#Best budget laptop 2021 how to
#Best budget laptop 2021 1080p

But that doesn’t mean you have to make do with a laptop that feels cheap rather, you’re looking for one that's affordable. And you might have to make a few compromises on the display, such as how well it handles colors and how bright gets. You’re not going to get bleeding-edge performance or a super premium design. It can be tricky to weigh up how much one can expect from a laptop that costs less than $500.

#Best budget laptop 2021 how to

How to choose the best laptop under $500 for you That being said, it hits all the points for your basic computing needs, including steady performance and a wealth of ports. While the Acer Aspire 5 is a good deal if you need a new laptop now for not a lot of money, many of its quirks may be hard to ignore-particularly its poor battery life. However, it isn't the budget all-star its predecessor was thanks to its disappointing battery life: it lasted less than 7 hours in our lab testing, and under real-world conditions, it regularly started to run low after just a few hours of streaming video.

#Best budget laptop 2021 1080p

It offers a good port selection, a nice 15.6-inch 1080p display, and a full-size keyboard that's comfy to type on. The Acer Aspire 5 is a full laptop for under $500, and it's a great little machine as long as you don't plan on unplugging it very often. Read our full Microsoft Surface Go 2 review. And with a boosted battery life over its predecessor, the Surface Go 2 should keep going long enough away from a power socket to get you through a decent length trip. That’s hardly a mighty set of specs, but it should be enough for people who want a 2-in-1 device for reasonably lightweight productivity tasks - think web browsing, word processing, and firing out a healthy batch of emails.īut if you don’t want to work on the go, you can load it up with movies and video, as well as a few indie games, courtesy of Steam compatibility, and use those to while away a dull commute. But to keep things below $500, you have to put up with an Intel Pentium Gold processor, only 4GB of RAM and 64GB of eMMC storage. That takes the entry-level $299 Surface Go 2 tablet up to $359, but in the process turns it into a dinky laptop that’s surprisingly capable.

The Microsoft Surface Go 2 comes into its own when the optional Type-Cover accessory is added into the mix.

On the surface, the Surface Go 2 doesn’t look that much different from its predecessor, except in one neat upgrade where Microsoft slimmed down its bezels to fit a 10.5-inch display, rather than 10-inch display that screen still delivers bright and punchy colors. Unlike the other laptops, it’s a hybrid device able to pull double duties as a road warrior laptop and a Windows 10 tablet. A wild card to throw into this list, we have the Microsoft Surface Go 2.