If you’re on a tight budget, it can be tough to find a laptop that has everything you need without breaking the bank. Our best value notebooks offer good performance, stylish design and decent features for a great price. Whether you’re looking for a new laptop for school, work or play, one of these will suit your needs.
HP Pavilion Aero 13
The Pavilion Aero 13 may not feel as premium as some of HP’s pricier machines, but it packs every bit as much power. Armed with AMD Ryzen chips, it can compete in a performance battle against notebooks costing twice as much.
The display is also impressive for its price segment. It’s a 13.3-inch IPS panel with 1920 x 1200 pixels and a 100 percent sRGB color profile.
Its 16:10 aspect ratio makes it a great choice for viewing video content and gaming. It also has superb brightness and a flicker-free screen.
It’s a light laptop at just 2.2 pounds and 11.7 x 8.2 x 0.7 inches. That’s significantly lighter than the Asus Zenbook 13 OLED (2.5 pounds), Dell XPS 13 OLED (2.8 pounds) and Lenovo ThinkPad X13 (AMD) (2.95 pounds).
Dell XPS 13
The best value notebook of 2023 is the Dell XPS 13. With a stunning display, top-notch keyboard and battery life that lasts all day, this laptop is hard to beat.
Dell has revamped the XPS 13 with an aluminum frame, which gives it a modern look and feel. The carbon-fiber keyboard deck is also backlit, which makes typing easier on darkened rooms.
The new model offers an optional OLED screen, which improves the display’s brightness and colors. Its 16:10 aspect ratio helps make the screen feel larger than its 13.4-inch size.
Alienware M15 R7
The Alienware M15 R7 is a high-end gaming laptop that delivers impressive performance at a reasonable price. This model features a 12th generation Intel Core i7-12700H processor, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti GPU, and up to 16GB of RAM.
It also has a 15.6-inch display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 or 3840 x 2160. It also has Thunderbolt 3 and a backlit keyboard.
The m15 R7 uses NVIDIA’s Advanced Optimus technology to intelligently allocate power between the CPU and GPU. This allows both subsystems to perform better when they’re working on a single task and conserve energy when they’re doing something else.
Acer Chromebook Spin 714
Acer’s slate blue-colored Spin 714 is a premium two-in-one that offers up some serious performance for a low price. It features an Intel EVO Core i5-1235U 10-core CPU, 8GB of RAM, and Intel Iris Xe graphics for fast performance and great visuals.
A 14-inch touch screen provides immersive viewing in laptop and tablet modes, and it has 100% sRGB coverage for an excellent picture quality. Its battery lasts 10 hours or more, which is more than enough to get through a day of work and web browsing.
As with most of Acer’s most popular Chromebooks, the Spin 714 is designed for durability. The aluminum build feels sturdy and tough, and it’s MIL-SPEC 810H tested for military-grade durability.
HP Pavilion 14
The HP Pavilion 14 is a great choice for budget laptop buyers. It’s a well-built device with an attractive screen and Bang & Olufsen audio.
The Pavilion 14 is also a very light machine, which makes it easy to carry around. It’s a good size for carrying on a train, or for using as an office laptop in the home.
Its OLED display and a sleek, all-metal chassis are the best features of this mid-range model from HP. It’s a real step up from the more common, brightly colored laptops that HP typically offers at this price point.
The Pavilion 14’s battery life is mediocre, but it performs a good job of handling day-to-day tasks without requiring much energy. It’s a great pick for students, and anyone looking for a laptop with an above-average screen for everyday use.