The 5 Best Budget And Cheap Laptops - Black Friday 2024

The best budget laptop we've tested is the ASUS Vivobook 16 M1605 (2023), a 16-inch Windows ultraportable. This model feels well-built, and it isn't overly bulky or heavy for a 16-inch device, so it's still easy to carry around. You can configure it with an AMD Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 7 CPU, which are more than adequate to handle general productivity tasks like text processing, web browsing, spreadsheets, and video playback. Models with 16GB of RAM might be hard to find, but thankfully, you can upgrade the memory yourself, which might be cheaper since SO-DIMM sticks are relatively inexpensive days. Its battery life is okay at a little over eight hours of light use, so depending on your workload, you may have to plug it in for a quick charge.

The overall user experience is good. It has a comfortable keyboard, a large, responsive touchpad, and a decent 720p webcam. Its 1080p display looks reasonably sharp but only gets up to 250 cd/m² of brightness, so visibility may be an issue in well-lit rooms. It also looks a tad washed out due to its narrow color gamut. You get Wi-Fi 6E wireless connectivity, a fingerprint sensor for quick logins, and a decent port selection with three USB-As, a USB-C, and an HDMI. Unfortunately, the USB-C doesn't support video output, so you'll have to use the HDMI port to connect an external display.

If you like the 2-in-1 tablet form factor, get the Lenovo Chromebook Duet 5 (2021). This is a great option if you just need a simple device for media consumption and web browsing. It's compact and lightweight, and its battery lasts around 10 to 11 hours of light use. Like other 2-in-1 tablets, you can detach the keyboard to make it easier to hold as a tablet or to save space, which is handy in tight spaces. Its OLED display looks sharp and colorful, and it gets bright enough to combat glare in most indoor settings. There's pen input support, as well as a place to store the stylus on the back cover, but unlike the keyboard, you may have to buy the stylus separately, as it doesn't always come with the device.

As expected for a budget device, there are a few downsides. First, the keyboard and touchpad. The former has a cramped layout, with keys that require a fair amount of force to actuate, and the latter is small and not always responsive to inputs, so you're better off using a dedicated mouse. Next, the speakers sound terrible, producing a boxy, unnatural sound with no bass whatsoever. Last, the port selection is limited to two USB-Cs, one of which you'll need to charge the device. There are no biometrics like a fingerprint sensor or facial recognition camera, though that's fairly typical for Chromebooks.

The best budget gaming laptop we've tested is the ASUS TUF Gaming A16 Advantage Edition (2023), a 16-inch all-AMD model. For around $1,000 USD, you can get this laptop with a Ryzen 7 7735HS CPU, Radeon RX 7600S GPU, 165Hz FHD display, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. This configuration delivers a smooth gaming experience at 1080p or 1440p, even in demanding AAA titles. Its display also boasts an impressive response time for clear image quality with minimal ghosting, and it supports variable refresh rate (VRR) to limit screen tearing. Thermal throttling is minimal, but the laptop gets fairly hot and loud. Thankfully, there aren't hotspots near the WASD cluster.

For connectivity, you get Wi-Fi 6 and an Ethernet port. The rest of the port selection is also great, with plenty of USB-A and USB-C ports and a true HDMI 2.1 port. The 512GB storage in this configuration will probably fill up quickly with the size of recent titles, though you can get a 1TB SSD if you're willing to pay more. It's also worth noting that the storage (along with the memory) is user-replaceable, and there are two M.2 storage slots. As for the battery life, you can expect a little over an hour when gaming, which is fairly typical.

The best cheap laptop we've tested is the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i Chromebook 14 (2023). It's a great option for younger students or anyone needing a simple device for web browsing and video playback. Although there are many configuration options, we recommend the Core i3 model paired with an FHD touch-sensitive display, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage, which you can regularly find on sale for $400 to $500 USD on Lenovo's website. The cheaper configurations are fine if you have an extremely light workload; just know they'll stutter or slow down more quickly when multitasking and have a lower-quality screen.

The display of the Core i3 model mentioned above is bright enough for use in well-lit settings and reasonably color-accurate. The keyboard feels spacious but a tad mushy, and unfortunately, the touchpad is small and sometimes unresponsive. Its 1080p webcam is surprisingly good, though, and its battery life is outstanding at around 13 hours of light use. If you're unfamiliar with Chrome OS, know that this operating system is limited in the type of applications you can install, so you must ensure you can do everything through a Chrome browser or Android app.

The best cheap gaming laptop we've tested is the Acer Chromebook Plus 516 GE (2024). This isn't a gaming laptop in the traditional sense, as it has a low-power CPU paired with integrated graphics, and it runs Chrome OS. Instead, it's designed for cloud gaming through services like NVIDIA GeForce NOW. This means that NVIDIA's servers do all the processing and stream the image to your device, eliminating the need for powerful hardware. The laptop comes with a three-month trial of the service; you can continue to play for free after the trial, though you'll have to pay if you want the best experience with higher frame rates and longer play sessions. As for games from the Google Play Store, the CPU and GPU can handle them, but you might not always get the best experience, as they're mobile games primarily designed for smartphones and tablets, so you may encounter some with no keyboard, mouse, or controller support.

The overall build quality is good, and while it's a little bulky, it's still relatively portable for a 16-inch device. Its 120Hz QHD+ display looks very sharp and gets bright enough for use in most indoor settings; the response time is a bit slow but better than most productivity laptops, so you won't see too much ghosting in fast-moving scenes. There's Wi-Fi 6E wireless connectivity and an Ethernet port to ensure you get a stable internet connection and the lowest latency, which are crucial for a good cloud gaming experience. Configuration-wise, you can get up to 16GB of RAM and 2TB of storage; the latter is user-replaceable, so you can upgrade it yourself later on.