Find a new full-power notebook for the price of a tablet with the 10 best laptops under $500.
It’s not necessary to spend a fortune for a nice laptop. While luxurious models with metal surfaces and lightning-quick processors will set you back as much as $1,000, they’re also far from required to have an enjoyable computer experience. Even the slowest laptops available today offer enough performance for web browsing and basic productivity, and some of them even have impressive battery endurance.
There are so many options available for under $500 that picking a laptop can become a bit confusing, and since you’re on a budget, you’ll want every dollar to buy you as much laptop as possible. With that in mind, let’s have a look at ten options that are worth checking out.
ASUS A53U-XE1
$350
When netbooks originally became popular, they were restricted to products with displays no larger than twelve inches. That was because Intel didn’t want Atom processors to show up in large laptops. Now AMD has its own competent netbook processors, however, and that company has no such qualms. The result is laptops like this ASUS A53U-X1, which has a large chassis with a 15.6-inch display, but a price of just $350. This is not a powerful laptop, but it is well built and pleasurable to use.
HP ProBook 4530s
$485
Want a durable business-grade laptop with a simple metal finish and anti-glare screen? You might think that’s impossible to obtain for under $500, but you’d be wrong. The HP ProBook 4530s, a 15.6-inch laptop, is available for about $480. But wait, there’s more. HP didn’t sacrifice the hardware, so despite the low price, you still receive a Core i3-2310M processor, 4GB of RAM and even a 7200 RPM hard drive. Just don’t expect much endurance from the small battery.
Lenovo IdeaPad Z575
$499
Using the latest AMD A-Series processors, the IdeaPad Z575 is a general-purpose multimedia laptop with a 15.6-inch display. That means it’s built for productivity, Web browsing, HD video, light gaming – whatever you’d like to throw at it. On this budget, you’ll only be able to afford the basic model, but that will still net you an AMD A4-3300M APU with integrated Radeon graphics. It’s a solid, well-rounded laptop that would be perfect for a student.
Lenovo ThinkPad X120e
$400
This small 11.6-inch netbook from Lenovo offers an AMD Fusion E-350 APU with two cores, which means it provides much better performance than the single-core Atom netbooks that used to define the market. It also has been given the ThinkPad treatment, including an excellent keyboard and build quality that is a cut above most competitors. Some may find the matte black exterior boring, and the touchpad is small, but for $399 these flaws are easy to overlook.
Toshiba NB505
$265
The Toshiba NB505 is an “old-school” netbook. It offers a small 10.1-inch display and is powered by a single-core Atom processor. As you might expect, performance is lethargic, but battery life is outstanding and the price is well under $300. Better yet, the NB505 has the most comfortable keyboard in this segment, and one of the largest touchpads. If you’d like a traditional, inexpensive netbook, this is the way to go.
Showing 2 comments
RSS