Best Budget Laptops: 6 of the best for around £500
If you’re looking for the best budget laptop, but are unsure of your options, you’ve come to the right place.
Trusted Reviews has rounded up the best budget laptops available to buy right now – we’re ranking them based on their scores at the time we reviewed them, their prices now, and their position in the market relative to our best laptops and best student laptop recommendations.
Everything ranked here is also available to buy at – or very close to – the £500 mark. We’ll be adding to this article as and when we review more budget laptops. We’ve recently picked up review samples of the new Acer Aspire 3, which is priced around £400, and is undergoing testing now. We’ll update this article as and when new reviews are published.
Here to help you find the best budget laptop for your needs, we’ve narrowed everything down to the best five options currently available on the market, and have listed them all here – scroll on for full and detailed assessments of the best budget laptops below, as well as links to full reviews.
1. Lenovo Yoga 530
Best budget Windows 10 laptop
Pros:
- Balanced performance from AMD processor
- Better GPU than Intel integrated graphics
- Decent, smart exterior
Cons:
- Slower than Intel in applications
- Poor screen quality
- Average battery life
Why we liked the Lenovo Yoga 530
Costing around £700 at the time of launch, last year’s Lenovo Yoga 350 can now be snapped up for less, making it even more of a bargain.
If you’re looking for something for light PC office work, but boasts good build quality and smart design, then the Lenovo Yoga 350 is currently the best option.
Very much a mid-range device, the Lenovo Yoga 350 can handle for basic PC work, like word processing and web browsing, as well as simple photo editing. Don’t expect it to go anything more advanced than this though – it’s not suitable for gaming, or intensive photo work, and certainly not video editing.
While you can expect to get seven hours of power from this day to day, which about enough juice for office work, that’s below the eight hour average we’d expect from a laptop like this.
The Lenovo Yoga 350 is also light on ports – one Type-USB 3.0 and one Type-C USB 3.0 port – you do get a full-sized SD card reader, so you’ll easily be able to transfer holiday snaps from your digital camera.
Read the full review
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2. Microsoft Surface Go
Best budget Windows tablet
Pros:
- Windows 10 gives users plenty of freedom
- Extremely portable
- Kick-stand offers versatility
Cons:
- Pricey considering Type Cover isn’t bundled in
- Low-powered performance
- Dated design
Why we liked the Microsoft Surface Go
The Microsoft Surface Go is an excellent Windows 10 convertible – while it’s nominally a tablet, the TypeCover keyboard dock means it can comfortably double as a notebook.
The 10.1-inch touchscreen might be smaller than what you’ll see on most other laptops, at the maximum brightness of 225 nits means that you’d struggle to work on this outside on a sunny day.
However, it’s covers 92.8% of the standard RGB colour space, and its colour temperature of 6382K is close to the 6500K – which in plain English means that photos, websites, streamed video content look excellent. Whites don’t look overly red or warm, and
Ideally suited for working on the go and a spot of Netflix, the Microsoft Surface Go is the ideal Windows lifestyle – but it’s by no means a powerhouse, and as such is unsuitable for even light gaming or photo work.
While the Type Cover isn’t included, you can still pick up bundle deals with this throw in. Otherwise, it’s usually an extra £100.
Read the full review
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3. Acer Chromebook 514
Best all-round budget laptop
Pros:
- Good value for money
- Slim and light
- Metal chassis
Cons:
- Display quality is not great
- Performance can grind to a halt if overloaded
- Some apps like Spotify won’t work
Why we liked the Acer Chromebook 514
The Acer Chromebook 514 costs a very reasonable £370, and for your money gives you a slimeline metal laptop that’s ideally suited to like PC work, i.e. word processing, checking email, and web browsing.
Weighing just 1.5kg and measuring 17mm thick, the Acer Chromebook 514 is lightweight, won’t take up too much bag space, and the durable metal build means it’ll withstand more punishment than the kinds of plastic-bodied laptops you often find for this price.
While the display is not fantastic, giving you a low maximum brightness and poor viewing angles, but it’s good enough for word processing and general PC work.
While you don’t get a lot of on-board storage here, integration with Google Docs means that most of your work will be saved in the cloud. You get up to 15GB of cloud storage for less, and you can upgrade this to 100GB for £1.59/month.
App support is, at the time of writing, still limited, so just because you can download something from the Google Play App store, there’s no guarantee that it’ll work. For example, you can Netflix and chill here, but currently, Spotify and Slack don’t even load.
Read the full review
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4. Acer Swift 1 (2019)
Bare bones budget Windows 10 laptop that’s ideal for writing and office work
Pros:
- Nice price
- More than enough ports
- Ideal for light PC work
Cons:
- Below average battery life
- Viewing angles and max brightness are not great
Why we liked the Acer Swift 1 (2019)
The new Acer Swift 1 (SF114-32) from the 2019 range is very nicely priced, with models sitting in the £300-£450 bracket. While it is by no means a powerful and cutting-edge device, the Acer Swift 1 is plenty good enough for office work, and therefore, the Swift 1 is a good option for anyone in the market for a laptop for writing, browsing the web, and checking emails.
You also get a fingerprint scanner on the new Acer Swift 1 (rare for a budget laptop) as well as a healthy selection of ports, so if you wanted to hook your laptop up to an office monitor or TV for a closer look at your writing, or, if you need to give a PowerPoint presentation, you’re all set.
The Acer Swift 1’s battery life is not great. Expect around six hours of power when you’re not connected to the mains adapter. Hopefully your presentations won’t last that long, and even if they do, the Acer Swift 1 charges back up quickly. For most of the time, you’ll be fine. Just go easy on it.
Read the full review
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5. Dell Inspiron Chromebook 14 7000 2-in-1
Expensive for a ‘budget’ laptop, but still excellent value
Pros:
- Great build quality
- Good display
- Excellent battery
- Nice, eye-catching design
Cons:
- Chrome OS app support is still limited
- Speakers are not optimally positioned
Why we liked the Dell Inspiron Chromebook 14 7000 2-in-1
The Dell Inspiron Chromebook 14 7000 2-in-1 is currently our recommendation for the best Chromebook. While at £650, it’s sitting at the more expensive end of the price spectrum, this Chromebook represents excellent value for money.
The all-metal body gives the Dell Inspiron Chromebook 14 7000 2-in-1 a modicum of flair you don’t always get with Chromebooks, which is complemented by the glossy finish of the display.
The battery will typically give you between 8 and 10 hours of power when not plugged into the mains, and if you’re already invested in Google’s ecosystem, using Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Sheets for your communications and office work, then picking up a Dell Inspiron Chromebook 14 7000 2-in-1 is an obvious choice.
It can also comfortably double as a tablet, or be propped up a desk or coffee table if you need to run a presentation on Google Sheets, or you just want to stream something on Netflix at the end of the day.
App support for Chrome OS is still lacking. While we were able to easily run Netflix, Spotify, and Photoshop Express on the Dell Inspiron Chromebook 14 7000 2-in-1, Slack looked awful, and some games, like Civilization Revolution 2 didn’t even work.
Read the full review
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6. Dell Chromebook 3100 2-in-1
Best budget laptop for schoolkids
Pros:
- Virtually indestructible
- 360 hinge design
- Portable
- OK battery life
Cons:
- Screen is small and low res
- Keyboard could be better
Why we liked the Dell Chromebook 3100 2-in-1
The Dell Chromebook 3100 2-in-1 is solid, if simple laptop running Google’s Chrome OS. It’s trump card is its near indestructibility, due to the fact that it’s been designed to withstand the wear and tear of the classroom – the 11.6-inch, 1366 x 768 resolution screen is protected with a layer of toughened and scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass.
As such, it’s ideal for school-age children who want to get to grips with typing, connecting to the Internet, and learning how to load apps and save work to the cloud. In terms of ports, you get two USB-C and two USB-A ports as well as a microSD card reader, so you’ll be able to connect phones, mice, keyboards, and easily transfer photo files as well.
Thanks to integration with Google Docs, all homework and essays can be saved instantly to the cloud. And, despite its sturdy and splash-resistant (read: not splash-proof) construction, the Dell Chromebook 3100 2-in-1 is light – it weighs just 1.41 kilograms.
Read the full review
Best Budget Laptop Round Up
- Best budget Windows 10 laptop: Lenovo Yoga 530
- Best budget Windows tablet: Microsoft Surface Go
- Best budget Chromebook: Acer Chromebook 514
- Best all-round Chromebook: Dell Inspiron Chromebook 14 7000 2-in-1
- Best budget laptop for schoolkids:Dell Chromebook 3100 2-in-1
Freelance Writer
Thomas Newton has reported on UK consumer technology and telecoms for over ten years, and is currently working for Trusted Reviews as a freelance writer, mainly contributing weekend news stories and f…