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Popular Laptops under £500

Brian Sommer

It's hard to live without a laptop at school, work or at home - but how much should it cost? Here are our picks under £500.

Affordable laptops

What should you choose - if you haven't won the lottery and you're on a tight budget? We've come up with a few good choices for laptops under £500 and for different needs.

But you can forget about the popular flashy MacBooks from Apple (the ones with an apple on the front). You usually have to dig 4-5 hundred pounds deeper into your wallet for those.

Please note that laptop availability and prices change frequently - both day to day and from hour to hour. We try to update this article regularly, so the laptops shown and their prices are only a snapshot of what is available at the time of writing.

Cheap laptops for study and school

For schoolchildren and most students, it's mostly a tool for writing assignments and simple programmes.

Image of laptop for school - girl taking notes

So unless you're studying 3D modeling, multimedia, graphic design or anything else that requires a lot of speed, memory and graphics card, you don't need a lot of power from your laptop.

But consider the screen size. A laptop with a 12-14 inch screen is easier to take with you.

Chromebooks

A Chromebook is often the cheapest choice. It's powerful enough for those who mainly need to take notes, write assignments or use spreadsheets - and for those who can get by with the programmes and apps that Google offers.
But you can also work online in Microsoft applications.

A Chromebook doesn't need a large hard drive because it works primarily online and stores your data in the cloud. But they also come with relatively large SSD hard drives.

Samsung Chromebook 2 XE520QEA-KB1UK

1. Samsung Chromebook 2 XE520QEA-KB1UK

Find deal at Amazon

£354.95
HP Chromebook 14a-na0007na

2. HP Chromebook 14a-na0007na

Find deal at Amazon

£235.98
Lenovo IP Duet 5 Chromebook 13Q7C6 82QS000NUK

3. Lenovo IP Duet 5 Chromebook 13Q7C6 82QS000NUK

Find deal at Amazon

£463.57

Laptops with Windows

A regular laptop with Windows offers all the options for both more power and a large hard drive. With Windows, you can use common programmes like Word and Excel both online and offline.
But you can also run much more powerful programmes - as long as your laptop can keep up.

Laptops with touchscreen

A hybrid laptop or Chromebook can also function as a tablet. Just flip the screen on the back and use the touchscreen like a tablet.

Image of hybrid laptop - 2-in-1 function with touchscreen

A hybrid laptop is also well suited for use at home, as a kind of all-round laptop for everything from streaming shows and surfing the web to housekeeping and word processing - or just for a game of digital Solitaire to pass the time.
A hybrid laptop is also a popular companion for many jobs.

Cheap gaming laptops

Everything is relative, and so is the word cheap. A gaming laptop must have fairly powerful components. If you skimp on hardware, you risk a disappointing gaming experience - or some games won't run at all.

Image of gaming laptop

A dedicated graphics card, plenty of RAM, a fast processor and efficient cooling are minimum requirements. A "cheap" gaming laptop is more expensive than a normal laptop. That's why we're pushing the envelope and raising the limit to £750.

So keep an eye out for a good deal on the gaming laptop you're looking for ... maybe you can get a bargain.