Let’s not mince words. The Asus ZenBook 13 OLED is hands-down the best laptop you can buy at under $1,000. Its incredible screen, powerful processor, and long battery life make it appealing on all fronts. Our review notes that it is “something that comes very close” to being perfect.

For one, it’s a laptop that sports an OLED screen at just $899. It’s a 1080p panel, but the OLED makes HDR content look beautiful, and the Ryzen 7 5700U is no slouch for photo or video work. The design may be a bit bland, but it’s by no means ugly, and the laptop is very thin and light. Plus, the excellent keyboard and trackpad combined with a 15-hour battery life more than makeup for the lackluster design.

When it comes to affordable laptops, the Asus ZenBook 13 OLED is the one to beat.

Just a few years ago it would’ve been unthinkable that you could find a laptop under $1,000 with a graphics card powerful enough to run the latest games without turning the detail settings way, way down. The Dell G5 SE is something of a novelty in that regard. Starting at just $900, it features a fast AMD Ryzen 5 4600H processor, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, and an AMD Radeon RX 5600M graphics card.

During our time with the G5 SE, we were consistently impressed by its robust gaming performance — even if we were underwhelmed by its display quality (other than the 144Hz refresh rate, which we loved).

When the M1 MacBooks arrived in November, they completely changed the landscape of the computer industry. Apple’s M1 chip is incredibly powerful and power-efficient. While you could get more performance from the M1 MacBook Pro, theM1 MacBook Air offers a very similar experience at exactly $1,000. Users also get 8GB of unified memory and a 256GB SSD.

The M1 MacBook Air looks very similar to the last few iterations of the lineup, but the M1 comes without any fans. That means you get a powerful and completely silent experience. If you want to upgrade your Mac for a reasonable price, the M1 MacBook Air is an absolute bargain at its price point.

Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 3 left a lot to be desired, so the turnaround in just a generation has been fantastic. The Surface Laptop 4 upgrades to 4000 series Ryzen chips, which significantly improve performance. As we note in our review, Ryzen 4000 chips are the most significant jump in performance for AMD’s laptop processors ever, making them a compelling alternative to Intel.

Buyers also get 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, aiding snappy operation and fast boot times. Combine that with the soft and aesthetically pleasing Alcantara fabric and the laptop’s thin profile, and you have one of the most functional and appealing laptops under $1,000. Battery life and built quality are excellent too. It’s a perfect option for students who want something decently powerful that want a MacBook alternative.

Whether it’s photo editing or video editing, finding a laptop under $1,000 that can handle your needs will be tough. At least, it used to be that way before AMD released its fantastic Ryzen 4000 line of CPUs. Now, you benefit from the fastest processor you can buy for under $1,000 (and one that rivals those in machines selling for $2,000 and more), along with reasonably quick graphics.

Acer has turned their Aspire series into a compelling budget option for many users. The Aspire lineup consistently strikes a balance between price and performance, and the Aspire 5 A517 is an excellent option for those looking for an affordable 17-inch laptop.

The Acer Aspire A517 comes with a powerful Intel Core i7-1165G7 and 16GB of RAM, making the Aspire a competent machine for photo and video editing. It also has robust ports including an Ethernet jack, HDMI, three USB-A (two USB 3.2 and one USB 2.0), and a USB-C port.

Combine that with its roomy 17.3 1920×1080 display, and you’re getting a lot for an affordable price.

Chromebooks are excellent budget options, particularly for students. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some fantastic options in the midrange for Chromebooks. Google’s own Pixelbook Go is not only great by Chromebook standards, but it’s also an excellent laptop in its own right. The typing experience and trackpad, in particular, are exceptional and easily go head-to-head with Apple’s lineup.

ChromeOS has also developed significantly in the past few years, primarily since it now supports Android apps. That makes the Pixelbook Go a functioning Android-like laptop instead of a glorified Chrome browser.

Of course! As we said in the introduction, you’ll want to be careful when buying a budget laptop to be sure that the manufacturer hasn’t cut a corner that you care about. But frankly, the same is true for premium laptops — you can spend over $2,000 and get a laptop that won’t meet your needs if you don’t carefully identify what’s important to you.

In the world of cars, the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla have been two of the best-selling cars for some time now, and for good reason. They’re affordable, safe, provide decent performance, and won’t break the bank when it comes to maintenance. If you’re looking for basic transportation, then you can’t go wrong with either of these options.

The same principle applies to budget laptops. You won’t get a new Ferrari at a new Honda Civic price, but if what you need is good performance and reliability at an affordable price, then our list proves that you can get quite a bit of computer for well under $1,000.

There are more choices now than ever. You can stick with Intel and get Ice Lake or Comet Lake 10th-generation Core i7 CPUs in laptops that are under our $1,000 threshold.  On the flip side, AMD now has a very competitive platform in its Ryzen 4000 series CPUs.

If you want to go well under $1,000, you can get a very fast Ryzen chip or an Intel Core i5, both of which are highly capable processors that will churn through most productivity tasks without hesitation — but the AMD Ryzen will be much faster overall. You can also enjoy good battery life with any of these CPUs.

Many budget laptops include integrated graphics, traditionally some variation of Intel’s UHD Graphics technology built into its Core CPU. This means that even the most basic laptop can run older games, though they’ll be low res, while still managing your other daily tasks. However, if you’re willing to consider AMD, you’ll get improved performance over Intel’s integrated options.

We’ve included budget laptops with acceptable graphics on our list. These will provide a much better gaming, and content-creation experience than Intel’s integrated graphics can manage. If you’re willing to settle for 1080p and lower graphical details, you can get some real gaming done with a few of them.

Can I afford a laptop with a 4K display?

If your budget is less than $1,000, you probably won’t be able to buy a laptop with a 4K display. It’s worth noting that it was challenging to locate Full HD displays under this price until recently. Your average laptop on a budget won’t have the battery strength it needs to support a 4K display. The display would drain your battery immediately, so you’d have to be always charging it, which defeats the purpose of having a laptop.

If you don’t want to fork over the money now, wait for a little while. 4K and batteries adequately supporting this resolution will become the baseline specs seen with today’s Full HD-based laptops.

Editors’ Recommendations