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The Lenovo Duet Chromebook is an awesome little 11-inch ChromeOS tablet with a detachable keyboard and touchpad. This Lenovo 13-inch Chromebook two-in-one has a full-HD display as well as excellent performance and battery life for the money, thanks to an Intel Core i3-1115G4 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 128GB solid-state drive. The 15.6-inch screen is physically larger than the screens on the other laptops we tested but has the same 1920 x 1080 resolution, so text and UI elements are a little larger and easier to see.
It was going to be our top pick, but unfortunately Dell discontinued the sub-$500 model with an i3 processor. But as of this writing, the version with a Core i H processor, 8 GB of memory, and a 512 GB solid-state drive is still available for $550, which is unbeatable performance for that price. Its 14-inch 1920×1080 display is the best of the models we tested this year, as is its comfortable backlit keyboard and sturdy build quality. As an added bonus, the Inspiron 14 has a reliable fingerprint reader built into the power button. This laptop is by far the best value I’ve seen in nearly a decade of testing laptops; if you need a Windows laptop and can spend just a little more than $500, this is the one to get.
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It gets about as bright as the Acer Aspire 5, and a little brighter than the Dell. Like those screens, it has an anti-glare coating, so it’s easier to use in well-lit areas than a glossy screen, but doesn’t show as wide a range of colors as the OLED display on the Lenovo Chromebook Duet 5. The extra power of the Intel chipset does come at the expense of battery life. Lenovo advertises up to 10 hours, but we generally got around 6 hours of work in with the screen at 80% brightness and music playing. You could probably go a full school or workday without charging, assuming you stay out of bright light and don’t inflict your music on the world around you.
【Upgraded to 16GB DDR4 RAM】Substantial high-bandwidth RAM to smoothly run your games and photo- and video-editing applications, as well as multiple programs and browser tabs all at once. 【15.6" HD anti-glare micro-edge Display】15.6-inch diagonal HD BrightView micro-edge anti-glare. With virtually no bezel encircling the display, an ultra-wide viewing experience provides for seamless multi-monitor set-ups. It's a powerful laptop for absolutely everyone, aimed at people who want to do whatever they want with their laptop and don't want compromises. Built from the ground up specifically for home use, the AlphaBook X is equipped with everything you'll need to get your work done or relax and play.
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 14
We've listed our favorite current Lenovo laptops above, but if you're doing research, it helps to know the difference between the company's major product lines. It’s rare to find a gaming laptop that goes all out for under $2,000, but consider that loot drop snagged with the Lenovo Legion 7i . The laptop’s 11th Gen Intel Core i H CPU, Nvidia RTX A5000 GPU, and 32GB of RAM make it an absolute workhorse of a workstation. If raw performance is your goal, it will be hard to beat the ThinkPad P15 Gen 2. The one concern for creatives will be the display, but if that’s crucial for you consider the OLED panel option or perhaps an external display. The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon is a stellar laptop for the price and is a worthy purchase users will be delighted with.
There’s an Ethernet port, too, for a wired connection - and given the bulk of the machine, you won’t want to be lugging it around too much. It’s fast too, with a crisp camera on video calls, launching Word near instantly and launching from ‘Off’ in around 12 seconds. Extras such as a fingerprint scanner speed up login, and highlight the fact this machine is perfect for both work and play.
Dell XPS 17 9720
Unlike big budget spenders who can splash the cash to get whatever they want, budget shoppers need to prioritize what’s important for their computing needs. That doesn't mean making major sacrifices, though, as the best affordable laptops can all be excellent options. But you do want to focus your money where you can to get the kind of laptop you want and need. Chromebooks still offer some of the best low-cost laptop solutions and the Lenovo Chromebook Duet is a great example of that. At under $300, it's an extremely affordable 2-in-1 with good performance despite the weak hardware under the hood.
A $350 laptop will probably still have a performance bottleneck or two, and probably a janky screen or keyboard, but at $400 you start being able to avoid both. The 13.3-inch 1920 x 1080 IPS touchscreen is vibrant and has great viewing angles, unlike the washed-out 1366 x 768 screen on the HP Chromebook 14b-nb0010nr, but you’ll have to keep your expectations realistic. It doesn’t show as much detail in dark scenes as the matte screens on the Dell Inspiron 14 or Acer Aspire 5 Windows laptops, or the much better OLED display of the Lenovo Chromebook Duet 5. Like the budget Windows laptops, it’s not as bright as we’d like, and the glossy coating makes it much more prone to glare in bright environments. The Aspire 5 weighs a half pound more than the Inspiron 14, it’s a bit wider and longer and it got around 6 hours of battery life in our tests compared to the Inspiron’s 8.
Bear in mind that if you’re going to travel with a laptop, you probably want a 15-inch screen at maximum. It’s generally a good idea to have a go on a few laptop models just to work out the physical size and shape which is going to work for you, Stevenson says. Even the above-given 64Gb cheap laptop is good for basic needs if you don’t have to store anything. Its lightweight and many other features make it a great choice for travelers.
The keyboard, trackpad and monitor are how you interact with the laptop, and if any of them suck you’ll be frustrated every time you use your computer. Look for a 1920 x 1080 LED-backlit screen, a keyboard with decent key travel and a Precision trackpad. Like the Flex 5i, the Duet 5 can run some Android apps, but it’s rarely useful. Most Android apps don’t recognize standard keyboard shortcuts; many won’t install at all, and the ones that do are rarely optimized for a tablet screen.
Here are our recommendations if you're looking for the best gaming laptop under $1,000. The Lenovo Chromebook Duet 5 is a detachable two-in-one Chromebook with a bright and beautiful OLED screen, excellent battery life, good keyboard and trackpad and a surprisingly capable ARM-based Snapdragon processor. The Flex 5i is a better laptop — it’s better at running ChromeOS, which is the thing most people need from a Chromebook. But if screen quality and battery life matter more to you than ports, processing power or keyboard backlighting, the Duet 5 is a good choice.
If you're looking for a mid-range laptop that doesn't cost too much, but still performs brilliantly, then this is the best laptop for you. In terms of performance, it gets surprisingly close to the far more expensive Microsoft Surface Laptop. Its display is a little lower-res, but the two are otherwise strikingly similar - other than the price. Beyond the Acer Swift 3's modest exterior, you'll find an excellent laptop that boasts plenty of power for work and study. The Swift 3 is an inexpensive laptop; however, that plain chassis is all-aluminum and packed with beefy components. Whether it's for work or for play, laptops have come a very long way in cementing themselves as a mainstay for getting by in our day-to-day.
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