Find the Best Budget Laptop for Under $700
Inexpensive computers for home, school, and work
When you shop through retailer links on our site, we may earn affiliate commissions. 100% of the fees we collect are used to support our nonprofit mission. Learn more.
People like gamers and video producers might need high-powered laptops that cost upwards of $1,000, but most of us don't. Shop for a budget laptop, and for under $700 you'll find lots of choices that can easily handle your email, watch videos, and work with text documents and spreadsheets. The laptops we've selected here include very inexpensive machines that are fine for most tasks, as well as more upscale laptops that add a lot more power, and even some style, to the mix.
The Web-Based Alternative
Don't want to spend a lot of dough on a laptop? Just need to get online? The $250 Dell Chromebook 11 is designed for just that, getting on the web. It’s powered by Chrome, so you’ll need a Google account to take full advantage of its integration with the company’s apps.
The Chromebook 11 has an Intel Celeron processor inside, and 2GB of RAM. During normal use, the Chromebook 11 is pretty snappy, but web browsing will hit a slowdown if you open too many tabs.
With this machine, you can browse those tabs all day thanks to a 14-hour battery life. The Dell's 11-inch, 1366 x 768 display is decent, but nothing spectacular. And this is a lightweight option, weighing only 2.8 pounds.
Media Junkie's Pick
If performance is what you care about, and you’re ready to nudge up against our $700 price ceiling, the Lenovo Flex 4 convertible laptop is an excellent choice. It has a mid-range Intel Core i5 processor, suitable for most applications, including photo editing. Inside the 1080p, 14-inch laptop is a roomy 1TB hard drive, 4GB of RAM, and a battery that can keep going for over 11 hours.
Its HD touchscreen display is decent enough, though it doesn’t handle bright sunlight well due to glare. Thanks to its convertible feature, you can flip the screen around and use the Flex 4 as a Windows 10 tablet. It has a full-size, backlit keyboard, too. At 4 pounds, this is not a particularly lightweight machine, so tote with caution.
