Buying a new laptop for work, home, or school doesn’t mean you have to spend a fortune — get features like long battery life, a high-resolution display, and more for less with our picks.
Shopping for a cheap laptop doesn’t have to be a chore — respected brands like MSI, Lenovo, and Asus offer budget-friendly laptops for work, school, and even gaming. And while more affordable laptops won’t blow anyone away with their displays or use any high-end components, you can still find solid options offering decent battery life as well as plenty of storage for photos, documents, and your most-used programs.
MSI Modern 14 Best cheap laptop overall
You’ll be able to connect all of your peripherals via Bluetooth or USB for better control over your laptop as well as most-used programs. And with the Modern 14 weighing in at just under 3 pounds, it’s lightweight enough to take with you on your work or school commute without bogging you down. The 9-hour battery life means you can work all day before you need to plug in.
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 3i Best cheap laptop for students
Review: Lenovo Flex 3i
Asus TUF A15 Best cheap laptop for gaming
It can be difficult to find a gaming laptop that’s budget-friendly, but thankfully the Asus TUF A15 offers everything you need for a great gaming experience without making you spend a fortune. This laptop is built with an AMD Ryzen 7 6800H CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti graphics card, 8GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD for all of the power, performance, and storage you need for a modest game library. And if your needs change in the future, you can upgrade RAM, storage, the CPU, and GPU separately as needed.
HP Envy x360 Best cheap 2-in-1 laptop
A 2-in-1 laptop can be a great option for anyone looking to streamline their device line-up. The HP Envy x360 features a special hinge that allows you to use it as a traditional laptop or as a tablet for drawing and taking notes. You can configure the Envy x360 with up to an AMD Ryzen 7 7730U processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD for all of the power, storage, and performance you need for work and home use.
The 15.6-inch display supports multi-touch inputs so you can zoom, scroll, and pan more easily within programs as well as use supported stylus inputs for note-taking or digital drawing. And with a battery life that tops out at just over 13 hours, you’ll be able to work all day and well into the evening before you need to even think about busting out your charging cable.
Asus Vivobook 17 Best cheap 17-inch laptop
What is the best cheap laptop?
Best cheap laptop
CPU/GPU
RAM/Storage
MSI Modern 14
12th gen Intel Core, Intel Iris Xe
8GB, 512GB SSD
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 3i
Intel Celeron N4500, Integrated Intel
4GB, 128GB eMMC/SD card
Asus TUF A15
Up to AMD Ryzen 7 6000 series or Intel Core i7, Up to Nvidia Geforce RTX 3050 Ti
8GB, 512GB SSD
HP Envy x360
AMD Ryzen 5 7530U, AMD Integrated Radeon
8GB, 256GB SSD
Asus Vivobook 17
Intel Pentium 8505, Intel UHD integrated graphics
8GB, 256GB SSD
Which cheap laptop is right for you?
The first decision you need to make is whether you want a Windows machine or a Chromebook running ChromeOS.
