3 Best Laptops Under 500 Dollars

For some people a laptop under 500 dollars is considered "low budget". While it is true that these economical models won't break any speed records and its graphic capabilities won't blow you away, they can perform quite well.


If you aren't a gamer or do any high level video editing, you will find a 500 dollar laptop will work just fine. You won't need the fastest processor to read your email and you surely don't need an awesome video card to surf the web. A "budget" laptop will do the vast majority of what most people do on a computer. Here are my picks for the best laptops under 500 dollars for 2011.

HP Pavilion dm1z
The dm1z really surprised me with its ability graphically. The ATI Radeon HD 6310 performed quite well. I think most people will also appreciate the amazing battery life this laptop has. This is due to the very power efficient AMD Fusion processor. Boot speed and overall program speed was good as well, pretty surprising for such a low priced laptop.

I didn't like the case, it just seemed really thick and really cheap. Some might also not like the small 11.6 inch screen.

Asus Eee PC 1215N-PU17
OK so I know that a laptop at this price isn't expected to play games much, if at all. But the Asus' dual core Atom CPU and Nvidia Ion graphics card could play most games I tried at low graphical settings. Needless to say this laptop has plenty of juice to run business applications with no issues. The Asus also had the best video playback of all laptops.

There really wasn't much not to like with this model. But, if I were to pick two things it would be the flimsy keyboard and rather stiff mouse buttons.

Sony Vaio Eco VPC-W212AX
One of the coolest things about the Eco is how green it is. 20 percent of the chassis is made from recycled CD and DVD cases. The carrying case it comes with is made of recycled soda bottles and PET plastic. The Sony Eco obviously doesn't just give the term "green" lip service. Being good for the environment isn't all this laptop has to offer. The next generation Atom CPU will have this machine running for a long time.

I didn't like the keyboard at all. It felt small and very cramped. Video playback was very poor as well, performing the worst of the three in this respect.

Overall I would easily say that the Asus Eee PC is the runaway favorite. The bang for the buck that this laptop gives you outshines its competitors by a mile in my opinion. The Eee shows that even at a low price a laptop CAN perform well.

Check out my site for the top rated laptops under 300 dollars and more of the best laptops under 500 dollars.