9+ Best Lightweight Laptop Under $500 | Ultimate Guide & Reviews 2021

They call it portable for a reason. If you are looking for a laptop that lives up to its surname to work on the move, moving it from one place to another with the least possible effort, you have come to the right article.

In this ultrabook buying guide, you will find a selection of the best lightweight laptops under 500 USD to work wherever you are and a series of criteria to make your choice right.

Best Lightweight Laptop Under 500 USD

More than anything because you are going to find the best options to consider when buying a laptop to work with. You will see models from renowned firms such as Lenovo or Apple so that you have the guarantee that their operation will be optimal.

When choosing a laptop with these characteristics, a number of factors must be taken into account. For starters, the most obvious has to do with your weight. A heavy laptop will be of little use to use outside the home.

It does not matter if you go by car, the process of having to move the computer will not be pleasant, especially if you have to carry it at some point or other, so it is better to bet on a light model and whose weight does not exceed two kilograms. In this way, you will not have any problem to move it how you prefer.

You will see much lighter models, but since we wanted to make a varied selection, you may be interested in a particular computer even if it weighs a little more. And this is where the other most important element comes in: the technical specifications. It is not the same to need a computer because you work as a salesperson and you have to use Excel tables or show your catalog to potential clients than a user who wants a laptop for photographic editing.

Obviously, the characteristics that each model requires are totally different, so you should go looking at the specifications to choose the one that best suits your needs. The size of the screen is also very important.

Of course, the diagonal will influence the weight, as it increases the size of the laptop. So you should take this characteristic into account when choosing the model that best suits your needs.

Best Lightweight Laptop Under $ 500 | Comparison Table 2021

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Best Lightweight Laptop Under 500 Dollars | 2021 Reviews

How to choose a Best Lightweight Laptop Under $ 500 | Ultimate Guide 2021

The key: design and autonomy

Ultrabooks are designed to work on the move, which implies two commitments: that they are light so that they can be moved with the least possible effort and that they offer such autonomy that they allow us to use them for at least one day.

After all, beyond the “comfort” of the office or our home, we do not know if we will have a plug nearby. A plus that never hurts in this scenario of use is fast charging.

Both commitments are somewhat antagonistic since great autonomy is achieved thanks to a large capacity battery … and those batteries tend to be heavy.

To combat this handicap, design and materials have a lot to say: diagonals that move around 13 inches with some pleasant surprises as a result of the good use of their dimensions, minimum thicknesses, chassis of materials such as magnesium or aluminum to minimize the weight, lines that seek to optimize the available space, minimalism in the offer of ports to continue filing millimeters (watch out for this!) …

Apart from the fact that this shortage of ports and the more well-contained diagonals can irremediably affect its functionality and comfort, ultrabooks have another B-side inherent to their mobile vocation: it is more exposed to possible shocks. In this sense, the material that makes up the chassis, in addition to being light, must be robust and resistant.

Everything else

From here, we have to look under the hood in search of sufficient and balanced hardware considering what we are going to use them for.

In general, its vocation is professional, but under that umbrella are hidden uses as diverse as general office automation or even for heavy programs such as photo and video editing. Below we offer you in a clear and concise way which configuration is the minimum to achieve a good experience in those scenarios.

• I want it for office automation, internet, and content viewing: bet on tenth or eleventh generation Intel Core processors, or fourth-generation AMD Ryzen or the very modern Ryzen 5000 Mobile from AMD U family, both for performance and consumption. The 8 GB of RAM is a very common and solvent figure in this usage scenario. As for storage, SSDs are required at this point and for these uses the 256GB may be enough.

• Gaming: It is rare to see ultrabooks playing games, but there are notable exceptions. The key to playing is the dedicated graphics card, which at least has to be able to move titles to 1080p with the highest image quality and with an average cadence of at least 60 fps. Looking at the titles of the future, it is best to go to the GeForce RTX 3000 family, but models like the 4GB GTX 1650 from NVIDIA or the RX 570 or RX 580 from AMD are a good starting point. Regarding processors, the recommendation is to go for Core i5 or Core i7 of the 9th or 10th generation of Intel or the AMD Ryzen 5 or 7 of the 3rd or 4th generation. The minimum in RAM is 16GB of DDR4 type and has a frequency of 2,666 MHz. Regarding storage, it is essential that it has at least one SSD and, if it is the only unit, that it be at least 512GB to save OS, games, and software.
• If we want it for video and photo editing, in practice the benefits are similar to those of gaming with some nuances. The first thing is to go for models with a dedicated graphics card compatible with the software you are going to use, such as the NVIDIA Quadro or GeForce GTX, AMD FirePro, or Radeon GPU families with at least 4 GB of memory. The more RAM the better and you will also need speed and storage space for specific software and your files. In this sense, you can optimize the performance and cost combo with equipment that combines HDD with SSD units with NVMe M.2 interface. Finally, do not neglect the supply of ports, because it will be common for you to resort to peripherals such as external monitors, hard drives, digitizing tablets.