Best budget laptops from Apple, Microsoft and Acer

You don't need to overspend to get a capable laptop, and that includes both Windows models and Apple MacBooks. It's possible to find a decent laptop for less than $750; although you may need to comparison shop and exercise some patience while you wait for a sale. And that’s where we can help.

WHAT Apple MacBook Air M1

THE COST $649

AVAILABLE FROM walmart.com

The M1 MacBook Air a great pick for students and other budget shoppers looking for a speedy and stylish do-it-all laptop. It's thin, light and built like a tank. It has a slightly smaller display than the current M4 Air and offers only two Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports, but for most people that's enough. And even though it's been surpassed by newer generations, the original M1 Air is still powerful enough for general use and a great buy at its discounted price.

WHAT Microsoft Surface Laptop 7

THE COST $999.99

AVAILABLE FROM microsoft.com

The Surface Laptop 7 boasts a polished design and class-leading battery life. Our test model ran for nearly 20 hours on a single charge, and you can expect a similar runtime from the entry-level unit. The Surface Laptop 7 reverses earlier Arm-on-Windows efforts that were plagued by lackluster performance and limited compatibility, with many x86 apps unable to run on an Arm-based system. This time around, performance has improved, and so has compatibility.

People who love the look and long runtime of the MacBook Air but want a Windows laptop should consider this machine. And if you scale back the specs, you can get it for roughly the same price as the M4 Air.

WHAT Acer Aspire 14 AI

THE COST $879.99

AVAILABLE FROM acer.com

This recent release from Acer's budget Aspire line is based on an Intel Lunar Lake CPU. Its Intel Core Ultra 5 226V features a neural processing unit (NPU) capable of 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS) for local AI processing, which happens to be the minimum requirement for Microsoft's Copilot Plus PC platform.

Its performance and battery life exceed what you can expect for the price, and the design is nearly the same as you get with Acer's more expensive Swift models. You're forced to sacrifice display quality in order to hit such a low price, but that's an item that's usually not very high on a budget shopper's priority list. More important is getting a modern CPU that delivers sufficient performance for everyday use that's also efficient to allow for lengthy battery life — plus a bit of future-proofing with its AI capabilities.