Best Laptops Under $600 in 2023
The best laptops under $600 are devices created for school, light work, and streaming videos. Budget laptops like this have to make sacrifices to cut costs and deliver a robust and considerable rig in a portable configuration. If you’re looking for something you can carry with you anywhere and do your work without any hassles, these will be the best options to choose from.
In this price range, you’ll see recognizable names like Asus, Acer, HP, and Lenovo. These companies concentrate their efforts on using the best processors on a budget, usually while sacrificing GPUs and screen resolution. This makes laptops under $600 great for office work, web browsing, and light streaming. If you’re trying to game on any of these laptops, you’ll be in for a bit of a disappointment.
Products at a Glance
How we picked the best laptops under $600
Once we determine the category of the processor and how much RAM is necessary for this range, it was a matter of selecting only the highly reliable brands.
Usually, brands like HP, Asus, and Lenovo are pretty reliable. You’ll find laptops from these firms in every price range with a lot of followers. After that, we curated a decisive list of the best laptops under $600.
Best Laptops Under $600 in 2023
- Great Battery life
- Full HD display
- Integrated graphics card
- Lightweight
- Strong processor
- No fingerprint reader
- Only 8 GB of RAM
Acer is strong in the budget category. It has built plenty of laptops that can be used for light gaming via a subtle design. If you’re the kind of person who likes casual gameplay but wants a lightweight and easy-to-carry laptop, this is the best option for you. The reason why Acer takes the crown for laptops under $600 is mainly because of its long-standing in the fold. This is its main category, so Acer offers great components at reasonable prices.
The Aspire 5 comes with a Ryzen 5 5500U. This is a 6-core CPU, with a base frequency of 3.6GHZ and a max boost frequency of up to 4.0GHz with integrated graphics, which is what makes the laptop fast and capable of performing a lot of tasks. You can get some light photoshop work done here, and mid-range video games will run swiftly. It has a default TDP of 15W, which means great power draw and a balanced battery life.
Screen-wise, the Acer Aspire 5 has a 15.6-inch Full HD 1920×1080 with an LED-backlit IPS display. It’s big enough to enjoy video streaming, gaming, and work thanks to its anti-reflection coating. If you’re looking for a laptop for work or study and casual gaming, this is the best choice.
- Strong CPU
- Good Flash storage
- Reliable brand
- Great backlight keyboard
- Not full HD
- Uncomfortable angel view
Asus is definitely the most reliable brand for this price range. It uses great building materials to ensure reliable and powerful performance. You can get the Asus Vivobook 17.3 with up to 20GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD storage (more than enough for a laptop like this. Regarding power, it comes with a 10th Gen Intel Core i5, a processor that leverages 4 cores, 8 threads, and a max frequency of up to 3.2GHz. You can push the specs even higher and purchase the version with a more powerful CPU, but it goes up in price and it defeats the whole idea of buying a cheaper laptop under $600.
The Vivobook has a 17.3-inch HD+ screen with a 1600×900-pixel screen resolution, which gives it quality streaming performance for Netflix and YouTube videos. It has a screen ratio of 16.9, a detail that confirms this is a laptop built for family and entertainment, with the extra asset of a strong chip that lets you do work comfortably.
This is the kind of computer you can grab and go and use in the majority of places. It has a maximum brightness of 260 nits, which is pretty good, and the 32W battery can give up to seven hours of battery life(422 min) if you’re only web surfing and up to five hours (303 min) of constant video playback.
- Strong performance
- Integrated GPU
- Fast and powerful
- Great price
- Not the greatest screen
- Battery life could be better
HP has been around for quite a long time. On this list of the best laptops under $600, it presents the most affordable product of them all. However, being affordable doesn’t mean being bad. In fact, the HP 14 has great qualities to choose from, starting with its small and compact size. It’s a 14-inch laptop with a full HD 1920×1080 anti-glare screen.
If you need a laptop that you can easily stuff into your bag, travel, and use anywhere, this is the best option. The dimensions of this laptop make it the best for portability: 12.76 x 8.86 x 0.71 inches and only 3.24 lbs work great for those sporting an agile lifestyle.
The best part of the HP 14 is that it doesn’t sacrifice performance over size. It comes with a Ryzen 5 5500U with an integrated AMD Radeon RX Vega 7 (R4000,5000 15W) so it offers a Hexa-core CPU with a max boost frequency of 4.0 GHz. Along with the GPU, it can outperform more modern devices even with an 11th Gen Intel CPU.
The design is fine, it has a nice silver color and considerably well-balanced bezels. Due to the camera location, it has a slight relief at the top which could look a little ugly, but nothing too grotesque to worry about.
- Thunderbolt 4 USB connector
- Powerful performance
- Fast DDR4
- Great ports configuration
- Heavy
- Average battery life
The Lenovo Ideapad 5i Pro has an 11th Gen Intel Core i5 plus an NVIDIA GeForce MX450 GPU. This is a great combination for its price range. The GeForce MX450 uses the same TU117 chip as the GeForce GTX 1650, but it reduces the memory bus to 64 bits. The CPU is a quad-core chip with 8 threads capacity, a base frequency of 3.10 GHz, and a max boost clock speed of 4.4GHz. This configuration will allow users to perform various tasks with ease, whether it be photo editing or even playing mid-tier video games.
The Ideapad 5i Pro has a 16-inch WQXGA (2560×1600), IPS screen that leverages a 350-Nit display with a 16:10 aspect ratio, 4-side narrow bezels, 100% sRGB color gamut, low blue light, and vivid color. There’s a lot you could do with this laptop, and saving money while working happily is among those potentialities.
- Great battery life
- Bright, accurate display
- Good power for the price
- Quality hardware and design
- No backlit keyboard
- 2-in-1 design isn't for everyone
Microsoft’s Surface Go range is deservedly popular, boasting several well made, high quality models to suit all budgets. The Surface Go 2 is one of the best Windows laptops which comes in at well under the $600 mark. Well, to be fair, it’s actually sold as a tablet, but can be easily converted to a laptop by snapping on a keyboard in a pretty straightforward process.
We love this model because of the quality hardware and design. It’s got a great battery life and a lovely display. Plus, it comes with a 5MP webcam and 8MP back camera which are great for video chats. There’s a decent Intel Pentium® Gold 6500Y processor, and up to 8GB of RAM.
Although the power isn’t breath taking, it’s good for the price. If you want a portable option, this laptop/tablet duet is not a bad option.
Although they may not be as powerful as any laptops around $1,000, the aforementioned products still boast impeccable components for their price points.
When searching for some of the best laptops under $600, a powerful CPU and internal GPU aren’t exactly the most foundational aspects one might want, but it’s a nice option to have now that laptops have improved without costing too much more MSRP.
Features and considerations
There are two main questions to solve before purchasing a laptop: how much RAM do you need, and what chip Gen are you getting?
To get the best laptop under $600, you must consider between 8GB-16GB of RAM, an amount that will give you enough memory to run standard programs easily and quickly.
Then, if you’re choosing Intel, you can have a Gen 10-11th processor. Those are reliable chips that will give enough power to process a lot of information for a long time.
If you’re going for AMD, though, the 5000 series is the best option. This a series that was highly recognized when it came out and has shown extraordinary results over the years.
Other things to consider when buying a $600 laptop:
- Battery life
- Screen resolution
- Keyboard and touchpad quality
- Building materials, such as aluminum.
Can you buy a good laptop for $600?
There are plenty of good laptops in the sub-$600 range. You don’t have to spend thousands on a laptop to get a great performance and quality design. Check out brands like HP, Acer and ASUS for good options.
How many years should a good laptop last?
Most good laptops should last from 3 to 5 years. Some will last longer, but the components won’t work as well.
What is the best gaming laptop under $600?
For our money, the Acer Aspire 5 is a great gaming laptop. It has a built in graphics card, saving you extra cash, and is a fab budget option for mid-range gaming.
Our Verdict
You can get a great return with a $600 laptop. Narrowing your choices to these four options will definitely help get you the best laptop under $600. If you want something lightweight to travel and walk around with, the HP 14 is a suitable option. On the other hand, if you’re looking for better performance, the Acer Aspire 5 will give you powerful internals and great battery life. You’ll be able to work from anywhere you want while using a relatively strong device.