14 DAY TRIAL // When most of us hear “budget” devices, we automatically think they must be products with low specs and efficiency. But that’s no longer the case, at least in the notebook market, where brand vendors have constantly lowered prices, while keeping standards pretty high.
So let's take a tour of the budget environment and see what are the best options available today. In what follows, we will consider budget laptops, products priced at $599 / €435 or below.
HP Chromebook 14 (with Intel Celeron 2955U) – priced $299 / €217
Chromebooks are usually expected to come with affordable price tags and this model isn’t any different. For your money, you’ll be getting a spacious screen (14-inch) although you’ll have to deal with the same bland resolution characteristic of most budget laptops (which could be considered a down-side).
Nevertheless, the machine is powered by an Intel Celeron 2955 combined with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage (1 year of 100GB Google Drive space).
Most importantly, you can charge the model via microUSB. Another feature that might draw customers in is that the machine comes available in multiple fun colors.
Acer C720 Chromebook – priced $199 / €145
This Acer laptop is one of the cheapest models available on the market. It’s powered by an Intel Celeron 2955U combined with 2GB of RAM. The keyboard is said to be a bit noisy, but on the bright side the case is pretty sturdy and you won’t have to worry about fingerprints or smudges.
It offers an 11.6-inch screen with a resolution of 1366 x 768 (this is pretty much the standard for budget model), but if you want to work with a larger screen, you’d better consider the HP Chromebook 14.
Acer Aspire V5-122P-0408 – priced $348 / €252
The Acer Aspire V5 has an 11.6-inch display and draws power from an AMD A4-1250 processor combined with 4GB of RAM and backed up by a 500GB HD. As opposed to the previous presented laptops, this one runs Windows 8 out of the box.
Dell Inspiron 15" i15RV-1333BLK – priced $398 / €298
This is a budget laptop with a pretty large screen (15.6-inch) and a pretty interesting internal configuration as well. Under the hood, we have an Intel Core i3-3227U processor combined with a hefty 6GB of RAM.
Unlike what we've presented so far, this lappy has an optical drive for CDs and DVDs. On top of that, you’ll be getting an 8-in-1 card reader, USB 3.0, USB 2.0 and Bluetooth. A down point of this Dell notebook is the weird textured body, which might make it uncomfortable for you to type.
ASUS VivoBook 13.3" – priced $599 / €435
Another laptop with a larger screen, this time 13.3-inch, which draws power from a hefty Intel Core i5-4200U (Haswell) fitted with 4GB of RAM, Intel HD 4400 graphics and 500GB HD. Thus, you can see why the laptop arrives with the heftier price-tag.
The VivoBook also has an optical disk drive, 1MP webcam and features a solid chassis that won’t retain smudges easily.
Lenovo IdeaPad 14” – priced $399 / €290
Last but not least, a model from the world’s biggest PC vendor, Lenovo. The 14-inch laptop is powered by AMD’s quad-core A6 APU (which combines the central and graphics processing unit into one chip) fitted with 4GB of RAM and 500GB HD.
Apart from that, you’ll find onboard a single USB 3.0, two USB 2.0, HDMI out, but there’s no optical drive. A little bit flimsy compared to what we showed you so far, but the better integrated graphics might be a good enough selling point.