The Best Laptops Under $500 of 2025

The best laptops under $500 probably won’t impress you with their performance or aesthetics. But when you are on a budget made of the barest of bones, putting your money toward something reliable becomes priority number one.

A laptop in this price range should run simple tasks quickly, have a decent amount of battery life, and shouldn’t feel like it will fall apart if you poke it. Anything else and you’re looking at laptops that cost upwards of $1,000 or more.

The good news: Not only do those laptops exist, but also, thanks to advancements in CPU technology, you don’t have to compromise on speed as was the case several years ago.

Our pick for the best overall, the 2021 Acer Swift 3 (available at Amazon) , has an 11th-gen Intel processor, but even if you needed to batch-tag hundreds of photos, you won’t have to wait around forever for the laptop to finish.

Other Laptops Under $500 We Tested and Evaluated

What To Consider When Buying Laptops Under $500

Who would use this?

Perhaps the first thing you should think about when buying a laptop in a highly affordable price range is how exactly you plan to use it and what it's going to be used for.

If you're simply going to be using web-based apps or other lightweight services, then processing power might not be as important to you as it would be if you were looking to do photo editing or other more demanding tasks.

That can also impact the operating system that you need. Some apps don't run on Chrome OS, so if you use apps like that, you'll need a Windows machine.

That said, if the apps and services you use run fine on Chrome OS, then it's worth considering a Chromebook as its lightweight operating system might make the laptop more responsive overall.

Key features

• Performance: The CPU, GPU, and RAM, inside your PC affect its performance. They determine how well your computer can multitask, handle intensive tasks like gaming, and store all your files. The better the specs, the snappier the laptop will feel as you work. You’ll see many of Intel’s entry-level i3 and mid-range i5 processors here. You’ll also usually see RAM cap out at 8 GB. (You can get away with 4 GB. However, given how much memory modern web browsing can take up, avoid it if you can afford to.)

• Storage: One place you don’t want to scrimp is storage. Most people find that by the time they’re finished downloading movies or taking photos, they’ve used more storage than they realized. If you can’t afford a lot of storage now, look for an SD card slot. That gives you the option to buy more storage affordably later on.

• Build quality: Since you’re lugging this computer around, you want it to be able to withstand some wear and tear. You also want interaction with it to be as smooth as possible. That means making sure that the keyboard and trackpad are easy to use.

• Portability: Cramming a lot of features into a small space tends to drive up the price. That’s why many budget laptops are larger than their high-end counterparts. You’re way less likely to find features like fingerprint scanners at this price point. After all, each bell and whistle costs money to include.

• Platform: Consider your operating system, too. Windows is still the dominant OS these days, especially for gaming. You’ll also probably want Windows if you need certain software for work. Lots of photo and video editing software is also Windows-specific. Many budget laptops come with Windows in “S Mode,” which limits your app installation to apps on the Microsoft Store. Luckily, you can easily remove it, and we recommend that nearly everyone do so. Windows laptops at this price point also typically have pre-installed “bloatware,” too. These included freebies offer little value but can bog your computer down. You can remove them from Windows’ uninstall menu. You can also completely wipe out bloatware by installing a clean copy of Windows to override the pre-installed, bloated version that comes out of the box. If most of what you do is online, Chromebooks can offer surprising utility at a great price. Beyond Netflix and Gmail, there’s plenty of web-based work software like Google Docs. Adding online photo editors like Pixlr and Chromebooks can make a lot of sense. Many web apps can even work offline when you don’t have Wi-Fi. Chromebooks are also cheaper since so much processing effort happens in the cloud instead of in the machine. They have a Linux-based operating system, so they tend to be free of viruses and bloatware. If you use Chrome Remote Desktop, you can remotely access your Windows PC on the go.

• Display size: The display size looks a little different at this price point. While the laptops themselves are often larger, screen sizes tend to be smaller to help save on cost. Many of the models we’ve listed here float around 11 inches. You may occasionally find something larger, but generally, this space is dominated by screens that are 13 inches or less. You’ll also want to consider how many USB ports the laptop has, whether you need HDMI and Ethernet, and how comfortable the keyboard and trackpad are to use—this can vary quite a bit from model to model, and it’s important to get something responsive and durable.

Care, maintenance, and warranty

Like all electronic devices, laptops need to be cared for, and there are plenty of points of failure on a laptop. If you're not careful about crumbs and other debris, you might find that keys start to get stuck or stop working altogether. Water should be kept as far away from your laptop as possible. While it's worth getting something with a decent warranty, most laptop warranties only cover manufacturer defects. This means that you'll be entitled to a refund if there's something wrong with the laptop out of the box, but not necessarily if you damage it by accident.

FAQ: What to Know About Laptops Under $500

How do you know you’re getting a good value?

When it comes to laptops, $500 is the low end. If you spend any less than that, you may wind up with something too slow to be useful, or too shoddy to last long. On an even tighter budget, we strongly recommend buying a refurbished laptop instead. Buying refurbished can get you a like-new version of last year’s model at a sizable discount. In any case, laptop shopping in this price range means you probably won’t find everything in one package. Think about what you want from your machine and what you can skip. There are a few factors to consider.

Chromebooks vs. Laptops: What’s the difference?

As you compare Windows and Mac laptops to Chromebooks, you’ll notice that the budget laptops running ChromeOS are snappier than their Windows counterparts. This is because ChromeOS was built from a lightweight framework that takes a minuscule amount of processing power to run in comparison to Windows or macOS.

ChromeOS’s seamless integration with the Google Cloud services allows it to take advantage of Google’s powerful suite of productivity tools and platforms, such as Docs, Sheets, YouTube, Stadia, and the Play Store. There is very little you can’t accomplish without a simple web browser these days.

What Windows and macOS offer over ChromeOS is compatibility with many legacy apps. You can download Microsoft Office on ChromeOS, but if you want to use something like Scrivener, you’d have to have Windows or macOS.

What affordable brands generally have good laptops around $500?

All of the biggest laptop brands sell laptops at $500 or less, but many of them are unimpressive at best. That's why, as you might have noticed, the top picks in this guide tend to be slightly older models that were more expensive when they were released but have lowered in price over time.

These models still probably aren't the top laptops from their era, but they do offer decent performance/solid features and usually beat new models that are being sold at the same price out of the gate.

In terms of brands, the likes of Dell, Lenovo, Acer, and so on, all offer good models at $500 or less. The laptop brands that you know and love for their ultra-high-end models are the same brands that you should consider when buying budget models.

Why You Should Trust Our Expertise

In putting this guide together, we conducted extensive research and personally tested the top recommended products, ensuring that they're all excellent options that customers can rely on. When we test, we measure graphics power, processor capability, battery life, screen brightness, and more. We test multiple platforms and form factors.

We use popular, industry-standard benchmarks like Geekbench and 3DMark to gauge how well the laptop can multitask, run games, and more. We also get hands-on with each machine to gauge usability factors like convenience and durability.

We also test battery life by simulating a long stretch of moderate web browsing. We put the screen brightness at 200 nits, which is fairly moderate but close to the maximum for many of these budget models. Then we set them to cycle through popular websites until they run out of power. This gives us an idea of how much work you can get done on a single charge.

What Other Reviewers Are Saying About the Best Laptops Under $500

Expert laptop reviewers are a little torn when it comes to the best laptops under $500, and you might find that they all offer different suggestions. We've rounded up those suggestions and included them below. The models included as the top pick by other publications are usually similar to the ones that we included, but few of them recommend the same model. That's because we are recommending a model that's technically a little more expensive than $500, and other publications likely have $500 set as a hard limit for their guides. We feel that those willing to spend the extra $14 will get a significantly better option—though again, some others likely have slightly stricter rules, which is why they're recommending alternatives.

• Wirecutter: Wirecutter’s top pick is the Acer Aspire 3 (A314-23P-R3QA). This is an excellent laptop and one that we included in our alternatives section. However, it’s ultimately not quite as powerful or lightweight as our top pick.
• PCMag: PCMag chose the Acer Aspire 3 (A315-24P) as its top option. Again, this is an excellent model that's just not quite as powerful as our best overall winner.
• Tom's Guide: Tom's Guide chose the Acer Aspire Go as its best laptop under $500. We like this laptop, but its Intel Core i3-N305 chip and 128GB of storage aren't as impressive as what the Acer Swift 3 has.

What Owners Are Saying About Our Best Laptops Under $500

Generally speaking, user reviews seem to be fine for the Acer Swift 3. The negatives that users note are ones you’d run into for budget laptops in general, and it makes sense that the laptop wouldn't get incredible reviews across the board. That said, many owners seem to be happy with the Acer Swift 3.

• Amazon. On Amazon, the laptop has an average rating of 3.9 stars, which is fine but not great. Users who have left negative reviews largely seem to have run into niche and specific issues, like a keyboard malfunctioning, rather than having widespread problems with the laptop. One user on Amazon wrote that the Acer Swift 3 has a basic design, but "this laptop is very quick, and I’ve noticed zero lag or buffer when running big programs."

There aren't many other locations with user reviews for the Swift 3 model we recommended, but the general gist amongst Amazon reviews likely holds true for others—the laptop isn't bad for the price, but you can get better if you pay more.

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