Budget laptops tend to go in and out of stock frequently. We've broken out our current favorites in this guide, and while we update it continually, there's a good chance that at least one of our picks is back-ordered at any given time. But if you're on a strict budget, don't lose heart. You can find PCs offering enough performance to tackle your day-to-day tasks without a hitch. You can even score big deals on mainstream systems with our favorite money-saving tips for laptop buying.

For further in-depth breakdowns of our budget picks, look at our roundups of the best laptops for college students, the best laptops for kids, and the best Chromebooks. And for more general factors to consider when choosing a laptop, look at our buying guide with our top laptop picks overall.

Chromebooks used to be little more than glorified netbooks running Google's ChromeOS. While these ChromeOS-based laptops are still resolutely web-centric, they now have fuller feature sets. Modern Chromebooks include faster CPUs and more RAM, addressing the sluggishness that saddled early models. Better build quality and improvements to displays and batteries have put Chromebooks on more of an even footing with Windows competitors, and new features like offline and Android app support have addressed most of the longstanding limitations related to performance, software compatibility, and usability away from an internet connection.

If you spend most of your working hours in the cloud, a Chromebook will offer much of the functionality of a regular Windows or Mac laptop, and depending on the model, it may well deliver longer battery life.

It will also likely cost you less than most other types of notebooks, as many Chromebooks come in at less than $500. Just be sure you have easy access to stable Wi-Fi wherever you use one, as Chromebooks have limited offline functionality and scant local storage. However, Chromebooks have leveled up over the last two years, and most now commonly include Intel Core and AMD Ryzen processors, as well as increased storage and memory as part of Google's Chromebook Plus program. Chromebook Plus models—which start at $399—must meet a set of minimum specs that Google deems are the baseline for a "premium" experience. If you can spend that much, we recommend one of the Plus models.