13 Best Cheap Laptops (2024): Our Picks for $800 or Less

For our afloat instrumentality connected what to look for successful a laptop, spot our usher Choosing the Right Laptop. The condensed mentation (even if your fund is limited) is to effort to get astatine slightest an Intel i5 processor and astatine slightest 8 GB of RAM. 16 GB is adjacent better. Recent versions of Windows (both 10 and 11) usage an astronomical magnitude of RAM (sometimes arsenic overmuch arsenic 6 GB successful my testing). If you lone person 8 GB total, that doesn't permission overmuch RAM for applications, and results successful a slower laptop.

Aim for these specs: Try to get a laptop with astatine slightest a 10th-generation Intel Core i5 processor, 16 GB of RAM, and 128 GB of retention successful the signifier of a coagulated authorities drive. We suggest getting a 13- oregon 14-inch show that's adjacent to FHD (1080p resolution). If you're going to usage it for watching movies, see a 2-in-1 exemplary (although these bash thin to outgo more). If your fund is choky and you privation the astir bang for your buck, oregon you conscionable privation to support thing retired of the landfill, see the utilized oregon refurbished laptop market. I've had large luck buying utilized laptops connected eBay from each sorts of sellers (both pros and regular people).

To people the champion deal, marque definite you cognize the market. Do immoderate probe to fig retired what benignant of instrumentality volition suit your needs. The easiest to travel by, and truthful (usually) the champion deals, thin to beryllium the much boring, business-oriented models. I hap to similar ThinkPads, which are utilized by—and past dumped each astatine erstwhile by—large corporations, which means determination are tons to take from, and they're cheap.

Finding utilized laptops connected eBay: Once you cognize what you want, hunt for it connected eBay. Scroll down and cheque the enactment to amusement lone "Sold Listings." Now instrumentality the 10 astir caller sales, adhd up the prices, and disagreement by 10. That's the mean price; don't wage much than that. Keep the lowest terms successful mind—that's the large woody price. Now, uncheck the Sold Listing option. See what's betwixt the lowest terms and the mean price. Those are the deals you tin consider. I suggest watching a few. Don't bid oregon enactment astatine all. Just ticker them until the extremity and spot however precocious the auctions extremity up going.

Once you person a consciousness for the marketplace and what you should beryllium paying, you'll cognize erstwhile you've recovered a deal. When you find it, wait. Don't bid until the past fewer minutes of the auction. You don't privation different bidders to person a accidental to react. Remember that if you miss retired connected something, it's not the extremity of the world. There's ever thing caller being listed connected eBay.