Is there such a thing as a decent $500 laptop?

October 17, 2023 2:07 AM

This past summer I chanced to meet an older gentleman who is dealing with some of the complications of returning to society after decades in prison. Since meeting him I've helped him with a few small things, mostly technology related. He has recently asked me for some advice on making a computer purchase and while I'm pretty well able to answer general questions about recent technology, I very much don't pay attention to the low mid-range of the market for PC laptops, where his budget places him.

I'd like to help steer him towards something with decent build quality that will meet his identified use cases - basically he just wants a laptop that he can use for word processing, e-mail, and basic internet browsing, or so it would appear from his answers to my questions.

Obviously nearly any modern device can meet those basic needs but in my experience the very lowest end of the market tends to have a lot of machines that are ill-designed and only barely fit for purpose. I'd like to avoid those. He's also aging and has less than ideal eyesight, which might influence the choice somewhat.

Can anyone either recommend a line of not necessarily fancy but solidly built basic laptops in, say, the neighborhood of $500, or else point me towards good resources where I can do further research to identify a target model for him?

I'm primarily a MacOS and Linux person and I have very little experience shopping the market segment he's looking at, so I turn to the hivemind to see if you can help.

posted by Nerd of the North to Computers & Internet (40 answers total)

I'd be sorely tempted to buy a used MacBook Air.

You're not going to be getting an officially refurbished one for that price, so you might look at a site like Swappa (I've used them for phones, but not computers).
posted by Metasyntactic at 2:37 AM on October 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

Refurbished thinkpads are often a good avenue for low-cost laptops. The technology from before the pandemic is about on par with the current stuff for sale. Most people are buying brand-new machines that aren't notably better than the "8G RAM, SSD...I dunno it has a CPU that can drive the OS just fine I guess?" systems from five years ago.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 3:20 AM on October 17, 2023 [5 favorites]

You can get a quality Chromebook for well under $500. I'd suggest staying away from Apple unless he's also using an iPhone.
posted by kingdead at 3:40 AM on October 17, 2023 [18 favorites]

Seconding a refurbished or second-hand Thinkpad. A quick peek at eBay shows ample choice with 14" or 15" screens, 8 or 16GB RAM, 256GB or bigger SSD, and some Yogas. Most of the dealers selling refurbs will offer 3 or 6 months warranty of some sort, so little risk there which IME is just as small as with any new laptop from a second-tier manufacturer.
posted by Stoneshop at 4:11 AM on October 17, 2023 [3 favorites]

If going the refurbished ThinkPad route, I'd suggest aiming as high end as possible. I have a ThinkPad that was $7xx new (I do think it was on sale) and I'm really not impressed by the build quality coming from Macs (to the point that I'm reasonably certain I'll cough up the extra few hundred dollars for a MacBook Air next time around).
posted by hoyland at 4:27 AM on October 17, 2023

To finish that thought--I was discussing ThinkPad build quality with friends over the weekend, and they find theirs to be well-made. They both have much higher end models, costing over double what mine did.
posted by hoyland at 4:31 AM on October 17, 2023

I’m a lifelong Mac user but in this case I would strongly consider a convertible Chromebook or Windows laptop (has a touchscreen and folds into a tablet). Apple’s refusal to do laptop touchscreens means I’ve never used one regularly, but in setting up a low-end Chromebook for my kids I’ve sort of come to envy them. Trackpads can be frustrating!
posted by staggernation at 4:38 AM on October 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

Chromebooks are awesome, I've owned two sub-$200 Chromebooks and really they are just great machines. The vast majority of internet users simply do not need more computer than a Chromebook and it's silly to pay more just to use a browser.

Unless you've got programs or games you need to run, a Chromebook is it.
posted by phunniemee at 5:26 AM on October 17, 2023 [8 favorites]

Refurbished thinkpads are often a good avenue for low-cost laptops.

The Thinkpads of the present day are not the Thinkpads of Before, sadly, and Think_books_ are neither.

If you have any tech companies in your area consider looking for refurbishers, not specific brands of laptops. Laptops coming off a corporate refresh cycle and well-refurbished are frequently very inexpensive for what you're getting.
posted by mhoye at 5:53 AM on October 17, 2023

I'm thinking the OP, being an Apple user, meant "Windows computer" when they said PC.

Other than that, I can't help much since I haven't been in the market myself for a couple of decades.

I thought of Chromebooks too, but it would only take a yen for one non-browser app to cause himm to regret the choice.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:54 AM on October 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

I would think about steering him towards a basic iPad, you can get a new one within budget and much easier to learn than a full windows or mac computer.
posted by Lanark at 6:00 AM on October 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

"basically he just wants a laptop that he can use for word processing, e-mail, and basic internet browsing, or so it would appear from his answers to my questions"

What about an iPad? That might be a good, cheaper solution. Can pair it with a keyboard and mouse, or get a keyboard case. How many hours per day is he likely to want to use it? That might make a difference.
posted by jzb at 6:00 AM on October 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

I used to buy refurbed Thinkpads and I, too, got bit in the ass with my most recent one.

Chromebooks are a really good option, especially given the likelihood he'd be word-processing in Gdocs anyway. They're what I buy my mother who no longer really has the technical skills to fix common Windows-y problems, and there's an added advantage that you can still come well within that budget and get a large display, which is better for her vision.
posted by Lyn Never at 6:02 AM on October 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm typing this on an Acer Spin 3 with Windows that I use to do all your friend wants to do, plus regular Zoom meetings, fair bit of graphic design work using open source programs like GIMP, and even some gaming from time to time. The display is reasonably crisp and bright, and it has a touch screen and can convert to tablet mode (hence the Spin name). I've had it for a couple of years now and it's held up fine under daily use in and outside my home. It's my second Acer in a row; the one I had before this one lasted a couple of years without issue until an unfortunate cat-induced incident that involved the laptop sailing off one table and into another table, and a chair, before hitting a floor. (And even after that, it still turned on! But the screen and case were cracked. I kept it going with duct tape for a while before my new computer came in.)

My current model runs about $500 new-- higher at some stores, lower on sale-- shop around.

Whatever you buy, make sure that you check it for bloatware and remove it so your friend gets a nice clean system that's not spamming him with popups and subscription offers and such.
posted by BlueJae at 6:07 AM on October 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

Something that might be worth asking your friend, is whether or not the computer he wants has to be a laptop. I mention this because it is possible to pick up small desktop or micro PC computers - which could give higher value for money - and a larger display - if he does not mind reduced portability. Again, you can find ex-business models like Lenovo ThinkStations or similar.
posted by rongorongo at 6:28 AM on October 17, 2023

Another vote for a Chromebook. We got a refurb Acer Chromebook for my teen for (checks receipt) $175.99 almost three years ago, and he's basically been using it for close to all waking hours since with no problem (except for the fact that he's been using it for all waking hours).
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:30 AM on October 17, 2023 [3 favorites]

Would installing, say, Mint on a decent but out-of-date used laptop for the gent make any sense?
posted by The Half Language Plant at 6:37 AM on October 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

A low-end Chromebook is just fine. It is even better if you can get a refurbished or an open-box one.
posted by Ferrari328 at 6:38 AM on October 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

I recently got an Acer Swift for about $450 on sale, and I just got my kid an Acer chromebook for about $220. I think they're solid devices. You don't need to spend $500+ to get a decent machine for basic everyday tasks like word processing, internet, streaming, etc.
posted by gnutron at 6:38 AM on October 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

I had a similar question a few years back and ended up with a recertified, refurbished Acer. It was an Aspire, under $300, and worked great for at least 3 years in harsh conditions, and I even did things like GIS on it. I passed it along but it may still be functioning.
posted by quadrilaterals at 6:48 AM on October 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

I have a cheap Lenovo - It was probably only like $300. It's great. I bought it maybe 2 years ago - still extremely fast.

My kids use chromebooks - the ones they get for school are really small, and have lots of small annoyances such that I would never personally pick one, but they seem ok and really affordable.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:20 AM on October 17, 2023

FWIW, woot.com often have refurb older laptops on sale (as the outlet arm of Amazon)

Not an ad, but they have some older laptops started from $100 (11.6" Celeron Dual Core / 4GB RAM 64GB eMMC, not recommend) to something decent, like Dell Latitude 7390 (13.3" / i5-8th gen / 8GB RAM 256GB SSD ) for $230, and goes up from there.
posted by kschang at 7:51 AM on October 17, 2023

Nthing chromebooks, specifically brand new Acer ones. They're what my grandkids' public schools use and are very durable. A Lenovo one I bought literally fell apart within a year, the hinges broke.

I got a new Acer chromebook recently and it had a minor glitch (it worked perfectly except it didn't like my phone's hotspot) and I returned it. Their tech support people were outstanding and did not treat me like an idiot, unlike other tech support people I've spoken with in the past.

Make sure it has a touchscreen. And buy a wireless mouse and maybe even a bluetooth speaker and headphones and a case, all won't total much above 300 bucks.
posted by mareli at 8:00 AM on October 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

In case you want to look on Amazon here's the one I got to replace the glitchy one.
posted by mareli at 8:02 AM on October 17, 2023

Team Refurbished Lenovo Thinkpad. They are usually laptops returned from corporate leases, with a clean install of Windows. Unlike a new consumer grade laptop, they are sturdy, repairable and have a better grade of components. Here's an example from a quick search.

A new chromebook tablet plus keyboard and mouse is not a bad idea; I just got one on sale at amzn (no longer on sale) to replace a dead kindle. Tablets are nicely portable, but I prefer an actual laptop.
posted by theora55 at 8:43 AM on October 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'd suggest the new category of "chromebook plus" certified laptops.
posted by kickingtheground at 8:58 AM on October 17, 2023

About ThinkPads: "Thinkpad" is Lenovo's business line - computers made to be relatively solid and mostly used for work-type stuff rather than video games or entertainment - but even within that line there are sub-lines ("series", with a range of build quality, performance, and price.

The T, X, and these days I think P series are the ones that are most worth buying used - they have the best build quality and highest specs for most work-type stuff. I've bought some great used T laptops for 100-250 and been very happy. I do make sure to go for as much RAM as possible and ideally for an IPS/high resolution screen, because a lot of ThinkPads have pretty lousy screens otherwise.

I too have heard some complaints about more recent ThinkPads, so you'll want to Google the specific models that you find. (That said, current ThinkPads being less good than previous ThinkPads has been a recurring refrain for decades; I haven't used anything more recent than a T460 - which is wonderful - so I can't attest one way or the other.)

All that said, though: keep in mind that one trade-off with used computers is battery life.

And finally computers are always a crapshoot, and some percentage of them will have problems or die early. True for both new and used in my experience.
posted by trig at 9:20 AM on October 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

While not the compact, lightweight option, I recently picked up a pair of Dell Latitude 5420 Rugged laptops for $400 each (including sales tax) on ebay. The seller had a lot of 40+.

Each one came with Windows 11 pro, an 8th gen i5 cpu, 16GB of ram, 256GB of SSD, a daylight viewable touchscreen, 4G lte modem, and dual hot swap batteries on the bottom that can be replaced in about 10 seconds flat. They are very, very solid. Like leave out in the rain or drop onto the floor solid.

They are a bit thicker than a normal laptop at 1.2", but weigh about the same as my older Dell XPS at 5lb. Otherwise they are a basic 14" screen laptop. Remove the handle if you want to make it a bit smaller, or keep it attached to act as a palm rest.
posted by SegFaultCoreDump at 9:37 AM on October 17, 2023

Dell is still a safe choice. There is an official Dell Outlet site for refurbished Dell machines: https://www.dell.com/en-us/dfh/lp/outlet

I would filter all refurb laptops for a memory capacity of 16GB or more and get whatever is in budget without much extra thought. Maybe look up reviews for that model to reassure yourself it isn't an automatic lemon, but it should be fine.
posted by rollick at 10:12 AM on October 17, 2023

Would installing, say, Mint on a decent but out-of-date used laptop for the gent make any sense?

My daughter uses a 10 year old HP Pavilion G6 running Mint and it's absolutely fine for the uses listed above, though the one pickle is whether the guy needs Word for the word processing (Work-aroundable).
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:25 AM on October 17, 2023

nthing Chromebooks, if he's willing to learn to use google suite for his word processing.
posted by Grandysaur at 10:29 AM on October 17, 2023

Linux is a good option, especially since it sounds like he doesn't already have familiarity with a different operating system. I run Mint on a Thinkpad 420 and it's great. I also gave my dad an old eeePC that's now 12 years old and still going strong running Ubuntu and it's needed minimal tech support in the 9 years he's been using it. We're both long-term Windows users who are tired of all the nagging reminders Windows pops up to try to make you use Cortana / OneDrive / Edge. My exception would be if he needs to practice Windows skills for job-hunting reasons.
posted by momus_window at 12:03 PM on October 17, 2023

Response by poster: Thanks, everybody, for the thoughts so far. To clarify a few things:

• I'm chiefly looking for Windows recommendations for several reasons. First and foremost, that's what he asked for. I would most likely choose differently for myself or a family member but I already have a pretty large network of extended family and friends who see me as their IT support person and while I'm up for helping this gentleman I don't particularly want to sign up for the whole "this doesn't work the way I expected and its your responsibility to make it work the way I want because you picked it" thing yet again. Been there, done that, don't need to do it again. But also, the computer familiarity he does have is based on the (presumably limited) access he had to computers in the prison computer lab, which were Windows. IMHO he has enough things to worry about while reintegrating that I'm okay with just going with what he knows even if it would not be my choice.
• I totally agree that he would get a better quality computer buying a refurbished or off-lease premium model of Thinkpad or other similar line but I'm not sure whether I can convince him of that. I'll look into options, at least.
• The windows machines I have in my own workspace are small form factor PCs and I know you can get a pretty well kitted-out box for a reasonable sum but he has made it clear he would prefer a laptop and while I'm trying to give him sound advice I'm also trying not to impose my own decisions on him. I don't know what his living space is like but it sounds like portability will be easier for him. Also he is a woodworker and trying to establish a sideline making furniture. Without disregarding the hazards from dust and grit, I think he might sometimes like to be able to watch a Youtube how-to video in the shop, to cite one simple use case for a portable.
• Sound advice on the bloatware removal, which was already part of my plan. The first thing I do with any Windows PC is strip as much of the pre-installed crap as I can, nuke McAfee from orbit, and replace it with something more effective / less obnoxious. It seems like a few years ago someone here had written a pretty handy little guide to getting things nicely stabilized on a new machine. Does anyone recall where that was or know whether it has been maintained or updated recently?

posted by Nerd of the North at 12:27 PM on October 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

I have bought several refurbished Dells directly from them in the last couple of years (look online for coupon codes because there are always sales going) and had good experiences. They will sell you an extended warranty if you want that for peace of mind, too. $500 is more than enough for a Windows 11-ready machine with 16 GB RAM.
posted by AgentRocket at 12:28 PM on October 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

BlackViper?

Personally, I'd keep an eye on whether the laptop comes with Win10 or Win11.
posted by porpoise at 12:44 PM on October 17, 2023

I respect that this gentleman is asking for a laptop. It’s what he’s familiar with. I would really follow up on his use cases to make absolutely certain it’s the right form factor for him.

If your person will be consuming video as part of web browsing, a tablet will be a much better form factor. This is especially true if browsing, video, and photo sharing are done more often than email, which is in turn done way more often than word processing. You can get iPads with keyboard cases or external Bluetooth keyboard.

I would ask if this person is familiar with all the general changes in the technology landscape and offer to walk him through it, just to make truly sure that a laptop best meets his needs. He might just be asking for what he knows.
posted by shock muppet at 12:45 PM on October 17, 2023

I've bought three in the 500ish range since I barely use them and just need to do occasional home accounting or writing a letter to an official body word processing.

Once it worked fine until my children stepped on the screen 6 months later. Once there was a real problem with the seller not having provided a legit copy of Windows. Most recently, whatever led it to be in the refurbished market seems to have recurred. Currently I have had to disable the trackpad because it causes something weird to happen that shows up as if I were mashing on a bunch of random keys (I even used a program showing key presses to see and it was a lot of them).

For me the hassle is ...probably? worth what I saved but I'd be cautious if you're just helping him purchase and then not going to be available to troubleshoot at all, and I'd encourage him to buy it from a reputable refurbishing company and return it while still under limited warranty if anything starts to go wrong.
posted by slidell at 12:46 PM on October 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

I've had good luck buying refurbished computers at interconnection.org. They have a shop for low income people at connectall.org, which has good computers for a few hundred dollars.
posted by pknodle at 1:21 PM on October 17, 2023

This video compares two laptops at the $500 price point. There are also some rec lists.

Does this gentleman have access to a flat screen tv? If so, it may be possible use the TV as a second monitor (pending appropriate cables/ computer ports/adapters).

Any chance this person can wait for black friday sales?
posted by oceano at 4:05 PM on October 17, 2023

Response by poster: I didn't manage to find a clear and decisive positive recommendation to offer the person who was seeking advice but he went ahead and made a purchase anyway and I'll help him with whatever it is he got.

Marking resolved, since I no longer need advice on the topic, but still open to suggestions in case the problem comes up again.
posted by Nerd of the North at 3:06 PM on November 16, 2023