sometimes get a pass if we think it looks and works so great that it’s worth the trouble of finding it on sale.
It bears mentioning that these aren’t the only laptops we’ve tried — we’re constantly testing and assessing new models across different categories, and many don’t make the final cut. With that in mind, you can expect this guide to evolve on a pretty continuous basis. We’re always on the lookout for new top contenders.
Frequently Asked Questions
It’s no longer true that you have to spend $1,000 to $3,000 to get a decent gaming laptop. Thanks to new cloud-based gaming Chromebooks, you can even find some models under $500, though your options are more limited.
In the cheap seats, the Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming Chromebook 16 is our top recommendation. For under $500, it’s a really solid value. The Acer Chromebook 516 GE is another good option, and it sometimes goes on sale at the under-$500 mark.
Chromebooks are slimmed-down laptops made for cloud-based computing. That means they can get away with minimal RAM, storage, and ChromeOS. True laptops should have more processing power and typically run a Windows OS, but the line between cheap laptops and Chromebooks is pretty blurry. For an in-depth comparison, check out senior shopping reporter Haley Henschel’s deep dive into the differences between Chromebooks and regular laptops.
Designed to be used while connected to the internet, the best Chromebooks are solid sidekicks for casual daily computing that doesn’t require a ton of juice or storage: schoolwork or work-work done in the Google Workspace, checking emails, messing around in Canva, organizing photos from your phone, or streaming. Similarly, most Chromebooks’ webcams and screen quality work well enough for video calls and movie watching, but won’t be up to par for anything that requires punchy graphics or a snappy refresh rate.
If you want the numbers, many cheap Chromebooks max out at 4GB of RAM and between 32GB and 128GB of internal storage, though a few options in our sub-$500 list do surpass those specs. For reference, our favorite laptops (without a price cap) offer between 16GB and 32GB of RAM and between 256GB and 1TB of SSD.
Right now, the best budget Chromebook is the Asus Chromebook Plus CX34. It does everything a laptop needs to do without any bells and whistles that inflate the price. Unless you’re working on big projects in processor-hungry programs, it’ll do you just fine. Plus, you can get one for just $399.99.
The laptop pricing spectrum is broad. You could land anywhere from nearly $4,000 (if you want the most stacked MacBook Pro) to just $99 or less (if you score an already-cheap Chromebook on sale for Black Friday or Prime Day).
Now, sticking to this triple-digit price tag requires settling for bare-bones specs. But there are a handful of reliable laptops for casual streaming or light workloads. This price point is mostly full of Chromebooks plus a few Windows laptops from Asus, Dell, Acer, and HP. If you need a device that can handle more advanced software, you can look for refurbished or open-box deals on older MacBooks or Microsoft Surface laptops.
Thankfully, you can find good laptop deals throughout the year. There are sales happening near-constantly at retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart, so it’s never a bad idea to start your search there. But in our opinion, if you can, you should absolutely wait for tentpole sales events like Amazon Prime Day or Black Friday.
Dylan Haas is a Lead Shopping Reporter for Mashable, where he covers all things gaming, pets, fitness, sleep, and shopping events like Black Friday and Prime Day. Before joining the team at Mashable, Dylan received a B.A. in Communications from Pace University and contributed to publications like Paste Magazine, Bandsintown, and others following a brief stint as a marketing and management assistant in the music industry.
When he’s not writing or testing products, you can find Dylan playing lots of video games, working out, spending time with loved ones (especially his dog, Stevie), or watching reality TV. Follow him on X at @iamdylanhaas, or send him an email at [email protected].
