Where to Buy – Billboard

All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.

Shopping for a new laptop, but not sure where to start?

Finding the best budget laptop can be tricky, especially when you’re shopping online and might not know what to look for or how much you should be spending. To start, narrow your search down to a specific price point such as the best budget laptops under $500 or best budget laptops under $1,000.

If the latter feels like a good fit, we’ve found a laptop for less than $500 that comes highly recommended from hundreds of customers. The Acer Aspire 5 is a “great quality” laptop that won’t blow your budget out the water. The affordable device features a speed, intel Core i3 processor (or upgrade to the AMD-Ryzen3 processor), Intel UDH graphics, a 15.6-inch full HD display screen and HD 720p front facing camera. The computer has a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio and energy-efficient LED backlight (lighted keyboard); dual, built-in microphones, 8.5 hours of battery power; it uses Windows 11 and weighs just under five pounds.

The sleek, 8GB laptop is featured above but you have the option of upgrading to the 20GB or 36GB of RAM. Additional features include a USB 2.0, HDMI 2.0 with HDCP support, headphone, speaker, line-out jack, and Ethernet port.

The computer scored a 4.3 Amazon rating with hundreds of customer reviews. “Love my laptop,” reads one Amazon review from Sept. 11. “Amazing speed, storage, keyboard, usb connections. Highly recommend it!!! So much memory!”

Another customer wrote, “Compact light weight, quick response, clear bright screen, quick easy setup and transfer from old computer. I like the back lit keys.”

“This is a fantastic laptop (Acer Aspire 5 A515-46) and I’m extremely pleased with the product, even though we had a little rough patch about the specs,” reads one review who encouraged shoppers to double check the RAM and storage. “In the end this company made it good, but you’ll have issues getting it done without patience and persistence. Amazon offered to make it right if these guys didn’t, but props to this 2nd party seller for correcting their mistake. Very happy with this laptop as it is now, which is the way I ordered it!”

Customer reviews noted limitation such as the battery life. “It isn’t great but it’s not horrible either,” per one customer review from August titled “Great Quality for Low Price.”

“This is my first non-MacBook. It’s great in my opinion,” the shopper added. “The price was great, and it does everything I personally need a laptop to do. I highly recommend it.”

“Since receiving this laptop, I’ve been impressed with its quickness in accessing files and searching the internet,” reads a review from January. “This is most likely due to it’s 20GB memory, and it’s solid state hard-drive. My only regret is that it did not come with an optical drive or a memory card slot. Both of which can be purchased separately and connect via USB. But apart from that, I’m very happy with the purchase.”

Want more product recommendations? Check out our list of best laptops deals, best speakers and best wired headphones.