As laptops get nicer and nicer, the upper end for what you can end up paying for one has all but disappeared. That’s why it helps to put a maximum dollar rate that you are willing to spend before setting out and finding your laptop. If, like many people, that number for you is $1,000, then this guide is for you.
A $1,000 upper limit for a laptop is reasonable and will still allow you to get a laptop for gaming, a MacBook, and even a top-tier 2-in-1 laptop. You aren’t being so restrictive on yourself at this level that you can’t get what you want, but also have a clear number in mind so that incremental upgrades (expanded HD storage, more memory, etc.) don’t creep up on you and start to ruin your day.
Still, though, the question remains: What are the best laptops under $1,000 and will one of them suit my needs? Here, we’ve investigated current pricings of some of our favorite laptops of the past year and, from them, selected five under $1,000 that will suit a wide variety of tastes.
Choosing the best laptop under $1,000 ultimately depends on your wants and needs. While the Dell XPS 13 will be the best for a generalist, someone wanting to go ultra cheap might want the Lenovo Chromebook. Apple adherents, meanwhile, are going to be stoked about finding the 2023 edition of the MacBook Air for under $1,000. Ultimately, though, try to play the field a bit and compare the different laptops somewhat before pulling the “buy” trigger, as something might surprise you in how much it appeals to you.
Digital Trends is not made from one entity, but rather a large group of people. Some members of this collective spend days and/or weeks with a laptop, stress testing it and looking for any flaws or defects while also enjoying its many goodies. Then, they spend hours and hours more writing up those experiences, creating a fantastic review. Others compare tons of products within one category, agonizingly picking out the best for each need and desire the typical customer might have, which results in a wonderful buying guide. These laptops were selected by reviewing products in our many reviews, buying guides, and other parts of the site and then filtering them by price.
We’ve always been quite enamored with the XPS line, which always finds itself within the best Dell laptops for any given year. It’s a fundamentally sound laptop with a quality chassis and, as our Dell XPS 13 review will quickly remind you, is a good Windows competitor to Apple’s MacBook Air. This laptop is generally considered an all-rounder that will appeal to anybody but the hardcore gamer that won’t ever be satisfied with a 60Hz refresh rate.
One thing that we like about the Dell XPS 13 (and buying a laptop from Dell, in general) is all of the customizations and upgrades available upon checkout. The specs, listed above, are just one configuration available that satisfies our $1,000 limitation. With current pricing, you could probably upgrade one or possibly two stats (think getting better memory, storage, or even a great graphics card) without going over budget. However, it can be a slippery slope, with many appealing updates that get your final cost over the $1,000 mark. Be prudent, choosing upgrades like memory or graphics card adjustments over storage, which you might be able to offload to the cloud.
No matter the admiration for XPS, the top slot of the best laptops list is owned by Apple’s MacBook Air with the M2 chip. While those outside the Apple ecosystem might be nervous around it, if you’re an Apple fan a great MacBook at this price should be a thing to rejoice over.
Our M2 MacBook Air review touches heavily on how impressive the combination of top-of-the-line components and a thin body is on the M2 MacBook Air. For a laptop under half-an-inch thick, it provides an excellent keyboard and a battery life that (under the right circumstances) can touch the 21 hour mark. The only downside for those trying to keep your laptop under $1,000 is how hard it is to upgrade the RAM from 8GB to 16GB; doing so also requires a screen size upgrade and, as a result, several hundred dollars of price inflation.
If you’ve been torn between getting a laptop and one of the best tablets, you should strongly consider getting something that emphasizes the best of both worlds. You can do this by getting one of the best 2-in-1 laptops, such as the Microsoft Surface Pro 9. Unlike a lot of 2-in-1 laptops, which pull off a sort of contortionist act to fold their keyboard section behind the screen, the Microsoft Surface Pro 9’s keyboard fully detaches, giving you a complete table experience whenever you desire. Unfortunately, it detaches so much that it is sold separately, but this does give you a chance to acquire both products separately, at a bargain price for each. Our Microsoft Surface Pro 9 review emphasizes the high quality of touchscreen design and premium quality of the tablet, but equally emphasizes that this is not a traditional laptop and you should only go for this offering if you really want a 2-in-1.
Gaming laptops are expensive. So much so that our guide to the best gaming laptops contains a “cheap” and a “budget” option and only this one, the Dell G15, is below the $1,000 mark as of today. And that’s exactly what this laptop is made for, to game on, but for less than $1,000. Every version of this highly-customizable laptop refreshes at 120Hz, the seeming minimum for serious action gamers these days, and can go even higher with upgrades.
At the time of this writing, however, many of the upgrades are a “package deal” so to speak. Raising the graphics card also requires more memory. Want more storage? You’ll need to similarly upgrade the graphics card (and, therefore, the memory). The good news? Any of these upgrades tap the price just over $1,000, but no more than $1,100 (at least at the time of this writing). For such a perfect, affordable gaming laptop, it is hard to be too much of a price purist in this case.
When we think of Chromebooks, we often think of paired-down machines that are useful for browsing, YouTube and Netflix, and not much else. It’s a hard stereotype to shake, but the best Chromebook — the HP Dragonfly Pro — tosses a lot of our preconceived notions aside. Containing more power than you might think of as Chromebook typical at 16GB of RAM, you can do a lot with this machine. Our HP Dragonfly Pro review also praises the minimalist look of its keyboard and ultra-thin top and bottom display bezels. Features like live support (in the form of a chat conversation) come free for the first year, and are handy as you get adjusted to using a Chromebook if you haven’t before.
The main issue for the bargain hunter with the HP Dragonfly Pro is its MSRP, it’s sold for $999 at the time of this writing. This will pop over the $1,000 threshold if you have to pay sales tax in your area.
This article is managed and created separately from the Digital Trends Editorial team.
Andrew has been writing professionally for more than 20 years and has been writing about tech for three of them. His focus at Digital Trends is on deals writing and covering the year’s major sales events. His work in the tech realm also includes contributions to Sporting News, Pocket-lint, and Android Police. In his spare time Andrew enjoys skateboarding, road tripping, and moonlighting as a fiction writer and independent filmmaker.
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