The best laptops under £500: the top budget laptops available in 2024

This guide to the best laptops under £500 will lead you straight to the affordable laptop that's best for you – and just because you're shopping at the budget end of the market doesn't mean you have to put up with a sub-standard computer.

Choosing something at a lower price point can often be risky if you don’t know what to look out for. Luckily for you, I’ve rounded up some of the best laptops under £500 (or close to that figure), that still offer great value for money.

And there are options here to suit everyone's tastes and needs, including 2-in-1 laptops, Windows laptops, and Chromebooks. What you won't find here is anything from Apple, as none of their MacBooks meet the sub-£500 criteria for this list.

The cost of living crisis means we're all looking for even more ways to save money on non-essential items or replacements for old devices. This could be shopping within a budget like for a laptop under £500, or prolonging the life of your old one.

This is a good time to be looking for a cheap laptop, with festive deals rolling in all the time. For those and more, do check out the T3 Christmas hub this year, where we'll be gathering all of our best seasonal content.

T3's top picks

The best laptops under £500 2024

Best laptop under £500 for most people

We think the best laptop under £500 for most people, right now, is the Acer Aspire 3: it has a spacious display, it runs Windows 11 (so you've got a virtually endless choice of software), and it has enough in the way of power to handle all the everyday tasks you'll need to do on it.

As is the norm from Acer, it's a well designed and well built laptop, and it's worth mentioning the noise-cancelling tech on the integrated webcam – something that's going to come in handy if you spend a lot of time on video calls with work colleagues or friends and family.

Of course at this affordable price you're going to have to make some compromises, but this is a laptop that's more than capable, and which offers plenty of ports too. It's almost the perfect balance between price and features, and you get plenty of bang in return for your buck.

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Best premium laptop under £500

While "the best premium laptop under £500" may sound like something of an oxymoron, the MSI Prestige 14 Evo certainly ticks all the boxes you want ticking to meet that description: despite the low price, you're getting a stylish, compact, and high performance 14-inch laptop.

The Intel Core i5-13500H processor is not to be underestimated, and nor are the 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage you get with this model. Windows 11 continues to get better over time as well, and you've got more than enough in terms of specs to run it very smoothly indeed.

With a 14-inch screen, this is more compact than some of the laptops you're going to find in this list, making it perfect for sliding into a backpack and carrying between home and the office. It's money well spent and would've cost you substantially more until quite recently.

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Best value laptop under £500

All of these laptops under £500 are great value of course, but we think the Dell Inspiron 15 3520 just edges it in terms of return on your investment. As with every laptop that Dell puts out, this is a reliable and solid laptop that's great for just about any kind of computing task.

Okay, you're not going to be able to run high-end games on it, or work on huge 8K video editing projects, but you're covered when it comes to pretty much everything else. What's more, the 15.6-inch screen gives you lots of space for anything from movies to documents.

Also of note here are the high-quality integrated webcam and the pacy solid-state 512GB drive taking care of your storage requirements. This is a laptop that's good enough to last you for years and years, furthering enhancing its claim to being a great value option.

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Best Google AI laptop under £500

The Chromebook Plus series aims to offer a high quality of ChromeOS laptop, and the HP Chromebook Plus 14 is certainly evidence of that: it's a fine showcase of everything a Chromebook can be, combining a low price with a capable set of specs and features.

It also has a pile of Google AI features on board, because it comes with a full year of Gemini Advanced included – that should give you plenty of time to decide whether or not you think all of the rather clever generative AI text and image tricks are worth a subscription.

ChromeOS runs without a hitch on this laptop, with no danger of software bloat and slowdown, and as long as you're almost always connected to the internet, it's a recommended choice if you're looking for one of the best laptops available under £500.

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Best laptop under £500 for portability

What we like most about the Lenovo Ideapad Slim 3 is its portability, with a compact (but very crisp) 14-inch display and a tidy form factor that makes it perfect for carrying from place to place – whether you're working in the office, at home, in a coffee shop, or in a lecture hall.

That's not the only reason to pick up the Ideapad Slim 3 though. It brings with it an Intel Core i5 processor, 16GB of RAM, and a generous 512GB of internal SSD storage – and of course Windows is Windows, giving you a broad range of functionality and a wide choice of apps.

There are plenty of ports to play around with here too, so when you are staying in one place, you can hook up all kinds of accessories and periperhals. The rapid charging is notable as well, giving you two hours of computing from just 14 minutes of being connected to a charger.

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Best thin and light laptop under £500

The Galaxy Book 4 combines a large 15.6-inch screen with a thin and light chassis – no mean feat at all, especially when it comes to this more affordable price range. It's easy enough to carry around, but you're not missing out on screen size when you're actually working.

Under the hood you've got a respectable combination of specs in the form of the Intel Core i3-1315U processor, the 8GB of RAM, and the 256GB of SSD storage. It's more than enough to run Windows 11 smoothly – just don't expect to do any high-end gaming on this.

Samsung usually excels in terms of the fit and finish of its wide range of electronic gadgets, and that's certainly the case with the Galaxy Book 4 here. It really does have the look and feel of a much more expensive laptop, a sure sign that your money has been well spent.

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Best big screen laptop under £500

The biggest selling point of the Asus Vivobook 15 is definitely its Full HD, 15.6-inch display – if you like a large display on a laptop costing less than £500, get this particular model on your shortlist. That said, there's lots more to like about this affordable Asus laptop as well.

Consider the 512GB SSD system drive, for example: that's a lot more storage than you often get at this price, so there's plenty of room for photos, videos, and other files. It also passes a commonly used military standard for durability, giving you extra peace of mind about how long it'll last.

Asus has a lot of experience when it comes to laptops that strike a good balance between affordability and performance, and this is another example. With an Intel Core i3-1215U processor and 8GB of RAM, you're going to have no problem getting through all your everyday laptop tasks.

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Best value laptop under £500

Have a read through our Acer Aspire 5 review, and you'll see we described it as combining a "great feature set", "strong performance" and "brilliant battery life" – and if you're getting all that for less than £500, then you're on to a winner. It's the best value laptop in this particular list.

It's perhaps not the most aesthetically dynamic laptop you're ever going to come across, and there are other laptops on this list that offer more in terms of performance, but when you're shopping at this price point you're going to have to make a few compromises along the way.

The 15.6-inch screen does a great job of showing off everything from websites to spreadsheets, and there are more options than you might expect in terms of ports too. As we put it at the end of our review, this is a laptop that "definitely delivers", as we've come to expect from Acer models.

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Best 2-in-1 laptop under £500

The 14-inch HP Pavilion x360 could be the best laptop for you under £500 if you're after something that uses the 2-in-1 form factor: so it works as a standard laptop, but then the screen folds back all the way, so you can sort of use it as a tablet as well (albeit a rather thick and clunky tablet).

Then there's 'tent' mode, where the screen is only folded some of the way back – it works really well for watching movies on a desk, and for making video calls, and again it's really simple to do with the HP Pavilion x360. Windows 11 will simply adjust itself automatically to suit.

With the HP brand name on the laptop, you can be sure you're going to get something that's well built and that'll last. We also like the battery life here (up to 10 hours, HP says), and the 14-inch screen that means you can pack away the laptop very easily into a bag when you're on the go.

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Best laptop for versatility under £500

No matter what price points you're shopping at, Chromebooks are always a good option: they're value for money, they're lightweight, they come in many shapes and sizes, and they don't slow down over time. With that in mind, the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 is definitely worthy of your consideration.

Note that it offers a 2-in-1 form factor, which means you can fold it over and use it as a makeshift tablet, or prop it up in tent mode for movies or video calls. What's more, it supports Android apps as well as web apps – making it just about the most versatile laptop we've seen for less than £500.

ChromeOS doesn't slow down over time, and as everything is loaded from the web, you don't need to worry about backing up – it's all handled instantly. Windows and macOS can feel rather bulky and bloated by comparison, though without an internet connection you are more limited.

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How to choose the best budget laptop under £500

Buying a new laptop can be a daunting task – even more so when you're trying to shop under a specific price limit, as we are here. A lower price range often means less powerful components, but it doesn't mean you have to settle for a cheap, throwaway product.

At this price you can still get a capable processor from Intel or AMD, though you will have to settle for integrated graphics: photo editing will be no problem, though video high-end video editing and gaming are going to be out of the question. Most laptops at this price point offer 8GB of RAM, which is a good foundation.

You won't be able to choose a MacBook here, unfortunately: Apple's cheapest laptops start at around double our price limit for this list. It's Windows or Chromebooks all the way, and you can check out our best Chromebooks guide if you think a lightweight, web-based operating system will be best for you.

In terms of performance, a lot of sub-£500 laptops are going to be in the same area, so your main decisions are going to be Windows vs ChromeOS, and screen size vs portability: get a bigger screen if you want the extra space, but not if you want a laptop that's lighter and easier to carry around.

The good news is that even at this low price point, you can get plenty of super-speedy SSD storage for your files. Also look closely at extras like the number of ports and any integrated webcam that's offered – if it's a webcam of decent quality, it'll save you having to spend extra on a dedicated device.