Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. Deals

These laptops are all under $500 for back-to-school

Add as a preferred source on Google

If you’re heading back to school soon, you’ll almost certainly want a new laptop to take to class. Fortunately, there are plenty of great back-to-school laptop deals, so you don’t have to worry about spending a fortune on a great device. Walmart offers many of the best laptops under $500 so you can save cash on your technology purchases while still getting a great laptop for school. In terms of laptop deals as well as great Chromebook deals, Walmart is a great place to check out. We’ve helped out by narrowing things down to some of the best of the bunch. Keep on reading while we break things down for you, ensuring there’s a laptop for every budget and need.

Lenovo SS30 Chromebook — $159, was $239

Lenovo 81JW0001US Chromebook S330 1 on a white background.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The best Chromebooks offer reliable specs and good build quality while keeping costs down. Thanks to Lenovo being one of the best laptop brands out there, you’re guaranteed of this with the Lenovo 81JW0001US Chromebook S330. It has a Mediatek processor, 4GB of memory, 32GB of eMMC storage, plus a 14-inch HD display. That’s pretty basic but it’s everything you need to be able to access your files in the cloud and type while on the move without any issue. At this price, it’s ideal for the student on the tightest of budgets.

HP 15-dw1001wm — $249, was $379

HP 15-dw1001wm on a white background.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

With a $130 price reduction, the HP 15-dw1001wm is instantly tempting. For the money, you get an Intel Celeron N4020 processor, 4GB of memory, plus 128GB of SSD storage. The storage means you can store more files on your PC rather than rely on cloud storage plus you get Windows 10 Home in S Mode which is beneficial for many users. A 15.6-inch full HD screen means plenty of room to spread out your files and windows too. HP Fast Charge technology is great if you’re in a rush too, since it gives a 50% charge in just 46 minutes, plus there’s up to 9 hours of battery life too. Not bad for the price, right?

ASUS VivoBook 15.6 — $349, was $399

ASUS VivoBook on a white background.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Looking super sleek and stylish, the Asus VivoBook is a bargain with these kinds of looks. You get an AMD Ryzen 3 3250U processor, 4GB of memory, plus 128GB of SSD storage, alongside a 15.6-inch full HD display. What we love most here are the little things. The Asus VivoBook is pretty compact and looks sleeker than many other laptops at this price point but it still squeezes in a backlit keyboard plus a fingerprint reader. That means you get to feel like you have a more premium experience but at a lower cost than many alternatives. It’s a sweet deal.

Gateway 15.6 Notebook — $399

Gateway 15.6 FHD Ultra Slim Notebook on a white background.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

If you can stretch your student budget a little further, this Gateway 15.6-inch FHD Ultra Slim Notebook is gorgeous. It has a more powerful processor than other devices listed here thanks to its AMD Ryzen 5 3450U processor, and that’s enhanced by 8GB of memory plus 256GB of SSD storage. It’s the little details that make the Gateway 15.6-inch FHD Ultra Slim Notebook even sweeter though thanks to its ultra-slim design, THZ Audio tuning, fingerprint scanner, and up to 10 hours of battery life. If you’re looking for a laptop to study on but also watch your favorite streaming shows, this is a great option.

Jennifer Allen
Jennifer Allen is a technology writer with over 15 years of experience in the field. During that time, she's spent the past…
Microsoft has begun rolling out Copilot Code for building apps with natural language
The workplace-focused vibe coding tool can pull context from emails, documents, meetings, and chats.
Microsoft Copilot code logo

Microsoft introduced Code last month as one of the three core parts of its revamped Copilot app. The app was pitched as an easy-to-use coding agent that lets users describe what they want to build in natural language, like an app, a tracker, a dashboard, an automation, or a workflow, and Copilot would build it for them.

Essentially, it's a workplace-focused vibe-coding app that turns existing work into a functional app, and Microsoft has begun rolling it out through the Frontier program.

Read more
AI agents are acting like rogues and causing a huge headache for US banks
US banks block AI agents over fears they could make unauthorised financial moves
Banking

US banks are facing a new kind of digital headache: artificial intelligence agents attempting to access customer accounts and perform actions that may go beyond what users intended. As AI tools become more capable of navigating websites and carrying out tasks independently, financial institutions are scrambling to prevent them from crossing security boundaries.

According to a report published by Axios on October 22, major US banks have detected third-party AI agents operating inside customer accounts without authorisation. Some agents reportedly appeared to attempt actions independently of user instructions. The banks involved have not publicly detailed every incident, and there is no evidence that the reported activity resulted in widespread theft of customer funds.

Read more
Canva enters the AI image generation race with Craft, and it’s thinking beyond pretty pictures
The new model plans layouts before generating images, with precise editing and support for 30 aspect ratios.
Canva Craft Featured Image

AI can generate all kinds of pretty pictures, but getting it to spell a headline correctly or keep a poster's layout intact can be another story. Canva wants to fix that with Canva Craft, its first in-house image generation model. Rather than focusing primarily on photographs, Craft is designed around the posters, presentations, social media graphics, and other visual content people actually create. The goal is simple: spend less time fixing AI's mistakes and more time making something useful.

Canva Craft plans before it generates

Read more