Gaming laptops are sleek, compact, and portable, unlike their counterparts (PCs). With the right economic gaming laptop, you’ll be able to perform most of what you can do with a desktop just about anywhere- a blessing if you’re someone who spends a lot of time traveling.
When comparing good gaming laptops with standard laptops, at first glance, gaming laptops look just like regular laptops with advanced features, but these advanced features make all the difference.
With features like a built-in display, onboard keyboard and trackpad, excellent processing power, large memory, improved graphics, and high speed, they make a great choice for school, work, editing, and programming too apart from gaming.
Initially, it seems like details like high-end hardware will cost a fortune. But, with our list of affordable options, you can indulge in competitive and AAA gaming and all your other passions wherever you are without compromising on quality. In our list, we will focus on essential aspects that gaming laptops must possess like display, graphic cards, Hard drives, and RAM.
7 Best Gaming Laptops Under $500
ASUS VivoBook F510QAz
Though just as equally capable as the 16-inch Macbook Pro, the Asus VivoBook is sleeker, compact, and more affordable. Reasons to buy it are its vibrant 15.6-inch anti-glare screen, lightweight (1.8kg), i7 processor, AMD Quad-Core processor, AMD Radeon Graphics card, 4GB RAM, 4GB DDR4 2400 MHz DRAM memory, and impressive HDD space. The Asus VivoBook F510QA-DS99 gives you a lot of bang for your buck, with a large display and a comfortable keyboard in a beautiful, slim package. It has a popular AMD A12 processor on the inside, as well as plenty of RAM and fast SSD storage.
Though stunning, the impressive display and the awesome HDD Space do not compensate for the fact that this laptop has an average battery life, only a 1080p resolution, and lacks a dedicated graphics card. This laptop also does not have a backlight either.
14-inch MacBook Pro
This is the one to buy if you want everything on the 16-inch MacBook Pro but with a smaller display and similar internals for less. Nonetheless, it’s still an expensive computer, which is something to keep in mind.
If you want to buy it for gaming, heed our advice: buy as much memory and storage as you can afford. And remember, you can’t change these options after purchase since upgrades aren’t possible. So with this in mind, consider getting an Apple M2 Pro with a 12-core CPU, 19-core GPU, and 16-core Neural Engine with 1TB of storage and at least 32GB of RAM.
Remember that the cooling solution isn’t quite as impressive here as on the larger model, mainly because there’s less room for a big fan and heatsink setup. As a result, it might not push the frames quite as much, and you may have to drop a couple of settings to ensure you’re not burning yourself on the MacBook’s aluminum shell. With this in mind, however, you might still be surprised by how well the MacBook Pro 14-inch pushes games.
The 14-inch MacBook Pro is nearly identical to the 16-inch model except for the smaller display and price.
Acer Aspire 5
With its modern components, great battery life, good build quality, and satisfactory performance, the Acer Aspire 5 is a win for its price. The Full HD IPS Display, 256 GB SSD, and slim body show us Acer’s ability. to create affordable laptops. For less than $499.99, a Windows laptop with a current Core i5 processor might seem too good to be true. Acer is willing to make sacrifices to attain it. The Aspire 5 is still a capable and fun notebook.
Though extremely economical, the screen isn’t vibrant, it is not as sleek or as light as the other laptops in its class, and it does not have an SD Card Slot.
Dell Inspiron
The Dell Inspiron boasts not only an impressive ability to transform into a touchscreen tablet with integrated Intel graphics, plenty of options for multi-tasking, plenty of storage space, and a decent sound system but also 8GB of DDR4 memory, Bluetooth 4.0, and a 7th gen i5 processor. The Laptop’s SSD hard disk drive is also known to be five times as fast. But wait, there’s more. All of the panels are well-fitting and finished, and the materials used appear to be of high quality. Even when closed (16.32mm), this device is compact and light, weighing roughly 1.5kg.
However, the lack of touch support and DVD optical drive is the cons of purchasing this device.
Lenovo – 330S-15ARR
Lenovo’s 330S-15ARR is a powerful beast that offers an abundance of features like an AMD 2nd generation processor, a full HD 15,6-inch display, stunning visuals, smooth performance, a 2.5-inch drive, RX Vega 8 graphics card (which outmaneuvers the NVIDIA ).
There isn’t much room for complaints other than the fact that the speaker placement and the battery life could be better because Lenevo generously gave us the best features at the lowest possible price.
Lenovo Ideapad Premium
The Lenovo IdeaPad 330s-15 comes with an AMD Ryzen 5 250quad-core/eight-thread processor, 8GB DDR4-2400MHz RAM, and a 128GB solid-state drive. This configuration includes a 15.6″ 1920 x 1080 (FHD) resolution screen with a brightness rating of 250 nits (measured diagonally). This combination is capable of multitasking and can handle many of today’s most demanding apps. If this describes your computer habits, the Lenovo IdeaPad 330s-15 is an excellent pick. With Windows 10, an Intel Core i5 processor, a 15.6” display with full resolution, and a 4GB DDR4, Lenovo meets most of the basic requirements for a gamer with its laptop. But, the upgradeable storage, full-size ethernet, and 4-in-1 card reader make this laptop an option that is worth considering.
For some, the non-backlit keyboard and the average webcam quality could be considered disadvantages.
HP 14” Touchscreen Home
In addition to being incredibly user-friendly while having a long battery life and being able to support multitasking, the incredible touch screen, and the precise finger touch mechanism makes this laptop stand a cut above the rest. The HP Pavilion 14 laptop has a nice design. Despite the mid-range pricing, the frosted silver aluminum chassis offers it elegance. It’s refined for business usage, with none of the chunkiness that other corporate laptops have.
However, the laptop does tend to overheat at times and the keyboard may get issues when in stand mode.
HP 14” FHD IPS LED
At an affordable price, HP provides us with upgradeable RAM, brilliant navigation, multitasking, and a backlit keyboard all inside a well-built body. Even though this laptop was not designed for gaming, it can still be used for that purpose. This laptop has Intel UHD Graphics, an i5 1oth gen processor, and 8GB RAM. The 14-inch screen also makes it very compact and easy to carry around.
Some major issues could be faced like the cooling fan being too loud and the battery not lasting long enough.
FAQs
🔥How much RAM is sufficient for gaming?
👉16GB is the recommended amount of RAM for playing most games and will provide a noticeable increase in performance from 8GB. You will also be able to run applications in the background without affecting gameplay.
🔥What processor do I need for gaming on my laptop?
👉For ideal results, a machine running an Intel® Core™ i7 processor or better with at least 8GB of RAM is sufficient for playing games and streaming at the same time. If you’re hoping for less impact on your gaming performance, an Intel® Core™ i9 processor makes for an even smoother experience.
🔥What makes a laptop good for gaming?
👉A laptop’s GPU, or Graphics Processing Unit, creates the pixels that form the images on your screen when gaming. These components work together so you can get an overall good gaming experience, so the best thing you can do is look for a balance.
Over to You
A great thing about getting a laptop is that you can use them for both work and play. This is especially true for gaming laptops that have powerful hardware inside allowing you to play any modern game of your choice.
Thus, we have already discussed some of the best gaming laptops under $500 earlier in this listicle. Keeping all of this information in mind, here are some of our ideal picks for the best gaming laptops under $500:
- Despite being smaller in size than most other laptops due to its 14-inch FHD display, the Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming Laptop is the most powerful option stated above. It includes the highly powerful AMD Ryzen 5 3500U CPU and AMD Radeon Vega 8 GPU. When combined with its 8 GB DDR4 RAM and 256 GB SSD, you can expect great gaming performance.
- Those of you who are on a highly tight budget can consider the Asus VivoBook 15 F512JA-AS34 Gaming laptop. Even though it is highly affordable, you get the fairly new Intel Core i3 10th Gen 1005G1 CPU paired with 8 GB RAM and Intel UHD G1 graphics. Unlike other laptops in its class, it also includes a large 15.6-inch FHD display for media consumption and gaming.
- While it may be a bit more expensive than other gaming laptops present above, the Acer Aspire 5 A515-55-56VK Gaming Laptop certainly makes for a great work laptop as well. One of the best things about this laptop is that you get an 8-hour battery life with it. You also get a 15.6-inch FHD display, WiFi 6, fingerprint reader, and much more with this Intel Core i5 10th Gen 1035G1 CPU. It combines this along with a 256 GB SSD, 8 GB DDR4 RAM, and Intel UHD G1 GPU.
