With new generations of AMD and Intel CPUs now packed inside the latest and greatest portable computers, there’s never been a better time than to upgrade your main machine for work or play — especially if you’re working from home during the lockdown. If you’re looking for the best deal on a laptop right now, you’ve got two options: Go with a budget laptop that suits your needs or look for a premium laptop on sale.
While the most premium of portable computers might have the highest of high-end components and the prettiest and sturdiest of chassis, more affordable laptops can still be great too. With a plethora of devices featuring high-powered, modern components, decent displays, and plenty of connectivity options, there’s a lot to love about today’s best cheap laptops.
With so many laptops on sale at the moment, it can be hard to figure out which are the best options. Do you go for the one with the greatest savings? The one with the most powerful hardware? It depends what you need. High-end laptops may look fantastic and offer amazing performance, but if you don’t really need class-leading battery life, a high-end gaming graphics chip, or a 4K screen, then you can make substantial savings by looking at cheaper options. Focusing on your needs, rather than trying to make the biggest saving, is always the best bet.
Keep in mind, saving money on a laptop now also opens up greater opportunities for upgrading sooner. A laptop that costs you thousands of dollars now will still feel outdated in a few years time, but you’ll be less equipped to upgrade it than you would be if you paid out for something more economical. Below, check out several of the best deals on laptops you can find right now.
Best Budget Laptop
Lenovo IdeaPad S340
- CPU: Dual core eighth-generation Intel Core i3-8145U
- Display: 15.6-inch 1,366 x 768 TN
- Battery life: Up to 8.5 hours
Lenovo is the most popular laptop manufacturer in the world, and with good reason. It makes excellent products at both the high end and entry-level portions of the market, but the Ideapad S340 is a real standout. For just a few hundred dollars you get a capable CPU, a sleek chassis, and a decent keyboard. 8GB of RAM is a real boon to heavy web browsers too, and though the display is far from stellar, it’s more than enough for school or office work and some off-hours movie watching.
Thanks to big price drops in flash memory in recent years, this laptop also enjoys a super-fast NVMe SSD that makes the whole experience of using the Ideapad S340 extremely snappy and responsive — long gone are the days of extended wait times when your laptop boots; even with budget offerings. It also includes Wi-Fi 5 support right out of the box, so you can enjoy high-speed connectivity straight away.
If you want greater performance and a better screen from your Ideapad, a 2020 version with a 10th-generation Intel CPU, up to 20GB of RAM and a terabyte of storage is available. But its price really jumps into the midrange category which starts to stretch the definition of budget.
Best Top-of-the-Line Budget Laptop
ZenBook 14 UX431FA
- CPU: Quad core 10th-generation Intel Core i5-10210U
- Display: 14-inch 1080p IPS
- Battery life: Up to 10 hours
Tell anyone how much you spent on your Asus ZenBook 14 UX431FA and they won’t believe you. Its price is on the high end of what might be considered budget, but considering what you get for your money, it breaks more molds than one. This is a premium laptop with an affordable price tag, making it not only one of the best budget laptops, but one of the best laptops; period.
ZenBooks have been at the forefront of laptop developments in recent years, with manufacturer Asus cramming more and more high-end features and components into well built chassis at an affordable price, with every generation. The 2020 refresh of this line of 14-inch notebooks is no exception, with this latest model featuring a quad core Intel 10th generation Core i5-10210U CPU. It has full support for hyperthreading, so can handle up to eight threads at once — perfect for multitasking and heavier processing tasks. You can even spend an extra $100 and get a discrete Nvidia MX250 chip for some surprisingly capable entry-level gaming ability.
The 1080p display on this laptop is great too, with the IPS panel providing good color accuracy and viewing angles, as well as a rich contrast ratio. It’s not the brightest in the world, so this laptop isn’t great for using outside, but you’ll be hard pressed to find any other flaws. It has half a terabyte of high-speed storage, Wi-Fi 5 support right out of the box, and even Harman Kardon certified speakers for some impressive audio for a budget laptop.
This is the king of budget laptops. Even if it’s a little more pricey than most.
Best 2-in-1 Budget Laptop
Surface Go 2
- CPU: Dual core Intel Pentium Gold 4425Y
- Display: 10.5-inch 1,920 x 1,280
- Battery life: Up to 10 hours
Microsoft’s original Surface Go was a great budget 2-in-1, and the sequel, the Surface Go 2, is just that bit better. It’s a compact device at just 10-inches wide, making it great for using on-the-move, and though its components aren’t super high-end or contemporary, they’re more than enough for basic work and play.
Under the hood you’ll find the option of an Intel Core M3 or Pentium 4425Y CPU, a choice of 4GB or 8GB of RAM, and up to 128GB of storage space. That’s plenty for the kind of work and play this little laptop is designed for. At just $500 for the base model, it’s one of the most affordable on this list, though you will want to pay an additional $130 for the Type Cover keyboard accessory to turn this into a full laptop as and when needed.
Its default configuration is Windows 10 S mode, which while perfectly fine for most, does restrict you to Microsoft Store applications. Never fear, though. You can change that in the Windows Settings menu once you have your hands on the Surface Go 2.
Best Budget Gaming Laptop
MSI GF63
- CPU: Quad core Intel Core i5-9300H
- Display: 15.6-inch 1080p
- Battery life: Up to seven hours
When it comes to gaming on a budget, the most important thing to focus on is getting a decent graphics chip, and the MSI GF63 with its Nvidia GTX 1650 Max-Q offering is more than enough for entry-level 1080p gaming for Esports games and older AAA titles. It’s far from a powerhouse and you’d go beyond it on a desktop without much effort, but for a budget laptop gaming, it’s the perfect choice at a great price point.
Paired up with an Intel Core i5-9300H and 8GB of RAM, this would be a fantastic laptop for playing League of Legends, Valorant, Fortnite, Rocket League, or a host of other popular competitive games. Its 15.6-inch 1080p IPS display is lacking in brightness and contrast, but it has good viewing angles and is fast enough to not hold you back. With high-speed NVMe SSD storage as standard too, this laptop will be snappy and responsive when booting, loading games, or just browsing around online.
There’s nothing much else that makes this laptop stand out from the pack, but that’s the point. It manages to hold its own with much more expensive gaming laptops and doesn’t have any glaring weaknesses outside of a slightly lacklustre display. You’d have to spend quite a lot more to get a lot more.
*Battery life numbers from MSI are based on productivity usage, not gaming. Expect only a couple of hours of gaming away from a power socket.
Best Budget Chromebook
Acer Chromebook 15
- CPU: Dual core Intel Celeron N3060
- Display: 15.6-inch 1080p IPS
- Battery life: Up to 11 hours
Chromebooks are some of the most affordable laptops you can buy, because their Chrome OS operating system is so snappy and lightweight compared to Windows and MacOS, that you don’t need hefty hardware. While there are expensive Chromebook options like Google’s Pixelbook, budget alternatives like the Acer Chromebook 15 are much more suited to the style of laptop that Chromebooks represent: fantastic budget options.
Perfect for students or those who like to browse Ebay, watch Netflix, and check their email at home or on the move, the Acer Chromebook 15 sports a capable dual core Intel Celeron N3060 CPU and a choice of 2GB of 4GB of RAM (it’s worth paying the extra $30 for 4GB) and 16GB of default eMMC flash storage. You can use the free 100GB of Google Drive storage to expand that, or leverage the included SD card for greater local storage. Some configurations even come with a 128GB card for much more local space.
With its lean hardware profile, this laptop easily lasts a full work day and then some on a single charge, and with the little heat it outputs, there’s no fan noise at all — because it doesn’t have one! That makes this an ideal laptop where quiet and serene operation is preferred.
While heavier users may want to opt for a more capable Chromebook (or one of the other great budget laptops on this list) if you don’t need to do a whole lot with your new laptop, this Chromebook is a great choice for making substantial savings.
Best Budget MacBook
MacBook Air 13-inch 2020
- CPU: Dual core Intel 10th-generation Core i3-1000NG4
- Display: 13.3-inch 2,560 x 1,600 IPS
- Battery life: Up to 12 hours
Apple doesn’t really do budget laptops, but out of its current lineup of offerings, the most affordable option you should consider is the latest rendition of the MacBook Air. It debuted in 2020 with a new set of components under the hood which make it far more of a competitor for modern day laptops, and it still employs all of the features you’d expect from Apple’s flagship portable laptop design.
It comes fitted with an Intel 10th-generation Ice Lake Core i3-1000NG4 CPU, which is far from a powerhouse, but is more than capable for entry-level uses, and with its onboard Iris Plus graphics, it does have some extremely modest gaming ability if you want to take advantage of that. Its base configuration of 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage is expandable, though you’ll need to pay through the nose for it.
Battery life is excellent at up to 12 hours of media play back and far more if you leave it in standby for some of that time. It also enjoys fantastic build quality, a light and mobile design, and a range of color options, including Apple’s iconic Silver, Space Grey, and newer Gold designs.
If you want to save a little more, the 2017 MacBook Air is still available at around $700, though its internal hardware is very outdated and makes for a far worse value proposition when compared with the competition at that price point.
Best On Sale Surface Pro
Microsoft Surface Pro X 13-inch
- CPU: Microsoft SQ1 ARM chip with SQ1 Adreno 685 GPU
- Display: 13-inch, 2880 x 1920
- Battery life: Up to 24 hours
Microsoft’s Surface Pro X isn’t just the next-generation Surface Pro — it’s a new kind of device entirely. It features a custom “Microsoft’s SQ1″ processor made in conjunction with Qualcomm, offering great performance in an exceedingly small package. It’s paired with up to 16GB of RAM and offers the kind of performance you rarely see in a tablet, as well as great laptop functionality when partnered with the excellent Microsoft Type Cover accessory.
It comes with LTE connectivity as standard, and full support for Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5, making this convertible laptop a fantastic buy at its new, reduced price.
Best On-Sale ZenBook
ASUS ZenBook 13 UX331FA-51
- CPU: Intel Core i5-8265U
- Display: 13.3-inch Full HD display
- Battery life: Up to 14 hours
Although the discount on this laptop isn’t the largest on this list, it’s still a big deal. Why? Because the ZenBook 13 is already one of the kings of budget laptops, offering amazing performance in a compact, well built chassis; so any additional price drops just make its already affordable design even more so.
It offers an eighth-generation Intel Core i5-8265U CPU, with 8GB of RAM, and half a terabyte of high-speed SSD storage. If you don’t mind spending a little more, there are also heavy discounts on the Core i7 version, as well as the model with an integrated Nvidia graphics chip for entry-level gaming.
Best On-Sale Lenovo
Lenovo IdeaPadS540
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700U / 2.3 GHz
- Display: 14-inch Full HD display
- Battery life: Up to nine hours
Lenovo’s laptops are some of the most popular in the world, and its IdeaPad S540 is one of its best. This model with such a heavy discount sports an AMD Ryzen 7 3700U processor with onboard Vega 10 graphics. That’s not only a capable CPU but a decent GPU too, offering entry-level gaming ability alongside excellent general compute performance.
With 12GB of DDR4 memory and half a terabyte of SSD storage, this laptop is extremely nippy and now at well under $1,000, it’s an excellent deal.
