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5 Best Laptop Under $500 of 2023 Reviews | Recommended Picks in This Price Range

Top Picks

4 Reviewers

20 Hours of Research

10 Options Considered

3 Top Monitors for MacBook Pro

5/5

It is a great laptop under 500 for everyday use at such a bargain price with a unique set of features. The laptop features a unique aesthetic design and incredible performances the excess expectations. 

  • Extended battery life
  • Great design
  • Has all the needed basic features

2. [Best For The Money] The HP Stream 14-inch Laptop

4.9/5

The laptop comes packed with great features that you would need in your daily tasks. The design is great that what you see in the pictures and has a very good display.

  • Great performance
  • Very attractive
  • Quite fast when booting

3. [Best For Students]

The ASUS 15.6 inches laptop

4.8/5

This is a great pick at school work and word processing and one that is highly recommended for daily tasks and students. It is a good solid mini laptop when on a $500 or less budget with great features one would want in any laptop.

  • Very little bloatware
  • Very quiet
  • Eight gigs or ram

Finding the best laptop under 500 is really not as difficult as you think. With the advancement in technology, cheaper laptops are appearing in the market, offering consumers great deals. This article has looked at some of the best laptops on the market to create this list of  top laptops under 500, choose the one that best suits your needs.

Best Laptop Under $500 Reviews

5/5

The Acer Aspire starts our list as the best laptop under 500 dollars and one that should give you good value for your money. It is a great laptop under 500 for everyday use at such a bargain price with a unique set of features. The laptop features a unique aesthetic design and incredible performances the excess expectations. The 802.11ac wireless performance makes it shiny in any situation.

Key features:

  • It features AMD Ryzen 3 3200U Dual Core Processor, speed up to 3.5GHz.
  • The Acer Aspire has 15.6 inches Full HD Widescreen with a 1920 by1080 resolution, LED Backlit Display and a 16:9 Aspect ratio.
  • Dual Channel memory of 4GB DDR4
  • It also has two built-in speakers for clear sounds
  • A backlit keyboard
  • Radeon Vega 3 Graphics-enabling powerful performance, Up to 7.5 Hours Battery Life.
  • Bluetooth 4.1, 3 USB ports and an HDMI port

This Acer is highly rated with an average rating of 4.4 making it one of the best laptops under 500 on the market at a favorable price of fewer than 500 dollars.

It makes the best choice when looking for a laptop under 500 that strikes the right balance between power and value. It has all the basic features one would want in a laptop like a decently sized SSD, 4-processing threads that run at good speeds, 8G memory and DVD burner.

Pros

  • Extended battery life
  • Exceptional performance at a low price
  • Great design
  • Has all the needed basic features

Cons

  • Wi-Fi not the fastest

This type of Acer Aspire Provides you with an amazing option when looking for performance and high quality. The design is superb with all the features one would want in a great laptop. Personally, I recommend the laptop to anyone looking for a good laptop with a budget of $500.

[Best For The Money]

4.9/5

The HP Notebook is another great option when you have a limited budget of less than $500 and in need of a laptop to handle daily tasks. The laptop comes packed with great features that you would need in your daily tasks. The design is great that what you see in the pictures and has a very good display. It has a good webcam and a nice keyboard without cons. It is worth every penny spent especially when looking for great performance at a low price, especially if you want a hackintosh laptop.

One of its best assets is that it is a very lightweight laptop. That, combined with its long battery life, makes it a great for travel and portability.

Key features:

  • 14.0 inches HD screen with a resolution of 1366 x 768
  • SDRAM Memory of 4GB
  • A solid state drive of 64 GB eMMC
  • Intel Celeron N4000; with i-five processor and a 1.1 GHz that goes up to 2.4 GHz with a Turbo Boost
  • 14 hours battery life
  • Windows 10 Home Operating system

The HP Notebook Full HD laptop is a great pick at such a good price with best compact design. The webcam is great, and the keyboard lacks cons. The model is slim and lightweight for that great price.

Pros

  • A very sharp display
  • Great performance
  • Very attractive
  • Quite fast when booting

Cons

  • It is plastic

The HP Notebook Full HD laptop is excellent to pick with a great design and a beautiful display coming at a good price. It is a friendly laptop that boots fast and loads fast. It is highly recommended when under budget.

[Best For Students]

4.8/5

The ASUS Full HD laptop remains one of the best in the class of connectivity when you have less than $500 to spend on a laptop. This best laptop under 500 comes with an HDMI, D-SUB, and USB type C and an 802.11a/c Wi-Fi. It comes ready to use with the Windows ten pre-installed. The features are perfectly balanced to strike a balance in its productivity and entertainment needs.

Key features

  • 64-bit Windows ten pre-installed
  • The latest 802.11 as wireless connectivity that works at longer ranges
  • 15.6 inches Full HD display
  • The ASUS one year accidental damage warranty
  • 256 GB solid state drive

The ASUS Full HD laptop has a good rating in most consumer sites with an average rating of 4 stars and above. It is a good solid mini laptop when on a $500 or less budget with great features one would want in any laptop.

It’s an excellent option that feels like a midpoint between a laptop and an ultrabook and one that you can carry with you everywhere.

Pros

  • 6th generation i5 processor
  • Very little bloatware
  • Eight gigs or ram
  • Sweet spot when you compare price and performance
  • Very quiet

Cons

  • No removable battery

This type of ASUS Full-HD Laptop is a great option when looking for the best laptops under 500 as a gift with great features. It’s a great pick at school work and word processing and one that is highly recommended for daily tasks and students.

Surely our list would have not been complete without the HP Chromebook Touchscreen 15-de0010nr Laptop Computer which is a great entry with exceptional features. The laptop comes with great speeds and good connectivity features. It comes pre-installed with the Windows 10 home 64 bit. It is a great option when you need a best laptop under 500 for day to day uses.

Key features:

  • 15.6-Inch FHD IPS bright View micro-edge WLED-backlit touchscreen display
  • Dual-Core Intel Pentium Gold 4417U Gold Processor with 2.3 GHz.
  • Intel HD Graphics 610
  • 4 GB ddr-2133 SDRAM
  • 64 GB eMMC Hard Drive

The best dell laptop under 500 is super-fast and one you would need when you need to store audio and video. It can store up to 600,000 photos helping you keep a good memory of your life throughout.

It is quite light weighing just 4 pounds. This is one laptop you can carry whenever on travel with ease.

Pros

  • Great features
  • Enough storage space
  • Great display
  • Long lasting battery
  • Very light at only 4 pounds

Cons

  • Does not boot very fast

The HP Chromebook 15-de0010nr Laptop Computer is definitely a great choice when you have less than $500 to spend but still need a good laptop to watch movies and listen to your favorite songs. It safely stores your photos and gives a great display.

Rarely can you pick up a laptop with an all-metal chassis for under $500. It also features an 11th-gen Intel Tiger Lake Core i3-1154G4 CPU, 8GB of RAM, with a 256GB SSD. Laptops with these are specs usually cost hundreds more.

The Inspiron 14 is a well sized laptop, at 0.66-0.70 inches thick and weighing  3.15 pounds. It has elegant, small bezels which make for a smaller chassis than a typical 14-inch laptop for the price.

Connectivity is also great including a USB-C 3.2 port, two USB-A 3.2 ports, and a full-size HDMI 1.4 port. Wireless connectivity supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1.

Dell Inspiron 14

Key features:

  • Processor Type - Intel Core i3-8145U
  • Hard Drive Capacity - 128 GB
  • Processor Speed - 2.1 GHz
  • RAM Memory - 4 GB
  • Maximum RAM Supported - 8 GB
  • Operating System - Windows
  • Battery Life - 6 h


It is light weighing and elegant with small bezels. This is one laptop offering features beyond the price.

Pros

  • Awesome features for the price
  • Great connectivity options
  • Up-to-date Wi-Fi compatibility
  • Long lasting battery
  • Elegant with small bezels

Cons

  • No Thunderbolt 4 support

If your budget is $500 max, we think that the Inspiron 14 is a solid choice in this price range considering its features.

Final Verdict

Best laptops under 500 for you on a tight budget, the options above are the best on the market at such a discounted price. They have all the necessary features that people want in a good laptop and provide users with value for money. You can confidently place orders knowing that you have purchased a great laptop that will serve you for years to come. However, you don’t want to just take budget into consideration – consider your needs. You'll have to take into consideration that most gaming laptops have gaming configurations not ideal for other uses like drawing or music production.

However, if you’re looking for a dependable mid-range laptop then look no further. You’ve found them.

About Dusan Stanar

I'm the founder of VSS Monitoring. I have been both writing and working in technology in a number of roles for dozens of years and wanted to bring my experience online to make it publicly available. Visit https://www.vssmonitoring.com/about-us/ to read more about myself and the rest of the team.