Best Cheap Gaming Laptops – Buying Guide 2018

Who says that if you wanna get a gaming laptop, it has to cost pretty damn much, can put a genuine imprint in your wallet, with some models that cost even more than $3,000. However, thanks to these Best Cheap Gaming Laptops, you’ll be able to play all modern games like GTA V, Battlefied 1 and more on low-medium graphics settings with decent frame rates. Just to make it clear, these laptops are amazing value for money and provides great gaming performances, but there might be some modern games that wouldn’t run over it at high settings.

7 Best Cheap Gaming Laptops 2018

With over 20 hours of research and testing, we finally came up with these 7 budget, super efficient and cheap gaming laptops to get for at under $500 budget.

1) Acer Aspire E15 E5-575G-57D4

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The Acer Aspire E15 is the best budget gaming laptop, providing exceptionally good value for money. This Aspire E15 E5-575G-57D4 is the newest model in this line up and certainly rocks in every aspect. In our list of the top 7 cheap gaming laptops in 2017, this particular Acer E15 model is on the top for many reasons.

The design and the build quality is really good. Everything about the Aspire E 15 Notebook has been deliberately created for a spotless and smooth look without pointless lines. The everyday / gaming performance of the Acer Aspire E15 is blazing fast, due to the amazing hardware that it has got. The intel 7th Gen Kaby lake core i5-7200U along with 8GB DDR4 RAM, a 256 SSD Storage and a very efficient dedicated Nvidia GeForce 940MX Graphics with 2GB of  video memory at the price of just over 550 bucks is the best deal in our opinion.

The Geforce 940MX is over 20% more powerful than the Geforce 940m and is the best dedicated graphic card in our list of best cheap gaming laptops. The 256GB SSD ensure that the windows 10 (included) and your games load at a rapid speed but you might run out of space pretty soon. We recommend an SSD upgrade or the DVD drive replaced with a 1TB hard drive. Thankfully, it has an easy to access compartment door underneath, making it very easy to upgrade the SSD /Memory.

The 15.6″ 1080p Full HD display is very good due to Acer ColorBlast technology that gives you superb color saturation and contrast. Moreover, none of other manufacturers add a 1080p FHD panel at this price point with any of their gaming laptops line. More advanced features include USB 3.0 and 3.1 Type-C ports. The Type-C port as supported lightning fast data transfer, while the 3.0 usb port has the ability to charge your smartphone even if the laptop is turned off.

At just over $550, the Acer Aspire E15 E5-575G-57D4 is the best cheap gaming laptop that you can get. We highly recommend it!

The Aspire E15 has some older models available on amazon with the same name but different model numbers, make sure you get the newer model i.e Acer Aspire E15  E5-575G-57D4, our review model.

Key Specifications

• Intel Core i5-7200U (2.5 GHz upto 3.1 Ghz)
• Nvidia GeForce 940MX Dedicated 2GB
• 256GB SSD
• 8GB DDR4 RAM
• 15.6 inch Full HD 1920 x 1080 pixels (TN)
• 12 hours battery life
• Windows 10 Home
• Weight 5.3 lbs

2) Lenovo Ideapad 510

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The Lenovo ideapad 510 has some really amazing set of specs to offer for a price that is very affordable. Gaming on this laptop will be a great experience, due to being powered by the Intel Skylake 6th Gen i5-6200U 2.3 GHz, 8 Gigs of DDR4 RAM which provides higher performance than the DDR3 RAM and the dedicated Nvidia Geforce 940Mx. The Lenovo ideapad 510 is the second one in our list of best budget gaming laptops that has the Geforce 940mx dedicated graphic card. Expect a better gaming performance when compared to laptops having integrated graphics.

The Lenovo ideapad 510 combines great sound, performance, visuals and graphics with serious storage and horsepower to create a good work and a cheap gaming laptop.

Display being FHD 1080p is absolutely gorgeous has good viewing angles and colors are vibrant. Also the sound quality is fantastic thanks to the certified dual stereo speakers by Harman, making the Ideapad 510 a pleasant multimedia laptop. Ideapad 510 has a backlit keyboard which has a fine size and quality, an HD wide angled camera and all these with a 5 hours of video playback battery life.

Main Specifications:

• Intel 6th Core i5-6200U 2.3 Ghz
• 8GB DDR4 RAM
• 15.6″ FHD (1920 x 1080p) display
• Nvidia Geforce 940MX
• 1TB HDD
• 802.11 A/C Wireless Connectively
• Windows 10
• 4.84 lbs weight

3) HP Notebook 15-ay011nr

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HP has always been known for their basic laptops, that offer great performance at a cheap, affordable price. The HP Notebook 15-ay011nr is powered by the intel i5-6200U 6th Gen (Skylake) processor with 8GB of RAM (DDR3L). Combined with the Intel HD graphics 520 chipset, gaming is performance will be good but not great. All those who want to have a taste of the modern games, will be able to run them with settings being set to low. Although the older game titles like Skyrim, Bioshock infinite, Dota 2 etc would run on medium-high settings.

Apart from the gaming and day to day performance, the HP Notebook 15 has very good, sturdy build quality, Full HD 1920 x 1080p antiglare WLED-backlit display and good battery life. The sound quality is great, the DTS Studio Sound provides an immersive listening experience for music, videos, and games.

Key Specifications:

• Intel Core i5-6200U Processor
• 8GB (DDR3L) memory
• Windows 10 Home
• 1TB hard drive
• 15.6-inch 1080p Full HD diagonal screen
• 7 hours and 15 minutes of battery life
• 4.73 lbs

4) Acer Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM

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Acer Aspire E 15 series is what acer is best known for. This particular model is currently the best seller on amazon because of the latest specs that it has got, with a price tag very affordable. It comes with the latest 7th Gen core i3-7100U (kabylake, 2.4Ghz) ensuring quality performance with low power consumption, 4GB DDR4 RAM (we recommend upgrading it to atleast 8GB in order to get the best out of this laptop in terms of gaming), a full HD display and 1TB HDD. The Aspire E15 E5-575-33BM has the intel’s HD graphics 620, the latest and greatest integrated chipset. It offers respectable / playable performance of the modern games when played on low – medium graphical settings. About the HDD, we recommend upgrading it to an SSD, which would improve the performance and the loading speeds of games as well as the daily tasks. Thanks to the easy access to the HDD and the RAM, the motherboard on this laptop has 2 slots for hard drives. One a traditional SATA and other being the m.2. We recommend you get a m.2 SSD and have 2 hard drives working on this laptop.

Great performance, the latest kabylake processor, backed with DDR4 RAM, Intel HD graphics 620 and an extra-ordinary battery life makes it a best buy.

Key Specs:

• 7th Gen Intel Core i3-7100U (2.4GHz)
• 4GB DDR4 Memory
• 15.6″ Full HD Display
• 1TB 5400RPM HDD
• Windows 10 Home
• 12 hours Battery Life
• Backlit Keyboard

5) ASUS X555DA-WS11

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This ASUS laptop isn’t built particularly for gaming but thanks to the specs that it has and the dedicated graphic card, you can enjoy the modern gaming titles at a lower graphic settings.

TheAsus X555DA features a Quad-Core AMD A10 APU, has 8GB of DDR3 RAM and has storage 1TB (or an option of 256SSD). The day to day performance is decent and above average in this price range. The shared graphic card that it features is the AMD Radeon R6, that isn’t the best at gaming but certainly allow gamers to run their favourite games at an acceptable frame rates, however they will need to lower down the graphical settings.

The X555DA has decent build quality, it has tactile finish, feels premium. The display is really crisp and clear and has decent colors, moreover the audio on this laptop is very impressive making it a pleasant experience to use, thanks to ASUS SonicMaster technology and ASUS AudioWizard. It also has USB 3.0 ports and also features Bluetooth 4.0.

The battery life although isn’t that great when compared to the slightly expensive Acer Aspire featured above.

Complete Specifications:

6) Lenovo 110-17IKB

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Lenovo 110-17IKB is powered by the Intel’s 7th Gen core i5-7200U (2.5Ghz upto 3.1 Ghz), 8GB DDR4L RAM , 1TB SATA 5400RPM hard drive and the Intel’s HD Graphics 620 with 17″ HD display. Some of us still like to play classic gaming titles which doesn’t require huge specs to run. The Intel HD graphics 620 will certainly run slightly older titles like Overwatch or Diablo III and at medium to high settings. I wouldn’t recommend playing titles like Battlefield 1 or Titanfall 2, as you would have to lower down settings and resolution to minimum. Although the Assassic’s Creed Pirates, Skyrim would get good frame rates and would be playable.

In order to get the most out the Lenovo 110, an SSD is highly recommended. It would certainly boost the gaming performance as well as the day to day use. The 17 inch HD display isn’t Full HD but it still is very enjoyable and a delight to use while gaming or watching movies.

Key Specs:

• 7th Gen Intel Core i5-7200U , 2.5GHz up to 3.1GHz
• 8GB DDR4L RAM
• 1TB HDD 5400RPM
• Intel HD Graphics 620
• 17.3″ 1600×900 Display
• Full keyboard with, numeric keypad
• 1 USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0
• Windows 10 home
• 6.15 lbs weight
• 3-hours battery.

7) Dell Inspiron 15 i5555-2866SLV

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Not everybody can bear to spend upwards of $700 on a gaming tablet. In any case, fortunately for laptop and computer manufacturers like Dell, people can buy cheap gaming laptops. Don’t expect premium form quality as they are budget laptops but they offer some solid performances. Powered by the AMD A10-8700P with 8 Gigs of DDR3 RAM, the Inspiron 15 can handle tasks pretty well. Backed with the AMD Radeon R6 shared memory graphics card, it can run classics at good fps, but newer titles like Battlefied 1, TitanFall 2 etc would struggle. The RAM also powers the graphic card as it is shared memory, we recommend upgrading it.

The HDD is 1 TB providing enough space for games and movies to be loaded onto the laptop, but power users should opt for an SSD.  The 1366 x 768 hd display is somewhat average, movies and games still enjoyable at 720p. The 10-finger touchscreen is genuinely responsive and allows the user to easily explore around Windows 10. If you are on a tight spending plan on a laptop for casual gaming and work, the Dell Inspiron i5555-2866SLV is worth considering at its cost.

Key Specs:

• AMD A10-8700P 1.80 GHz up to 3.20 GHz
• AMD Radeon R6 (shared)
• 15.6″ HD 10-finger multi-touch touchscreen (1366 x 768)
• 8GB DDR3L 1600 MHz Memory
• 1TB 5400 rpm HDD
• 1 USB 3.0, 2 USB 2.0
• Windows 10
• Upto 6 Hours

Conclusion:

Let’s put an end to the top list. Not everyone has the luxury to buy their desired gaming laptop at spending over $800 or more. Some casual gamers actually want a multimedia and cheap gaming laptop that actually does all the day to day tasks and also plays the latest games at low – medium graphics. For that reason we made this best 7 roundup, honest & unbiased reviews based on amazon’s genuine buyers’ and consumers. All these laptops are capable of gaming casually and on a budget.

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