Buying a high-end laptop isn’t always money well spent. It all depends on what you want to do with it. If you want mid-level gaming, a long battery, or enough performance for tricky college work, this list of best laptops for under $600 has you covered.
And best of all, being on a budget doesn’t mean you can’t obtain a fantastic laptop. We’ve collected our favorites and they come packing fast processors, FHD displays, long battery lives, and all the functionality you need for work, school, or mid-level gaming!
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See below if any of our picks grab your attention!
Lenovo IdeaPad 3 14″, $427+
While most of the laptops on this list cost just under $600, we have options for those on a tighter budget. The Lenovo IdeaPad 3 14′′ is a budget-friendly laptop that doesn’t skimp on performance, especially when it costs just over $500.
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It has an AMD Ryzen 5 5500U CPU, 8GB RAM, and a 256GB SSD. Most laptops at this price point have slow hard drives, however, the IdeaPad 3 14 has SSD storage. Inbuilt privacy features like a webcam shutter, backlit keypad, and small screen bezels will make it difficult not to choose this laptop.
Microsoft Surface Laptop Go, $477+
The Surface Laptop Go isn’t the most powerful on this list, but it looks great and has a better display than any other laptop under $600. The Surface Laptop Go comes in three separate colors and runs on Windows 10s, a tablet-friendly version of Windows (which can be swapped to conventional Windows 10).
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The big bonus with the Surface Laptop Go is that it has a 12.4-inch touchscreen display, with pen input. So it’s excellent for hopping between classes and taking notes. For under $600 you get an i5 Intel CPU with 8 GB of memory and a 128 GB SSD drive.
Acer Aspire 5, $513+
The Acer Aspire 5 also comes with an Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor, but we recommend the Ryzen model because it performs significantly better. While the AMD model lacks the fingerprint sensor, the Ryzen 5 5500U is capable of surpassing even the 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1165G7.
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That is the magnitude of the performance improvement. And, given that the majority of users seek reliable and consistent performance, the Acer Aspire 5 AMD edition is an obvious recommendation.
ASUS ZenBook 14, $628+
We know this laptop is just over the $600 budget, but it can regularly be found under-$600 during sales (which happen frequently throughout the year).
If you’re looking for a laptop that can handle picture and video editing as well as light gaming, you’ve come to the right place. The ASUS ZenBook 14 is a fantastic option and one of the best laptops for around the $600 price point.
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An AMD Ryzen 5 5500U six-core CPU powers the system, which works nicely with Nvidia’s entry-level MX450 GPU. Due to the low-level GPU, the ZenBook 14 is far more powerful than the majority of sub-$600 laptops that rely on the CPU’s integrated graphics for intensive tasks. It can run most recent games at a respectable 30 frames per second and even allows for modest video editing in Adobe Premier.
Its 14-inch Full HD display can reach a maximum brightness of 250 nits, it is one of the most color-accurate panels available in this price range, encompassing the entire sRGB gamut.
ASUS VivoBook 15 M515, $617+
Again, this laptop is just over the $600 budget. Yet, if you hold out for any sales, you’ll get it well below $600, sometimes, even as low as $500.
This ASUS VivoBook 15 is a top-end laptop that packs powerful hardware without sacrificing any critical features. It has an 8-core AMD Ryzen 7 5700U processor, 8GB RAM, and 512GB SSD storage, making it ideal for demanding apps like AutoCAD, Photoshop, and others.
The metal design helps the laptop seem and feel luxurious while also making it more stable for typing and using the touchpad. It also offers a backlight keyboard with 1.4mm key travel for working in low light. It has one USB-C Gen 3.2 port, two USB 2.0 and Type-A ports, an HDMI port, and an audio combo jack.