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5 Affordable Laptops For 2019

There’s no hard and fast rule about what qualifies as a best priced laptops for college students. For some users, it may mean anything under $1,200, the price tag around which many premium laptops hover. Others might find affordability only in options under $200, a category where you can really only find extremely stripped-down notebooks.

For this roundup, I called in a variety of laptops that cost around $500, a price point which promises a modest presence of higher performance features while keeping costs manageable. All the laptops reviewed here retail for between $400 and $700.

One particular note for this roundup: All the systems tested run Microsoft Windows. Laptops running Google’s Chrome operating system can be an enticing option for those looking to save money, and these systems definitely have their place. (In fact, I’ll be reviewing low-cost Chrome notebooks in the next few weeks, so keep an eye out for that coverage.) But for those looking to install and run Windows-based applications — nearly every average computer user — Chrome machines simply aren’t an option because they aren’t compatible with Windows software.

What to Look For

One might assume the low-cost category features only bare-bones laptops without many distinguishing features, but in my reporting, I found that a surprising variety of machines are available in this price range. Hard choices are still unavoidable, though: A low-cost laptop requires compromise, and you’ll need to prioritize what’s most important to reach a final decision.

Keeping prices low doesn’t have to mean sacrificing your sanity, so consider a few basics as the least negotiable features. Foremost, look for a system with a screen that’s good enough to keep you from hating it immediately on purchase (and yes, those exist). Second, you want a keyboard and touchpad that will keep you comfortable and productive.

Beyond this, examine the internal specs. An Intel Core i5 computer processing unit (CPU), the laptop’s engine, of any speed, is ideal, though a fast Core i3 chip is manageable. For RAM, which more or less determines the power and speed your machine has in real time, 8 GB is a bare minimum (all the systems I tested include this amount). Storage is trickier, as you can opt for a fast but small solid state hard drive, or a large but slow traditional hard drive. The performance difference is noticeable, so for most users I recommend choosing the largest SSD possible. A drive with 256 GB is a good option, but only 128 GB will work fine if you invest in some cloud storage space.

Finally, consider graphics. If you aren’t gaming, editing photos or working with video, an integrated graphics processor, or GPU, is fine. Otherwise, you want a dedicated graphics card. Some low-cost systems now have lower quality dedicated GPUs, which land in between the two extremes of integrated graphics or an expensive, high-performance GPU. I’ll discuss the pros and cons of these types of units in the detailed reviews that follow.

Systems at a Glance

My top pick is the Acer Aspire E 15, a $600 laptop with a midrange graphics processor, the Nvidia GeForce MX150, and, bizarrely, a built-in DVD player, almost unheard-of these days in any laptop. At 4.9 pounds, it’s a bit on the bulky side, and if you agree you might like my second favorite, the Lenovo Flex 14. This 3.4-pound laptop is bare-bones, but does have a touchscreen, a rarity on a low-cost machine. And for under $, it’s one of the least expensive machines I tested. Finally, if you really want higher-end graphics performance, the $700 MSI GF63 is a strong option, and the cheapest way to get gaming-level graphics on a portable.

Don’t forget prices can fluctuate a lot based on several factors — seller, time of year, and configuration, for example — especially for low-cost systems, so shop around and be patient if a budget laptop is on your wish list.