- #Wirecutter best budget gaming laptop upgrade#
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- #Wirecutter best budget gaming laptop windows#
The finalists we tested hands-on are the Lenovo Flex 2 14, the $580 Acer Aspire E1, and the $650 Dell Inspiron 14R. AdvertisementĪfter surveying the field, we made a list of the laptops in this price range with the best reviews from the most trusted editorial sources, and tested them side by side.
#Wirecutter best budget gaming laptop windows#
But for an everyday Windows computer, something like the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 2 14 will be just fine. Or if you don’t need to do much writing on your machine, a tablet, like an iPad, is perfect for casual e-mail and browsing.
#Wirecutter best budget gaming laptop full#
If you have a full Windows or Mac computer already and are looking for a secondary machine for Web browsing, e-mail, and basic document editing, we’d actually advise you to consider a $300 Chromebook, which runs Google’s Chrome operating system (but cannot run Windows or Mac software) instead. But before I’d buy one, I’d consider whether I needed a full-sized Windows laptop at all. If I were to get a budget laptop, I’d get the Lenovo Flex 2. If this is your only computer, I think you should go for something better. But they compromise in other areas, often having less storage space and RAM, slower processors, or cramped keyboards. What happens if you spend even less money than our pick costs? There are smaller laptops with better screens and a little bit of solid-state storage for under $500, like the very popular Asus Transformer T100.
On the other hand, that’s almost twice the price. That means you can get a computer that's faster and all-around better for only a few hundred dollars more, which is a good idea if you can afford it.
#Wirecutter best budget gaming laptop pro#
The $580 Flex 2 14 has an i5-4210U processor, 1366x768 screen, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive and weighs 4.4 pounds.įor example, for around $1,000, you could get something like a slim 3-pound Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro with the same processor and wireless card, but it comes with a better-looking 3800x1800 screen, twice the RAM at 8GB for better multitasking of many windows at once, and a 256GB solid-state drive.
What you don’t get with a cheaper laptopīefore you buy this machine, realize that a cheaper laptop always comes with more compromises than a more expensive one.
It’s a great basic machine that we settled on after a lot of consideration and testing.
#Wirecutter best budget gaming laptop upgrade#
It's possible (but not easy) to upgrade the hard drive and RAM (if you’re into that kind of thing), so you can squeeze more life out of the machine later. The cache will make it feel a little speedier than a regular hard drive, but not as fast as a computer with a solid state drive (otherwise known as an SSD).Īt 0.8 inches thick and 4.4 pounds, it’s lighter and slimmer than most 14-inch laptops in its price range. Our pickįor $580, you get a dual-core Haswell Intel Core i5-4210U processor, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, and a 500GB hybrid hard drive with 8GB of cache, which is to say that it is fast enough for most tasks that don’t involve gaming or heavy photo or video editing.Īs we configured it, the Flex 2 14 also has a 14-inch multitouch panel with a decent 1366x768 resolution, 7.5 hours of battery life, a good enough keyboard and trackpad, and all the ports you’ll want: HDMI, Ethernet, USB 3.0, two USB 2.0 ports, a card reader, and an audio jack. And for its price it succeeds in a lot of the most important areas: it’ll easily handle day-to-day tasks, it’s light enough to carry around, and it has enough battery to last you an entire work day. It’s not perfect-because all budget laptops have trade offs-but it’s the best of its kind. Read the original full article below at .Īfter considering all the major laptops in its price range, I decided that if I had to buy a Windows laptop for $600 or less, I’d get the ~$580 version of the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 2 14. This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a list of the best technology to buy.
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