With the world's best laptops often demanding investment of well over $1,000, a budget of $500 might not seem like it would go far, but it can. The best laptops under $500 pack a punch that goes well above their weight class, delivering solid performance, day-long battery life and often come with great additional features like a functional tablet mode or decent gaming ability.
You do have to make some sacrifices at this sort of price point, but $500 is more than enough to get a great laptop if you know where to look. So whatever you want your new laptop to do, if you're on a tight budget, here are the best laptops you can buy under $500. Some of them, significantly under.
- Best Overall Laptop Under $500: Asus Vivobook 14
- Best Chromebook Under $500: Lenovo ChromeBook Duet
- Best 17-inch Laptop Under $500: Lenovo IdeaPad 3
- Best Gaming Laptop Under $500: HP 14
- Best 2-in-1 Laptop Under $500: Surface Go 3
- Best Touchscreen Laptop Under $500: Apple iPad
- Cheapest Windows Laptop Under $500: HP Stream 14
- Most Premium-Feel Laptop Under $500: Dell Inspiron 5000
Best Laptop Under $500 Overall
Decent Performance At A Super Affordable Price
- Processor: Intel Core i3 1115G4
- RAM: 12GB
- Storage: 256GB SSD
The best laptops under $500 are all decent machines for lightweight work, web browsing and enjoying your favorite media, but the laptop that really shines in this weight class is the Asus VivoBook 14. It comes with an 11th-generation Intel Core i3-1115G4 CPU with two cores and four-thread support, plus an impressive 12GB of RAM. That gives it plenty of power for managing a number of web browser tabs handling larger spreadsheets or Office documents without serious slowdown.
You won't get much gaming ability out of the Xe graphics, but there's enough there for retro games or lightweight indie and esports games, and the 1080p display is clear and crisp enough to enjoy your favorite movies and TV shows.
It comes with Windows 11 as standard so you can enjoy the latest Windows operating system, and there is a solid selection of ports, including USB-A, USB-C, a headphone and microphone jack, HDMI output for external displays and a fingerprint reader for easier login. If you just need a good, all-round laptop for lightweight tasks, the Asus VivoBook 14 is the best laptop under $500 for you.
Best Chromebook Under $500
A Bargain Laptop With Chrome OS
- Processor: MediaTek Heliop P60T
- RAM: 4GB
- Storage: 128GB eMMC
Many of the best laptops under $500 are Chromebooks because Chrome OS is such a lightweight operating system that doesn’t require as much power to run as, say, Windows or Mac OS. The Lenovo Chromebook Duet is a great example of this kind of ethos. At first glance, it appears to have pretty meager specifications, but it actually offers decent performance alongside extensive battery life.
This is a device that sits somewhere between a laptop and a tablet, and operates well as both. Its keyboard is pretty small, so this isn't the best device for those with larger hands, but it's still comfortable to type on and the whole device is super compact and lightweight, making it an excellent travel companion if you want to get some work done on a train or plane.
This model comes with the larger 128GB of eMMC storage, though you also have a free voucher for 100GB of Google Drive space if you need more. There's also a leaner 64GB version if you don't need this much, and you'll save a few bucks extra if you can go without.
Best 17-inch Laptop Under $500
Impressive Performance At A Big Discount
- Processor: AMD Ryzen 5500U
- RAM: 8GB
- Storage: 512GB SSD
Big screens normally mean bigger cost and shorter battery life, but the Lenovo IdeaPad 3 manages to stay within our budget thanks to its hefty discount and the battery life isn't bad either.
At its heart, this laptop enjoys the solid performance of an AMD Ryzen 5500U six core processor, which is more than most of the laptops on this list. Combined with 8GB of RAM and half a terabyte of SSD, you have a versatile system that is both snappy and has plenty of space for all of your files. It even has enough grunt for some light gaming thanks to the onboard Vega graphics.
The display is a great size for watching movies and immersive TV shows, and though the resolution is limited to 1,600 x 900, it's perfectly adequate for the kind of lightweight tasks a sub-$500 laptop is designed for.
Battery life should last up to eight hours of mixed usage, which is impressive considering the size of the screen and the power of the CPU and a testament to the solid power management and efficient components under the hood. It's close to five pounds in weight, though, and the 17-inch screen doesn't make it the most portable of devices.
Best Gaming Laptop Under $500
Powerful Onboard Graphics
- Processor: AMD Ryzen 5500U
- RAM: 8GB
- Storage: 256GB SSD
Gaming laptops are typically fitted with a dedicated GPU, and that almost universally pushes them outside of a $500 budget. But that doesn't mean you can't get a laptop that's great for gaming at an affordable price. Meet the HP 14, a laptop with excellent performance for the price and enough onboard GPU cores to deliver solid frame rates in just about any esports game or older AAA title you throw at it.
Under the hood you get an AMD Ryzen 5500U six-core processor, seven Vega graphics cores, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD space—more than enough for a handful of your favorite games. The memory is a little lower than you'll want in some cases, but it’s user upgradeable so you can always expand it to 16GB in the future if you want. And even though the battery in this device is small, you'll still get a few hours of play without having to reach for a charger.
The display is 1080p, which at 14 inches looks fantastically crisp and clear, and it gets bright enough for you to really enjoy your favorite games. It isn't high refresh rate, but outside of the most lightweight esports games, you won't see super high frame rates with this laptop. Even so, this is easily the best gaming laptop around $500.
Best 2-in-1 Windows Laptop Under $500
Microsoft Surface Go 3
- Processor: Intel Pentium Gold 4425Y
- RAM: 8GB
- Storage: 512GB SSD
It might be the baby of the Surface range, but the Suface go has been one of the best 2-in-1 laptops for years, and the Surface Go 3 is the latest and greatest iteration of that line. It has greater performance than its predecessors, the same great Type Cover keyboard accessory and a bright and vibrant screen. It doesn’t sport the most contemporary looks and battery life could be better, but it's incredibly versatile, and with Windows 11 as standard, it works just as well as a tablet as it does as a laptop.
You'll need to buy the Type Cover separately to make full use of it as a laptop, but the built-in stand makes it great for watching movies or video calling. The new-generation Intel Pentium Gold processor brings it in line with some of its contemporary Windows devices, and though its bezels are a little thick for a modern device, they give you plenty of space for holding on to it. As such a small, lightweight and affordable device, the Surface Go 3 makes a great first laptop for kids, or for watching your favorite content while travelling.
Best Touchscreen Laptop Under $500
The Best Tablet Becomes A Great Laptop
- Processor: Apple A13
- RAM: 3GB
- Storage: 256GB
The iPad is still one of the best and most versatile tablets you can buy, and in the case of this 2021 10-inch model, if you add a keyboard, it turns an already great tablet into a decent little laptop. It's running iPadOS, so it's not as versatile as Windows or Chrome OS-based laptops, but it's much more multi-tasking friendly than iOS, making this a great little device for doing basic web browsing, answering emails and social media needs, and watching your favorite shows or playing games. In typical Apple fashion, too, the screen is absolutely gorgeous, with bright and vibrant colors and a higher resolution than any other laptop on this list at 2,160 x 1,620 pixels.
You have a range of iOS applications you can use, though this device is more mobile than laptop on the software front, so you don't have the full weight of desktop applications like you would have on Windows or MacOS. That lightweight design makes the most of the hardware, though, making the iPad snappy and responsive no matter you're doing.
Cheapest Windows Laptop Under $500
Incredibly Affordable
- Processor: Intel Celeron N4020
- RAM: 4GB
- Storage: 64GB eMMC
If you need a laptop but $500 is too much of a stretch, then the HP Stream 11 is a great choice. At just $250, it is eminently affordable, and its lightweight and sturdy design makes it a great travel companion. Its CPU and memory are pretty limiting, so don't expect to do any heavy work on this device, but you still get a full Windows install, and with 11 hours of battery life, it's a great device to keep around if you need to type out an email or do a bit of research when it's not convenient to use something bigger.
The low resolution screen means it's not particularly great for watching HD films or shows, although older content won't look so bad, and there's an HDMI output that would let you use an external display if you need some more space for work or entertainment.
The onboard 64GB of space means you'll have little trouble installing all the latest Windows updates, but there won't be much left, so consider adding an external drive if you need to keep any real quantities of data handy.
Most Premium-Feel Laptop Under $500
An All Metal Body and Trim Bezels
- Processor: Intel Core i3-1115G4
- RAM: 8GB
- Storage: 256GB SSD
All the laptops on this list make the most of their budget, and that typically means maximizing on the internal components or the display and cutting corners of build quality. Not so with the Dell Inspiron 5000—while its screen bezels might be plastic, the main body is entirely metal, giving it a truly premium feel that you only usually find on much more expensive devices. It's no slouch on performance either, with a capable 11th-generation Intel processor, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of high-speed SSD storage.
It's not going to be great for video editing, but it's perfectly nippy enough for everyday use, and with its sleek design and paint job, it won't look out of place amongst the sea of MacBooks and Windows Ultrabooks.
The onboard Intel Xe graphics aren't half bad on this laptop either, so while it won't play the latest AAA games, you can enjoy select esports games or older AAA games on the lightweight 1,366 x 768 display.
