laptop under 500?

DerBear

Honorable
Sep 27, 2013
19
0
10,560
I'm starting collage soon and need a laptop and have a 500$ budget. This laptop must include word or.leave room in my budget to purchase it. My main purpose is school work and basic internet. And also if possible be able to record music on it as well. My budget is a little flexible but would like to try.and stay under 500
 
Solution
Unfortunately, you are not going to get MS Office (which will have Word) in a $500 laptop unless it is used. The reason is because MS Office is typically around a $120 - $150 option.

The student edition of MS Office can be purchased for around $140, but you should be able to get a better deal than that through your school. You can purchase a 4 year license for the student version of Microsoft Office 365 for only $80...
You can get a cheap license for MS Office from your school, check with them, it really is not much for a student license. Or for free you can use LibreOffice or OpenOffice.

The Lenovo G series is a good budget non-gaming system, I would not go with the cheapest Celeron models, although good for basic use, you'll find them a bit slow in many things.

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/g-series/ You can select something based on how large you want the thing to be, if you carry it around a lot or not.
 
Generally, I'd go for an Acer. They're cheap and fairly reliable with internal specs that a bang for the value! I got one for college after my Macbook Pro, it was only $600 and it's had no problems for me thus far.

Get this (http://www.amazon.com/Acer-E1-572-6870-Processor-Windows-Clarinet/dp/B00DDFESKC/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1405011067&sr=8-4&keywords=acer+laptops).

It has an i5 Intel Processor and for the most, the reviwers love it! :)
 
Unfortunately, you are not going to get MS Office (which will have Word) in a $500 laptop unless it is used. The reason is because MS Office is typically around a $120 - $150 option.

The student edition of MS Office can be purchased for around $140, but you should be able to get a better deal than that through your school. You can purchase a 4 year license for the student version of Microsoft Office 365 for only $80.

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Office-365-University/productID.275549300?tid=sSWJT70cZ_dc&cid=5250&pcrid=38279873813&pkw=microsoft%20office%20student&pmt=e&WT.srch=1&WT.mc_id=pointitsem_Microsoft+US_google_5+-+Office+15+Suites&WT.term=microsoft%20office%20student&WT.campaign=5+-+Office+15+Suites&WT.content=SWJT70cZ&WT.source=google&WT.medium=cpc


As suggested above, you can opt for OpenOffice which is a free office suite similar to MS Office. That way your full $500 budget can be devoted to the laptop.

The following is a link to the Lenovo G50-70 with a Core i3-4030u 1.9GHz CPU selling for $470 @ Amazon; $19 cheaper than buying it from Lenovo. I suppose it can record music (do you mean music production?), but that is something I don't do.

http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-15-6-Inch-Laptop-59421807-Black/dp/B00K6ZIFAQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1405024387&sr=8-2&keywords=lenovo+g50-30

I can say that you should be able to play non-graphically demanding games with it. I tested Star Trek Online with my Core i5-4200u running at 1.7GHz (I disabled Turbo Boost) and using the integrated Intel HD 4400. Pretty decent performance @ 1366x768 resolution. You should also have no problems running Minecraft if that is something you are into.
 
Solution