The best budget laptops for 2024

The best cheap laptops still pack a lot of punch, offering great features without a premium price tag.

From student-friendly Chromebooks to Windows laptops for light productivity, there’s something for everyone.

Many budget laptops now come with decent processors, long battery life and sleek designs that won’t cramp your style.

The M3 MacBook Air is the best Windows alternative for those in search of a thin and light laptop.

For under $ 1,000 , the MacBook Air M2 offers excellent value with a sleek design, plenty of ports, and the powerful M2 chip.

The HP Pavilion Aero is not as sleek as Dell ’s XPS 13 , but it comes pretty close with its angled profile, 2.2-pound weight and its anti-glare 13.3-inch display.

Lenovo Chromebooks nails essentials with build quality that feels more premium than the price suggests.

Acer ’s Aspire 5 laptop has a 15.6-inch 1080p IPS display that delivers clear visuals for streaming or web browsing.

The most recent models hit a good middle ground for most people, running on Intel 11th -gen CPUs and supporting up to 16 GB of RAM and up to 512 GB of storage.

The port selection includes USB-A, USB-C, and Ethernet ports, making it a practical choice for those who need to connect multiple devices.