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How to buy an affordable laptop in 7 easy steps by Jeff Dunn on Jan 29, 2017, 1:19 PM  Buying a laptop on a budget is hard. There are endless options, hardly any of them are ever advertised, and they flood you with technical details that aren't easy to understand.
If you’ve only got, say, $450-600 to spend, you’re walking into the tech equivalent of a minefield. Sometimes, though, you have no choice. So to help you ensure nothing blows up, we’ve put together a few quick pointers to walk you through this delicate process. SEE ALSO: The 11 best laptops of 2016 STEP 1: Don't do it if you don't have to.  I know, I know. Still, just to make it perfectly clear: A laptop is worth investing in. You're going to use it to do important things, and you're going to put it under stress, both internally and externally. Unfortunately, the only way to ensure it handles its responsibilities well is to pay up. You can’t even buy a new MacBook, for instance, without spending at least $1,299. So if you can afford something good, buy something good. When it’s still serving you well years down the road, the upfront cost should be worth it.
STEP 2: Consider a Chromebook.  If you’re absolutely sure you have to stick to a budget, though, the next question you have to ask yourself is, “What will I use this thing for?” If you want to run Photoshop, Excel, or certain modern games (poorly), you can head to step three. If you’re mostly in this for web browsing and basic entertainment like streaming Netflix, you might be best off with a Chromebook. At their best, these Google-run machines are faster, better-built, and cheaper than their affordable Windows counterparts. Now, that’s mostly because their operating system, Chrome OS, is still largely a stretched-out version of the Google Chrome browser. In other words, they mostly stick to the things you’d do over the web. This lowers production costs. For lots of people, that’s enough — Facebook, email, and word processing are all totally doable in Chrome. From now on, though, all future Chromebooks (plus several existing ones) will also have the ability to run thousands of Android apps. That won’t be a seamless transition, but it’ll fill in at least some of Chrome OS' gaps, like photo editing, gaming, and getting things done offline.
To take advantage of Android apps, though, you'll want a Chromebook with a touchscreen. Not many good cheap models have that right now, but that's set to change very soon.  The best of the bunch right now is Dell’s Chromebook 13, but that goes for a relatively pricey $430. A handful of others support the Play Store right now; of those, the Acer Chromebook R11 is the most reasonable choice, but its 11-inch screen is likely too small for most. Google is kicking off the Android-on-Chrome-OS trend in earnest with a pair of upcoming Samsung Chromebooks, but at this very moment, the best thing to do is wait and see if anyone really nails it. If you can forego a touchscreen, though, the Acer Chromebook 13 is a decent alternative. Either way, with Chromebooks, try to find something with 802.11ac WiFi, at least 4GB of RAM, and a newish Intel processor. A "Celeron" chip usually hits the sweet spot — a higher-end "Intel Core" chip is great but usually overkill, while a Rockchip or ARM processor is often too weak. Also, if you’re really just web browsing, you may be fine with a tablet, though it's worth noting that tablets are very different devices.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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