5 Best Cheap Laptops Under $500 ~ TricksMode

Thursday, 6 June 2013

5 Best Cheap Laptops Under $500

So let’s say you only have a couple of months left to think about your brother’s high school graduation gift, and you estimate that you’ll only be able to save up about 500 bucks by then.Your loved one has been hinting for a long time now that he will need a laptop when he goes to college. The problem, then, is finding a good enough portable computer that’s well within your budget. Easier said than done, of course, but here are a few cheap laptops under $500 to get you started.

Samsung Chromebook Series 3 ($249)

Let’s start things off with something that has a really attractive price tag. For just under a quarter of a grand, the Samsung Chromebook Series 3 gives you a sturdy laptop with great battery life; no more, no less, which should be all that a college student needs.

If there’s one niggling drawback, it’s the fact that it’s run by the web-based Chrome OS instead of Windows, but even that isn’t such a big detriment to many.

CPU: 1.7 GHz Samsung Exynos 5 Dual
RAM: 2 GB
GPU: (shared video memory)
Storage: 16 GB SSD

Lenovo IdeaPad S400 ($455)

Even with a short battery life and narrow viewing angles, the IdeaPad S400 is still a Lenovo machine, which means that it has a tough-yet-attractive chassis, solid performance, and comfortable controls. Those three qualities are more than worth the $455 you’ll shell out for it.

CPU: 1.8 GHz Intel Core i3-3217U
RAM: 4 GB
GPU: Intel HD Graphics 4000 (integrated)
Storage: 500 GB 5400 rpm HDD

HP Pavilion g6t-2000 ($480)

Despite its price, this 15 inch budget laptop offers Dolby Advanced Audio sound and a good performance-to-price ratio.

Its screen’s brightness may be a bit dim for some people’s tastes, but at least its variety of color options like bright purple, ruby red, and winter blue might brighten up their moods.

CPU: 2.4 GHz Intel Core i3-2370M
RAM: 4 GB
GPU: Intel HD Graphics (integrated)
Storage: 500 GB 5400 rpm HDD

Acer Aspire V3-551-8458 ($499)

The HP pavilion laptop above may edge out the Aspire V3-551-8458 when it comes to sound quality, but Acer’s machine more than makes up for it with some of the greatest graphical quality a dollar under 500 can buy.

Its battery life may be a bit shorter than most, but having it plugged into a wall socket is forgivable once you get Batman: Arkham City running on it with respectable spec levels. That should be incentive enough to make anyone sell their old laptop and replace it with this one.

CPU: 1.9 GHz quad-core AMD A8-4500M Accelerated Processor
RAM: 6 GB
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7640G
Storage: 750 GB 5400 rpm HDD

ASUS Q200 ($499)

Finally, we have the ASUS Q200. Although coming in at about the same price as the Aspire V3, the Q200 has weaker overall specs. That said, its screen is touch-enabled, and quite responsive to boot. Its sound is very near in quality to the Pavilion g6t’s. It’s also very light, weighing in at just 3 pounds, making this 11-incher the perfect gadget when travelling.

Overall, it’s still half a grand well spent.

CPU: 1.4 GHz Intel Core i3-2365M
RAM: 4 GB
GPU: Intel HD Graphics 3000 (integrated)
Storage: 500 GB 5400 rpm HDD

While these laptops are well under the price range of most current laptops, it doesn’t mean that they’re slackers either. In fact, you’d arguably even be getting more than what you pay for. That’s value for your hard-earned money right there; plus they all make excellent grad presents.

Author Bio:
Hathem B. is a blogger and copywriter for eCycleBest.com. He also does the occasional guest writing spots for other websites. He has been writing about technology for more than four years now (three years professionally, and a little over a year in freelance), dabbling in everything from gadgets to e-recycling to future tech and whatnot.

Thursday, 6 June 2013

5 Best Cheap Laptops Under $500

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