▷ Cheap laptops: can we help you buy a good one?

If you are analyzing the possibility of buying one of the cheap laptops that the market offers to save money, both to play and to use it for work tasks, you may have wondered which is the best model among the great variety available in physical stores and online. In fact, it cannot be ensured that there is a model superior to another in general terms, since everything will depend on the type of user and their needs at a given moment.

From this moment of indecision, we must begin to consider the relationship between the price of a laptop and the benefit it will provide us, since this variable takes into account the money you are willing to spend along with the functions, resources and specifications. that can be obtained with each model of laptop.

While some users may give more importance to a low price, other people may pay more attention to the components, the durability of the equipment or if it is possible to play. That is why first you always have to be clear about what use we will give to a cheap laptop.

But there is no need to worry about so many models, brands and specifications, since there is an ideal cheap laptop for every user profile. To simplify the choice of a cheap laptop, we have selected the best cheap laptops describing them according to their characteristics.

This guide is also very useful for gamers who need a laptop to play in different places and that is not too expensive. It is also an interesting guide for people who have little space on their desks and need to take advantage of the little space with a laptop.

Index of contents

What tasks are you going to use or buy one of the cheap laptops for?

Surely it is not a surprise for you, but a laptop is usually chosen for different reasons. Apple notebooks are often chosen by people who feel comfortable and value the rewarding experience these computers offer, regardless of price in these cases.

Other people need to be able to access their emails and files when they are away from home or office. While there is another group that buy a laptop to take advantage of their touch screens.

Not forgetting also the wide range of buyers who decide on this option because they do not have a large budget to spend money on an advanced desktop computer.

Therefore, it is first necessary to determine what the laptop will be used for. If it will be used only to surf the internet for a while and check email, then a cheap Chromebook would be a wise choice. Instead, if you dedicate yourself to editing HD videos on a daily basis, a Chromebook will not be the best choice. This must be taken into account before deciding on a model.

A good starting point to determine which laptop is convenient to buy, is knowing how long this equipment will be used.

In case you only use the laptop a few minutes per day, to check your social networks and surf the internet for a while, a laptop with basic specifications will be more than enough: An i3 and 4 or 8 GB of RAM. You may notice that it takes its time to start and that the quality of the screen is not the best, but since you will give it little use it will not make sense to spend a lot of money. Truth?

However, the opposite case would be if you use the laptop for several hours every day to play or work, in which case you will have a poor experience having to deal with a slow machine and a screen that does not offer the best quality of colors and sharpness.

The objective here would be to use effectively the budget that we have. Therefore, it is not worth spending a lot of money if you use the laptop a little or try to save money on a laptop that will be key to your long hours of work or gaming.

Is it better to save money buying a laptop that we will have to replace in a short time, or is it better to spend more money to get a more durable laptop?

Everything will depend on each user. The good thing is that there is currently a wide variety of cheap laptops on the market to cover various ranges of users, offering both quality, price and durability. You could also resort to smartphones or tablets when it comes to spending little money, although here we will focus on people who need a laptop.

How to choose the right laptop based on its quality

There is a wide variety of laptops on the market with different features, models and brands that may make it difficult for you to choose.

For this reason it is of the utmost importance that you evaluate well what your needs will be, because it ends up being better that you find a laptop that can efficiently cover all your needs instead of buying a laptop just thinking about the price and not later lives up to what we need.

It is necessary to analyze in detail what we will use this laptop for: will it be for playing games, surfing the internet or for editing videos? Will we leave it in a fixed place or will we move it to different places in a suitcase?

Most people tend to worry first of all about the processor that the laptop has, finding out what speed it has, whether it is Intel or AMD and how much memory it has, thinking that these aspects are the most important to consider. But no! It is important, but there are more factors…

Second, they look at how much storage it includes, its aesthetic appearance, and how much it weighs. If all these aspects mentioned end up convincing the person, then they will end up buying this laptop, as long as the price is within their means.

However, this way of choosing a laptop is not the most correct.

Shoppers have been confused for many years in stores, leading them to believe that the processor and RAM were the two most important features to consider when choosing a laptop. But this has changed, and with the great online information we currently have, we now know that laptop vendors weren't right and that there are other features to consider before making a purchase.

Features for a cheap laptop

Here are some components that we must take into account but we must focus on something more than just them.

Processor

Unless your primary goal is to use the laptop for gaming, video editing, or intensive work, this component won't be as crucial. Processors have evolved a lot in recent years. Normally in cheap laptops they are low-end and do not perform too much, so we recommend a Ryzen or an i3 as a minimum.

Currently, almost all programs, such as text editors and web browsers, do not use even 20% of the power of the processor (if it is decent).

And considering what most of the laptops sold are used for, it can be said that a 1.6 GHz processor will be more than enough. So the processor ceases to have that preponderant role.

It is true that there are more powerful processors than others and that can improve performance, but if the laptop will be used for basic tasks, with an Intel Core i3, for example, all needs are covered.

Amount of RAM

Currently, we find 4 GB of RAM in almost all laptop models, something sufficient for many users. Buying a 16 GB RAM laptop just to use it for basic tasks will be spending extra money for no reason. There are other more important aspects than RAM. Although if you can afford 8 GB of RAM, better than better.

Graphics card (GPU)

Won't you use the laptop for games? Then stop worrying about the graphics card. A few years ago the integrated graphics chip that manufacturers included was of low quality, so it was consistent to buy a graphics card. However, today's graphics evolved a lot, so the graphics card is no longer an issue.

Although for games or video editing you may need to choose an AMD or Nvidia graphics card, for all other basic tasks the default graphics resources will suffice.

Screen size

Buying a laptop for the simple fact of having a large screen does not make sense, since if it has insufficient quality or low resolution it will end up negatively affecting the user experience. Instead, focus more on quality than screen size.

The typical case is to buy a laptop with a 17-inch screen. More than one person has told me " look at what a bigger screen my laptop has " and we see an HD resolution. Pixels like big toes. You have to be careful!

Quick start

Most notebooks today take less than 30 seconds to start up when turned on. Some others of lower quality take a little more than 30 seconds, while laptops that come equipped with SSDs take approximately 4 to 10 seconds.

However, this is only at the beginning. As time passes and more files and programs are installed, these laptops will take longer to start.

Although this is not the most important thing. The most important point here is that over time, the boot difference between laptops of different price ranges tends to decrease to about 10 seconds. So, in short, it is an aspect that should not affect your purchase decision.

Super Fast DVD Drive?

A common characteristic in laptop manufacturers is that they try to highlight the technology of the DVD drives that they incorporate in their equipment, printing on their packaging market phrases to describe these drives.

But the reality is that there is not much difference between different DVD drives, as they all read and write at almost the same speed. And they surely come from the same Chinese manufacturers, although they put different brands on them. Also, who is still using a DVD? It is better to buy portable USB DVD and CD drives. And to be able to connect them when you really need it.

Important features to consider

Now we leave you some very important features. Everything is really important, but of course, whoever has all of them are laptops that are not cheap. And here we are because we don't want to leave a kidney along the way.

Screen quality

This is one of the components that should be most valued in a laptop, avoiding the famous GB or TB of a hard disk that we can always update. The screen is the one that will establish the experience that the user will have using the laptop, so an atrocious screen will leave users unsatisfied.

Unfortunately, it can be very difficult to find laptops with good quality screens. Something that has to do with manufacturers, because they put more focus on the promotion of processors than on screens.

The idea is to try to buy a laptop with an IPS screen, even though most come with TN screens. Many times it happens that a photo is seen better on a smartphone than on a laptop. And this is because the first devices come with IPS type screens. Whenever possible, try to test the colors and quality of the screen by viewing a photo on the laptop. In addition to the resolution?

If you are going to need to move from one place to another with your laptop, then perhaps it is better to choose a light computer with a smaller screen, although if you will only use it in a fixed place, you can choose a laptop with a larger screen.

Keyboard and touchpad

They are two components of considerable importance, although frequently ignored by users. Quality notebooks often come with firm, non-moving keys, returning force outward when pressed. Also, the keys must be of a suitable size to be comfortable to press.

It is also recommended that the touchpad have sufficient sensitivity so that the cursor moves easily on the screen.

Both the keyboard and the touchpad will indicate the quality offered by the laptop. The more quality these two components offer, the more likely the overall quality of the notebook is good.

We consider Thinkpad notebook keyboards to be the best on the market. Not for gaming, if not for writing. It is a joy… there is no laptop that offers the same experience.

Quality construction

In order not to be fooled by appearances, it is best to take the laptop with your hands and check the build quality such as the plastic, its weight, strength and size. It should also be verified if the hinges are well placed and if they will offer resistance. Similarly, the display should not bend and have a good build finish. All this will indicate that the durability of the equipment is correct.

It is best to choose machines with bodies made of metal such as magnesium alloy or aluminum. Another good quality material for notebooks is carbon fiber, although it comes at a higher price. In case you are looking for notebooks made of plastic, you should choose those that feel strong and with a good finish.

The name and reputation of the manufacturer is also vital to choose the laptop. Despite the fact that in many technical aspects they are similar, each manufacturer has its particularities.

Focusing on an inexpensive laptop, it is recommended to choose a brand like MSI, which offers high performance with models at affordable prices.

Lenovo is another good brand, which is often chosen by web developers and programmers, as well as notebooks made by HP, ACER and Dell.

• Weight : This feature is of vital importance if you plan to move the laptop to other places, such as work or university. In these cases, it is recommended that the laptop weigh less than two kilos. Battery life : Another important point is to choose a laptop whose battery offers good life. Unfortunately, except for Apple, manufacturers tend to declare inaccurate battery life. Despite this, it is easy to assume that if the manufacturer claims that the battery lasts 10 hours, it will actually last for approximately 6 or 7 hours. SSD Drives : Try to choose laptops with SSDs in case you don't need too much storage space, as they will provide higher performance for the laptop. For example, a computer with a Core i5 processor and an SSD will perform faster than a laptop with Core i9 and 1 TB of hard drive storage.

Unfortunately, SSDs are still rare in cheap laptops.

Other factors to choose some of the cheap laptops

Operating system : Windows is the most popular system in the world, and it is the system that laptops usually come with, although we should not forget that Linux also exists as an operating system, which usually uses a smaller part of laptops. Many times it is ignored by users, but not for its poor quality, but for a matter of not being as popular as the Microsoft operating system.

It is not too difficult to discover laptops that have a Linux operating system installed and offer exceptional prices and configurations.

Because installing a Linux system is completely free (ubuntu, debian, opensuse…), many companies choose to choose it as a standard system and spend the money saved on increasing investments in hardware.

So it ends up being a great option for both companies and individuals, since you get a very good quality for less money than if you choose a laptop with Windows.

The disadvantages of a cheap laptop

There are times when trying to save money we come across cheap laptops that do not meet our computing needs. Maybe something in-between is needed, not too high-end and not as cheap and basic.

Given this reality, we will analyze which cheap laptops are below average and which is not recommended to buy, since they will be more of a sacrifice than a pleasant experience. In this way, the budget allocated for the purchase will be used in a better way.

screen

The number of pixels displayed on the screen will be determined by its resolution, which will also establish the quality of the image. Some budget notebooks come with low-resolution displays, something that causes a bad user experience when watching videos or having to work with spreadsheets, for example.

Another aspect in which the screen does not convince is related to its size. With a screen that's too small like an 11-inch screen, you won't be able to work efficiently.

HDD

When choosing a cheap laptop, you may face the problem with storage, raising two points to consider here.

Even though the laptop comes with a solid state drive (SSD), the space available to store files will not be enough in all cases.

In most cases, you will find that cheap computers leave the factory with 32GB or 64GB SSDs, something that will not be entirely sufficient if you take into account all the space that the Windows installation will occupy, so storage will be compromised.

In case you intend to store thousands of files and dozens of programs on your laptop, a valid option will be the purchase of an external hard drive (or SD card) with which to obtain more space for everything you want to store, although this will suppose an extra expense of money.

The second drawback appears in laptops without an SSD, since they will come with hard drives, which as we already know, are much slower and further complicate the performance of classic cheap laptops.

RAM

RAM keeps a lot of programs running in the background on a laptop. It is enough to remember that when you have little RAM installed, you will see how performance decreases on the computer.

In some online stores you can find cheap laptops that come with 4 GB of RAM, which is not enough if you want to use several programs simultaneously. Therefore, if Windows has many programs in the background, it will be very difficult to work with another program, since the computer will respond less than optimally.

With this in mind, it is necessary to consider whether a cheap laptop with a good speed to run programs is needed or if 4 GB will be sufficient for user activities.

Keyboard, touchpad and other features

The screen, the storage unit and the RAM are the components that must be analyzed the most when choosing one of the cheap laptops that you can buy today on the market. However, it will also be necessary to check the quality of other elements.

With a low quality laptop we will get a rather small or complicated touch panel to click on. The keyboard may also have an awkward or button-tight design, plus the built-in speakers may not be the best.

In other models, the inclusion of a battery is usually omitted in order to reduce costs. An inexpensive laptop will not include a battery with good life, in which case some adjustments will have to be made to take better advantage of its useful life.

You may be tempted to buy a cheap laptop hoping to spend the least budget available, albeit with the risk that machine quality issues will start to arise in the near future.

Reasons to buy a used or refurbished laptop

In case you are planning to buy a laptop at a low price, there is also the option of choosing a used or reconditioned model. The latter is nothing more than a computer that was used by someone else and that was restored by a professional, which gives it back its appearance as a new laptop in terms of aesthetics and operation. Those known as remanufactured or returned in store.

Most of the used laptops will be able to adjust without problems to the specific tasks of each user. A positive point is that in these used laptops the current software can be run without problems, so there will not be a great difference in terms of performance compared to a new laptop.

This is related to the fact that today's applications are already optimized not to require too much power when running on a laptop.

And it is that the technology with which the current laptops are manufactured advances so fast that in many occasions they far exceed the advance of the software for these machines. This means that there will be no problems installing and using modern applications on a used laptop.

From this it is concluded that it will not be an exclusive requirement to spend a large amount of money. Anyway, in case you need to burn CDs or watch movies on the laptop, then the way will be to have a bigger budget to invest in the right equipment.

Recommended models of cheap laptops for less than 500 euros

Lenovo ideapad 330-15IKB - 15.6 "HD Laptop (Intel Core i3-7020U, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD, Intel HD Graphics 620, Windows 10 Home) Gray - Spanish QWERTY keyboard 15.6" HD screen, 1366x768 pixels; Intel Core i3-7020U Kaby Lake processor, 2.3 GHz; 4GB DDR4, 2133MHz RAM Lenovo Ideapad 330-15IKBR - 15.6 "HD Laptop (Intel Core i3-8130U, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD, Intel Graphics, Windows 10) Gray - Spanish QWERTY keyboard 15.6 display ", HD 1366x768 pixels; Intel Core i3-8130U Kaby Lake Refresh Processor, 2.2 GHz to 3.4 GHz Acer Aspire 3 | A315-53 - 15.6 "HD Laptop (Intel Core i3-7020U, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD, UMA, Windows 10 Home) Black - Spanish QWERTY Keyboard Intel Core i3-7020U Processor (2 Core, 3MB Cach, 2.3 GHz); 4 GB DDR4 RAM; 128 GB SSD Memory

Recommended models of cheap laptops for less than 800 euros

Huawei MateBook D - Ultrathin 15.6 "FullHD laptop (Intel Core i3-8130U, 8GB RAM, 256GB SDD, Intel Graphics, Windows 10) Silver - Spanish QWERTY keyboard 15.6-inch screen, FullHD (1920x1080 pixels); Intel Core i3 processor- 8130U (2 cores, 4 MB Cache, 2.2 GHz to 3.4 GHz) Lenovo ideapad 330-15IKB - 15.6 "HD Laptop (Intel Core i7-8550U, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620, no OS) Black - Spanish QWERTY keyboard 15.6 "HD screen, 1366 x 768 pixels; Intel Core i7-8550U processor, Quadcore 1.8GHz up to 4.0GHz 655.88 EUR Lenovo Legion Y530 - 15.6" FullHD gaming laptop (Intel Core i5-8300H, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD, Nvidia GTX1050 4GB, No OS) black. Spanish QWERTY keyboard 15.6 "screen, Full HD 1920 x 1080 pixels; Intel Core i5-8300H processor, Quadcore 2.3GHz up to 4.0GHz EUR 651.02 Lenovo ThinkPad L480 - 14 '' laptop (Intel Core i5, DDR4 8 GB 2 DIMM, 256 GB, Windows 10 Pro) It has an optional infrared camera and a fingerprint reader; Independent graphics card 999.00 EUR

Recommended models of cheap laptops for less than 1000 euros

ASUS GL553VD-DM470 - 15.6 "Full HD Laptop (Intel Core i5-7300HQ, 4 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 4 GB, Endless OS (English)) Metal Black - QWERTY Keyboard Spanish Intel Core Processor i5-7300HQ; 4 GB RAM, DDR4 2400 MHz type; 1 TB internal hard drive ASUS FX504GD-DM473 - 15.6 "Full HD gaming laptop (Intel Core i7-8750H, 8GB RAM, GeForce GTX1050, 1TB HDD, without operating system) Black and Red - Spanish QWERTY Keyboard Intel Core i7-8750H Processor (6 Core, 9M Cache, 2.2GHz up to 4.1GHz); RAM memory: 8 GB DDR4, 2666MHz Acer Predator Helios 300 PH315-51-50Y7 - 15.6 "Full HD laptop (Intel Core i5-8300H, 8 GB RAM, 1TB HDD, 128GB SSD, Nvidia GeForce GTX1060, Linux) Black - Spanish QWERTY Keyboard Intel Core i5-8300H Processor (4 cores, 8 MB Cach, 2.3 GHz up to 4.0 GHz); 8 GB DDR4 RAM Memory EUR 809.71 HP OMEN 15-dc0004ns - Laptop 15.6 "FullHD (Intel Core i5- 8300H, 16GB RAM, 1TB HDD + 256GB SSD, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050-4GB, Windows 10) Color Black - Spanish QWERTY keyboard 15.6-inch FullHD screen, 1920 x 1080 pixels; Intel Core i5-8300H Processor (4 cores, 8MB cache, 2.3GHz, up to 4GHz) MSI GL63 8RD-643XES - 15.6 "Full HD Gaming Laptop (Intel Core i7-8750H, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD + 256GB SSD, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050Ti 4GB, No Op.) Keyboard QWERTY Spanish Processor Intel Core i7-8850H (6 cores, 9 MB Cache, 2.6 GHz up to 4.3 GHz); 8 GB RAM, DDR4

Final words and conclusion about cheap laptops

We assume that this guide to cheap laptops is going to be a solution to allay the myriad of doubts shoppers face when choosing a model from the hundreds available on the market.

With so many points to keep in mind, it is difficult to suggest a cheap laptop in general, since everything will depend on what each person needs. Also, it is an industry that advances at high speed, so the recommended models tend to vary in a short time.

And it should always be clear that buying a cheap quality laptop does not necessarily mean getting a basic and limited computer. On the contrary.

We recommend reading the following articles:

• Our guide to the best laptops on the market

Although all users with some knowledge appreciate having one of the cheap laptops with AMD Ryzen graphics card or an Intel Core i9 processor, the truth is that these specifications are sometimes exaggerated for users who will only use their laptop to navigate In Internet.