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The Microsoft Surface Laptop on a wooden table Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar

The Best Laptops Under $1,000 of 2024

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The Microsoft Surface Laptop on a wooden table Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar

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Editor's Choice Product image of Dell Inspiron 14 Plus (2022)
Best Overall

Dell Inspiron 14 Plus (2022)

Check Price at Amazon

The Dell Inspiron 14 Plus lies at the intersection of productivity and gaming thanks to its hardware normally found in budget to mid-tier gaming laptops. Read More

Pros

  • Stylish chassis
  • Bright display
  • Strong overall performance

Cons

  • Doesn’t beat a gaming laptop
  • Unimpressive audio
2
Editor's Choice Product image of Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i (2023)
Best 2-in-1

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i (2023)

Check Price at Lenovo

Lenovo's IdeaPad Flex 5i wrings plenty of performance out of its Intel Core i5-1335U—and its responsive touchscreen makes it a great "budget" 2-in-1. Read More

Pros

  • Good performance for the price
  • Responsive touchscreen
  • Higher-end look than the price suggests

Cons

  • Screen isn’t the brightest or most colorful
  • Heavy
3
Editor's Choice Product image of Acer Nitro 5 (2022)
Best Gaming

Acer Nitro 5 (2022)

Check Price at Best Buy

The Acer Nitro 5 may be a budget PC, but it gets the details right on the hardware and the design. Read More

Pros

  • Great 1080p performance
  • Quality keyboard and trackpad
  • Chassis stays cool

Cons

  • Mediocre battery life
  • Muted display, mediocre audio
  • Chunky chassis
4
Editor's Choice Product image of Apple MacBook Air M1 (Late 2020)
Best MacBook

Apple MacBook Air M1 (Late 2020)

Check Price at Best Buy

The new MacBook Air looks like business as usual, but its unbelievable battery life and powerful new M1 processor blew us away. Read More

Pros

  • Jaw-dropping battery life
  • Incredible performance
  • Iconic build quality

Cons

  • Poor port selection
5
Editor's Choice Product image of Acer Swift 3 OLED (2022)

Acer Swift 3 OLED (2022)

Check Price at Best Buy

Acer finally enters the OLED laptop game with its new, value-focused Swift 3. It has more cons than pros, but it's a solid and speedy machine still worth its price. Read More

Pros

  • Speedy Intel H processor
  • Gorgeous OLED display

Cons

  • Design quirks
  • Sad audio
  • So-so battery life
  • Best Overall Dell Inspiron 14 Plus (2022)
  • Best 2-in-1 Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i (2023)
  • Best Gaming Acer Nitro 5 (2022)
  • Best MacBook Apple MacBook Air M1 (Late 2020)
  • Other Laptops Under $1000 We Tested
  • How We Test Budget Laptops
  • What You Should Know About Budget Laptops Under $1,000
  • More Articles You Might Enjoy

The best laptops under $1,000 may not be able to do everything that more expensive laptops can. That’s why it’s important to know what features matter the most to you so you can get the best deal on a laptop possible.

After testing top-rated affordable laptops, the last-gen Dell Inspiron 14 Plus (available at Amazon) continues to sweep our best-of guides. It’s part entry-level gaming laptop, so its graphics performance is faster than your average productivity laptop for the price.

There are plenty of other great laptops for under $1,000 on the market, and we're here to help you find the best one for you in your price range.

Credit: Reviewed / Timothy Rezni
Best Overall
Dell Inspiron 14 Plus (2022)
  • Processor: Intel Core i7-12700H
  • Graphics: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050
  • Memory: 16GB DDR5 4800MHz
  • Storage: 512GB SSD
  • Display: 14-inch, 2240 x 1400, 60Hz, 100% sRGB color gamut
  • Battery life: 7.5+ hours

Looking for a last-gen laptop with high-end specs is usually the best strategy if you want the most performance possible to cost as little as possible—and the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus fits that description exceedingly well. It’s a solid multipurpose laptop with an attractive, classy design; a display that produces crisp and vibrant visuals, and a keyboard and trackpad that make you feel like you’re working on a higher-end laptop.

Battery life is plenty for nearly an entire day at school or work, or at home paying bills and checking Google Classroom to make sure your kid did their homework. It’s hard to find an Intel-based laptop with more battery life than this (and without a giant 99Whr battery) because Intel chips are notoriously power-hungry.

As we mentioned in our review, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus is a good but hard-to-quantify machine. Its graphics performance goes above and beyond the standard productivity laptop, but doesn’t quite reach into full-blown gamer territory. It’s just a fast computer with a gorgeous chassis, decent battery life, and a good display, which is more than enough for most people.

Read our full Dell Inspiron 14 Plus review.

Pros

  • Stylish chassis

  • Bright display

  • Strong overall performance

Cons

  • Doesn’t beat a gaming laptop

  • Unimpressive audio

Buy now at Amazon
An open and powered on laptop showing a colorful image on its display
Credit: Reviewed / Kris Wouk
Best 2-in-1
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i (2023)
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-1335U
  • Graphics: Intel Iris Xe
  • Memory: 16GB LPDDR4 4267MHz
  • Storage: 512GB SSD
  • Display: 14-inch, 1920 × 1200, 60Hz, IPS LED-backlit touchscreen with stylus support
  • Battery: 7.5+ hours

The Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i is a solid, speedy, and reliable 2-in-1 laptop for the price, and it looks more expensive than it actually is.

Its processor keeps up with Intel’s fast, last-gen i7 H-series chips, despite it being one of the slowest mobile processors Intel offers from its current, 13th-generation line-up. The IdeaPad Flex 5i also has every type of port you could ever realistically need.

We were most impressed with the responsive touchscreen, a crucial aspect of any 2-in-1 laptop. The display brightness was lower than we would have liked to see, but that only starts to cause glare problems if you use the laptop outside on a super sunny day.

Read our full Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i review.

Pros

  • Good performance for the price

  • Responsive touchscreen

  • Higher-end look than the price suggests

Cons

  • Screen isn’t the brightest or most colorful

  • Heavy

Buy now at Lenovo
An open and powered on laptop with a pair of hands over the keys playing a game
Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar
Best Gaming
Acer Nitro 5 (2022)
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-12500H
  • Graphics: Nvidia RTX 3060
  • Memory: 16GB DDR4
  • Storage: 512GB SSD
  • Display: 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080p, 144Hz, IPS
  • Battery life: 3+ hours

The Acer Nitro 5 we reviewed still costs a little over $1,000, but you can find the RTX 3050 Ti model for as low as $799 when on sale. Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3050 Ti performs almost as well as the RTX 3060, and supports ray tracing and DLSS, so you won’t be stuck playing any game on the low graphics setting.

This Nitro 5’s all-black color scheme and subtle colored highlights look more mature than many of the RGB light shows you tend to see in the gaming space. It’s bulky, but it uses its space to circulate air and keep its high-powered hardware cool. The keyboard and trackpad are both comfortable and easy to use. Finally, the display produces gorgeous colors and its 144Hz refresh rate is useful for fast-paced esports titles.

Do note the battery life, as it is the most lackluster feature of this gaming laptop, but other than that Acer got the essentials right.

Read our full Acer Nitro 5 review.

Pros

  • Great 1080p performance

  • Quality keyboard and trackpad

  • Chassis stays cool

Cons

  • Mediocre battery life

  • Muted display, mediocre audio

  • Chunky chassis

$1,299.99 from Best Buy

Buy now at Amazon

$1,092.30 from Walmart
MacBook lies on white table surrounded by plants
Credit: Reviewed / Betsey Goldwasser
Best MacBook
Apple MacBook Air M1 (Late 2020)
  • Processor: Apple M1
  • Graphics: Integrated
  • Memory: 16GB
  • Storage: 256GB
  • Display: 13-inch 2560 x 1440p Liquid Retina
  • Battery: 11.5+ hours

If you want to spend the least amount of money possible on a MacBook, the Apple MacBook Air M1 is just as efficient as its newer M2 sibling. Even though the M2 is significantly faster than the M1, that won't have much of an effect on the type of work students, writers, teachers, et al. do daily.

The MacBook Air M1 comes with the same aluminum chassis and Retina screen we loved in the earlier 2020 Intel MacBook Air. Because you can't upgrade the M1 MacBooks after purchase, we recommend splurging on a model with at least 512GB of storage.

With a shockingly good battery life of almost 12 hours, performance that beats most Windows laptops, and an incredibly smooth trackpad and tactile keyboard, it should be no surprise that the MacBook Air M1 has been so popular. Unless you need Windows 11 specifically, the MacBook Air is a fabulous laptop for pulling all-nighters, writing essays, and streaming high-resolution video.

Read our full MacBook Air M1 review.

Pros

  • Jaw-dropping battery life

  • Incredible performance

  • Iconic build quality

Cons

  • Poor port selection

$649.99 from Best Buy

$999.00 from Abt

Buy now at Amazon

$699.00 from Walmart

Other Laptops Under $1000 We Tested

Product image of Acer Swift 3 OLED (2022)
Acer Swift 3 OLED (2022)
  • Processor: Intel Core i7-12700H
  • Graphics: Intel Iris Xe
  • Memory: 16GB LPDDR5
  • Storage size: 1TB SSD
  • Display: 14-inch, 2880 x 1800, OLED
  • Battery life: 5.5+ hours

Other laptops are more aesthetically pleasing, have a better key feel, and are thinner and lighter, but unlike the Acer Swift 3 OLED, they usually don’t come with an OLED display. So if OLED screens are your jam but you don’t want to spend a fortune on a laptop to get one, this Swift 3 is a good option.

Acer stuck an H-series Intel processor in its Swift 3 OLED (which is more commonly found in gaming laptops), whereas many of its competitors used one of Intel’s slower P-series. It’s not as fast as Apple’s M2 chips (or Acer’s Swift Go 16), but it does surpass Apple’s M1 Pro in raw single-core and multi-core processing power. It also has one of the fastest SSD read and write times in a laptop we’ve recently tested.

If you don’t mind sacrificing a little bit of speed for better battery life, you can drop down to an Intel Core i5 with half the memory and storage space, or keep the display as dim as lighting conditions will allow.

Read our full Acer Swift 3 OLED review.

Pros

  • Speedy Intel H processor

  • Gorgeous OLED display

Cons

  • Design quirks

  • Sad audio

  • So-so battery life

$1,199.99 from Best Buy

$1,163.99 from Amazon

$1,120.00 from Walmart
Product image of Lenovo Slim Pro 7 14 (2023)
Lenovo Slim Pro 7 14 (2023)
  • Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS
  • Graphics: Nvidia RTX 3050
  • Memory: 16GB DDR5 6400MHz
  • Storage size: 512GB SSD
  • Display: 14.5-inch, 2560 x 1600, 90Hz IPS touchscreen
  • Battery life: 9.5+ hours

The Lenovo Slim Pro 7 14 went on sale recently for under $1,000, so we’re pleased we can finally include this great jack-of-all-trades laptop on this list.

It has the right specs to do more than simple web browsing thanks to its CPU with enough multicore power for light creative tasks like editing photos, videos, and audio, and the entry-level discrete GPU will render images much faster than AMD’s integrated graphics chip.

Additionally, it comes with a flight of varied ports that are useful for any computing situation, work or personal. It’s under an inch thick and weighs roughly 3.5 pounds—and to top it off, the battery lasts close to 10 hours. It just has everything you’d expect a laptop to have, and does everything you’d expect a laptop to do.

Read our full Lenovo Slim Pro 7 14 review.

Pros

  • Solid performance

  • Sturdy, tactile keyboard feel

  • Minimalist, professional look

Cons

  • Just okay screen brightness

  • Loaded with bloatware

$849.99 from Best Buy

$1,095.90 from Walmart
Product image of HP Envy x360 15.6 (2022)
HP Envy x360 15.6 (2022)
  • Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 5625U
  • Graphics: Integrated
  • Memory: 8GB DDR4 3200MHz
  • Storage: 512GB SSD
  • Display: 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080p
  • Battery: 8+ hours

HP’s Envy x360 is another budget-friendly, 2-in-1 laptop, but is configured with an AMD processor instead of an Intel processor like our top pick. There are many configurations available, including a 32GB RAM, 2TB SSD version and one with a faster AMD Ryzen 5 7530U processor.

But the Ryzen 5 5625U processor is no slouch when it comes to performance. Among all of our benchmarking data, the HP Envy x360 is one of the top-performing sub-$1,000 laptops (but not faster than our top pick here). This laptop’s battery life also is great, thanks in part to the power-efficient processor. The 51-watt-hour battery can hold a charge for eight-plus hours.

Typing on this laptop is comfortable, and the keyboard has large, springy keys perfect for working on papers or reports. The trackpad also is well-made and responds to taps and complex, multi-touch gestures quickly and accurately.

We do wish HP took it easy on the bloatware, as we removed upward of 15 pre-installed programs offering everything from cloud storage to free antivirus software trials.

Read our full HP Envy x360 review.

Pros

  • Sturdy, stylish chassis

  • Good performance

  • Good battery life

Cons

  • Mediocre display

  • Bloatware

Buy now at Amazon
Product image of Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (2022)
Asus Zenbook 14 OLED (2022)
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-1240P
  • Graphics: Intel Iris Xe (integrated)
  • Memory: 8GB LPDDR5
  • Storage: 256GB SSD
  • Display: 14-inch, 2880 x 1800, 90Hz, OLED
  • Battery life: 7.5+ hours

The Asus Zenbook 14 OLED isn’t as powerful as the other OLED laptops in our various guides, but when you factor in the number of upgrades this laptop provides beyond the basics, the price feels like a steal, especially if you can find it on sale for $500 or less.

It’s more common to find just-okay IPS displays with 300 nits of brightness in sub-$1,000 laptops, so the fact that this Zenbook 14 has an OLED display (with a 630-nit peak) at this price is truly a rare find. It’s also stylishly designed and constructed with sturdy materials. The keyboard is wonderfully tactile and the trackpad is both large and responsive. Even the port selection is well-rounded.

Our only caveat is that if you are a heavy multitasker, routinely have 50-plus tabs open in your browser, or use your laptop in such a way that 100% of the RAM is taken up at all times, then you might discover 8GB of memory is not enough—and unfortunately, the RAM is soldered onto the Zenbook 14’s motherboard, so you won’t be (easily) able to swap out that 8GB stick or add another.

Read our full review of the Asus Zenbook 14 OLED.

Pros

  • Stunning display

  • Snappy performance

  • Exceptional interfaces

Cons

  • Gets toasty

  • RAM constrained for heavy multitasking

Buy now at Amazon
Product image of Vaio FE14 (2022)
Vaio FE14 (2022)
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-1235U
  • Graphics: Intel Iris Xe (integrated)
  • Memory: 8GB
  • Storage: 512GB SSD
  • Display: 1920 x 1080p
  • Battery life: About 7 hours

The Vaio FE14 has finally come down enough in price for us to be able to add it to our list of recommendations. For around $420, its 12th-gen Intel U-series processor will net you decent performance compared to most of the laptops on this list.

It’s not the greatest-looking laptop, but it comes in fun colors and we appreciated the “old school” buttons on the trackpad. It doesn’t have a bright display, so you may discover the screen gets washed out in sunlight or bright indoor lighting. But the Vaio FE14 is reliable and runs fast enough—that’s what counts in this price range.

Read our full Vaio FE14 review.

Pros

  • Good keyboard

  • Variety of ports

  • Decent battery life

Cons

  • Underwhelming performance

  • Bland design

  • Mediocre display

Buy now at Amazon

$449.95 from Walmart
Product image of Dell XPS 13 9315 (2022)
Dell XPS 13 9315 (2022)
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-1230U
  • Graphics: Intel Iris Xe (integrated)
  • Memory: 16GB LPDDR5
  • Storage: 512GB SSD
  • Display: 13.4-inch, 1920 x 1200, IPS, LCD (optional touchsreen)
  • Battery life: About 16 hours

The Dell XPS 13 has the same polish and refinement as MSI’s Prestige 13 Evo and a much longer battery life than the MacBook Air. It’s the kind of laptop you can purchase without much thought and without regretting your decision, especially if the exact configuration we reviewed is on sale for under $1,000—but right now, the base version is on sale for $600, which comes with only 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD.

Despite it being the best XPS laptop Dell has made (that we’ve tested), the biggest reason it’s not higher up on this list is that its processing performance is much slower than the others. But you won’t need an obscene amount of processing power if you need a laptop for only simple computing tasks.

Read our full Dell XPS 13 review.

Pros

  • Sturdy and functional design

  • Great battery life

  • Competitive pricing

Cons

  • Mediocre performance

  • Only two Thunderbolt ports

  • Webcam and microphone don’t impress

Buy now at Dell

Buy now at Amazon

How We Test Budget Laptops

Top view of Microsoft Surface laptop
Credit: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar

We test laptops for their processing capability, graphics, battery life, and screen brightness.

We put PCs under $1,000 through the same tests as the best laptops you can buy. Every computer we test is evaluated on processing capability, graphics, battery life, and screen brightness.

Additionally, we also use each laptop for an extended time, looking at factors like price, build quality, design, and portability.

What You Should Know About Budget Laptops Under $1,000

Whether you need a Chromebook for web browsing, a high-powered machine for gaming, or a business laptop for video calls, you should be able to find a computer at an affordable price. Still, you’ll likely have to make some choices about what’s most important to you. Here are some things to consider:

Price

$1,000 is mid-range when it comes to laptops. At this price point, you’re getting good performance for most everyday tasks that won’t feel sluggish after a year or two of use, plus solid build quality and a few nice bells and whistles like facial recognition.

Performance

How well your computer can multitask, handle intensive tasks like gaming, and store all your files is determined by the CPU, graphics chip, RAM, and storage inside your PC. The better the specs, the snappier the laptop will feel as you work.

Display Size

The size of a laptop display is measured by its diagonal length. You’ll usually find laptops in one of three main sizes—13 inches and under, 15 inches, or 17 inches.

The smallest laptops are very portable and more suitable for lighter work and browsing the web. You lose some portability with laptops with 15-inch displays, but they are more useful for photo editing and watching videos. We recommend laptops with 17-inch displays if you are doing video editing or other intensive work that requires a bigger screen. They can be a pain to lug around.

  • The Best Laptops
  • The Best Tablets
  • The Best Chromebooks
  • The Best Gaming Laptops

Meet the testers

Adrien Ramirez

Adrien Ramirez

Staff Writer

@itsaramkat

Adrien is the PC staff writer for Reviewed with over 4 years of experience covering laptops, desktops, software, games, and more.

See all of Adrien Ramirez's reviews
Joanna Nelius

Joanna Nelius

Former Senior Editor, Tech

@

Joanna specializes in anything and everything gaming-related and loves nerding out over graphics cards, processors, and chip architecture. Previously she was a staff writer for Gizmodo, PC Gamer, and Maximum PC.

See all of Joanna Nelius's reviews

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