Best laptop under $500 of 2020 in stock from HP, Lenovo, Acer and more - CNET

Looking for the best laptop under $500 for Windows or Chrome OS (aka a Chromebook)? The supply of cheap notebooks is drying up again. It looks like it's hitting parents that their kids aren't going back to school, so cheap laptop supplies are beginning to look as volatile as they did at the height of the initial coronavirus-induced work-from-home rush, when PC and accessory sales spiked. The grim reality of unprecedented job losses keeps the demand for a budget laptop and other ultracheap hardware strong. 

Prices have also gone up for laptops that are in stock, and price gouging remains an issue.

Here's a list of laptops that are available for under $500 and that should ship within at least 10 days. I'll try to keep this list current, but please don't hate me if it gets out of date. Some online shopping sites make it impossible to figure out what's in stock and what's not -- not just for tech, but for everything -- as well as what can be shipped to you in a reasonable amount of time. Keep in mind, though, that availability and shipping times may depend on where you live. I live in New York, so my recommendations may be based on a best- (or worst) case scenario. 

Think long-term

As a rule of thumb, resist buying out of desperation -- don't spend $500 on a laptop because there are no cheaper ones available, for example. Buying a need-it-now laptop can be like food shopping while you're hungry. Even for a laptop, $500 can be a lot of money, and you'll likely be holding onto it for at least three years, if the statistics Intel and PC manufacturers hurl at us are correct. You can also try to make your current laptop last a little longer. If you just need something to tide you over for a few months, dig into possible places to buy refurbished, and explore nonprofit or educational discounts if you're eligible. Also, if there's something you really want in a laptop, like a touch screen, backlit keyboard, HDMI port or some other hardware specification, look for something with that feature. You'll regret it if you don't.

If you suspect you'll be holding onto your new laptop a while, though, see if you can stretch your budget to buy a slightly more expensive laptop to accommodate a little more memory or a processor with more cores than you were otherwise considering. If you haven't thought about it, look at AMD Ryzen processors as alternatives to Intel Core.

Even better, if you're comfortable with it, think about an affordable laptop with a replaceable battery, upgradable memory, graphics card and storage or all of the above. Furthermore, you (hopefully) won't be stuck at home forever. Remember to consider whether you'll want something more portable (hello, lightweight laptop), with decent battery life, in the future.

Read more: Best monitors under $200 you can get right now

You'll always be able to add an external drive or two (or five, if you're me) at some point down the road. But if your internal storage is a slow-spinning hard drive that comes in a lot of cheap laptops, even fast external storage is unlikely to help speed up loading Windows or applications. (You can frequently set a system to boot from a fast external solid-state drive if necessary.)

You may see references to "Intel Optane" in conjunction with slow (5,400rpm) spinning hard drives; Optane is fast solid-state memory that acts as a temporary storage space for frequently accessed files on the hard drive to speed things up. It helps, but not as much as an SSD drive.

And finally, if you're replacing an old Windows laptop that's just not up to running Windows anymore, consider turning it into a Chromebook.

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Trade-offs

As long as you manage your expectations when it comes to options and specs, you can still get quite a bit with a budget model, including good battery life and a reasonably lightweight body. 

A bright spot is you don't have to settle for a traditional clamshell laptop with a fixed display and keyboard. You can also get a convertible laptop (otherwise known as a two-in-one, which has a screen that flips around to turn the screen into a tablet, to position it for comfortable streaming or to do a presentation. Keep in mind that all convertibles have a touch screen, which is a prerequisite for tablet operation, and many support styluses (aka "pens") for handwritten and sketched input. Don't assume a stylus is included with it, though.

One thing you won't find: a MacBook or any other Apple laptop. Even an iPad Air tablet will run you more than $500 once you buy the optional keyboard (though if you look for sales on the tablet or keyboard it might work out to less), which is above our budget here. A base-model iPad with an inexpensive Bluetooth keyboard and cheap stand for the iPad might suffice, though.

Read more: Laptop vs. Chromebook: Which portable computer is best in 2020 

You'll see a lot of cheap laptops listed as coming with Windows 10 S, a stripped-down and locked-down version of the operating system intended for use by schools -- it only allows you to install applications from the Windows Store, forces you to use Microsoft's Edge browser and includes a subset of the administrative tools in Windows 10 Pro. You can upgrade to the full version for free, though.  

It's easier to find inexpensive Chromebooks than Windows laptops, making it one of the most popular categories of budget laptops on the market, though we're also seeing a lot more Chromebooks in the $500 to $1,000 range. That's because Google's Chrome OS isn't nearly as power-hungry as Windows (check the specs), so you can get by with a lower-end processor, slower storage and less screen resolution or memory -- just a few of the components that make a laptop expensive. 

Read more: Best Chromebooks for 2020  

But the flip side is that while Chrome OS isn't as power hungry as Windows, Chrome and Google apps are unfortunately more of a memory hog than you'd expect, and if you go too low with the processor or skimp on memory, the system will still feel slow. Chrome OS is also a much different experience than Windows; make sure the applications you need have a Chrome app before making the leap.

Lenovo's Duet Chromebook is part laptop, part Android tablet

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Since they're cloud-first devices, however, you don't need a lot of storage built in. That also means if you spend most of your time roaming the web, writing, streaming video or playing Android games, they're a good fit. If you hope to play Android games, make sure you get a model with a touchscreen.

Read more: Best cheap gaming laptop under $1,000 to get in 2020   

For a cheap gaming laptop, though, you'll still have to break the $500 budget for performance. The least expensive budget laptops suitable for a solid gaming performance experience -- those with even moderately powerful discrete graphics processors, will run you closer to $700. Here are our recommendations if you're looking for the best gaming laptop. 

Although, if you like to live on the bleeding edge, cloud gaming services such as Google Stadia will let you play games on laptops with specs that hit the under-$500 mark.

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Specs to keep in mind

While Chromebooks can run Chrome OS-specific and Android apps, some people need the full Windows operating system to run heftier applications, such as video editing suites. With that comes a need for a faster processor with more cores, more memory -- 8GB is the bare minimum -- and more storage for applications and the operating system itself. A lot of these have 4GB or 6GB, which in conjunction with a spinning hard disk can make for a frustratingly slow Windows experience as well. 

• I'm seeing a lot more Windows laptops in this range use AMD Athlon and lower-end A series and Intel Celeron processors to hit the lower price. I don't really recommend going with an Athlon instead of a Ryzen or a Celeron instead of a Core. Windows is just too heavy for them and in conjunction with the 4GB memory a lot of them have, you may find them abysmally slow.
• Because of their low prices, 11-inch Chromebooks are attractive. But we don't recommend that size for all but the youngest students. And for remote learning, if you're going to be looking at their screen frequently, 11 inches can get really cramped.
• Solid-state drives can make a big difference in how fast Windows performance feels compared with a spinning hard disk, but they also push the price up. So if your budget can stretch a little and you want more storage, you may want to consider stepping up from base storage options to a 128GB SSD. 
• In the budget price range you have to watch out for screen terminology when it comes to specs: This is why an "HD" screen may not always mean a truly high-definition screen. HD, which has a resolution of 1,920x1,080 pixels, is sometimes called "Full HD" so marketers could keep selling you lesser-resolution displays (1,280x720) as "HD." In Chromebooks, "HD" usually refers to a screen with a resolution of 1,366x768 pixels. Another frequent complaint I see is about "washed-out" looking displays with poor viewing angles. Unfortunately, that's one of the trade-offs you've got to live with; a lot of these use TN (twisted nematic) screen technology, which is cheap but meh.
• Pay attention to networking. Inexpensive models with older chipsets may only support Wi-Fi 3 (or 802.11b/g/n). Wi-Fi 3 is limited to 2.4GHz channels; those are slower than more recent chipsets with Wi-Fi 4 (aka 802.11ac) that add a 5GHz channel as well. The specifications aren't always correct on the shopping sites, so if you see a model which doesn't seem to have Wi-Fi 4, double check on the manufacturer's site before ruling it out. Remember, Chromebooks are designed to work predominantly over the internet, so Wi-Fi speed and stability is crucial. 

Considering all specs and options -- from battery life to storage space, screen resolution, screen size, core processor performance and general machine and battery performance -- these are a few of our top picks for 2020's best Windows laptops and Chromebooks under the $500 budget, along with their pros and cons.

Sarah Tew/CNET

This is essentially a Chrome version of the first Microsoft Surface Go. Like the Go, the Duet is a 10-inch tablet with a detachable keyboard and touchpad. Unlike Microsoft, though, Lenovo includes the keyboard. It also costs much less than the Go (including the new Go 2), starting at $290 for a 64GB version or $299 for one with 128GB of storage. It's essentially a smaller, albeit less powerful, Pixel Slate that makes more sense for more people with a price that's more in line with what people expect a Chromebook to cost.    

It is a small screen, however, so if you're regularly using it at a desk, we recommend attaching an external monitor to its USB-C port. You'll probably want to connect a wireless keyboard and mouse, too. 

This goes in and out of stock, so if you see it at an uninflated price (around $300) and you want it, don't wait. At last check it was in stock at Amazon for $439 but out everywhere else, so still might be worth considering. I've left the Lenovo link so you can check back there periodically; at the moment it says "this product is temporarily unavailable."

Sarah Tew/CNET

The 2019 Aspire 5 15-inch clamshell includes the latest generation AMD Ryzen 3 processor, the 3200U, with its modern Vega graphics processing. Its 4GB RAM and 128GB solid-state drive storage don't allow for using many programs or lots of browser tabs open simultaneously, but this 15-inch screen model weighs less than 4 pounds. The 2019 model still seems to be available for a reasonable price of around $450, but it's only available from third-party sellers on Amazon.

The 2020 models have replaced it and just squeak in starting at $499. It's a really popular model, so it tends to play now-you-see-it-now-you-don't when it comes to availability. We haven't yet reviewed it, but we're pretty certain it should be very similar since it's the same configuration. Read our Acer Aspire 5 (2019) review.

Samsung

This is a pretty straightforward 11-inch Chromebook. It's a little expensive for a basic Chromebook, but it's a little higher-powered than most so might be a good choice for some kids.

Lenovo

The IdeaPad 3 comes in 14- and 15-inch models; the cheaper $380 14-inch model incorporates an AMD Ryzen 3 3250U and 8GB memory, while the bigger system with a Core i3-1005G1 and 256GB storage runs $369. The downside for both is the low-resolution screen, which is only 1,366x768 pixels. At last check it was out of stock at Best Buy but expected to ship by Sept. 9. Walmart's price went up to $534, but it's in stock so I've left that link in case it goes back down again or so you can check yourself.

Asus

This one goes in and out of stock rapidly. Best Buy has it in silver with a Ryzen 5, 8GB Memory and 512GB SSD for $500; if you want to check it out on Amazon, it's currently up to $520 for a lesser Ryzen 3 configuration but the price might fall. Don't confuse it with the thinner, lighter, more expensive Vivobook S15. It's not a great deal for $520, but if you're having trouble finding anything else in stock, it's worth a look.

Lenovo

You can't find the 15-inch model anymore, which is a shame, but for littler kids an 11-inch model equipped with a Celeron N4000, 4GB RAM and 32GB SSD for $384 might serve.

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