Gaming is an ever-evolving entertainment genre. In today’s fast-paced, busy lifestyle, PC gaming can be an escape from reality for a little while to calm your mind. That’s why the OEMs focused on the portability of the device you can game on in the past decade. With technological advancement and the help of the mobile version of bulky desktop graphics cards, gaming is becoming more and more accessible to all. Even Intel’s integrated Iris graphics cards can handle many AAA titles nowadays. Because of the improvement of processing power and raw graphics performance in small devices, a new genre of Laptops has emerged and gained popularity.
A well-configured gaming laptop can perform toe-to-toe with a desktop gaming setup. Unfortunately, a gaming laptop of that caliber can cost thousands of dollars. And most of us couldn’t afford such systems. If you are a student, you are even on a tighter budget. So in this article, we bring you the best 14 inch gaming laptop under 500$.
A perfectly balanced compact gaming laptop has several good traits. It provides decent gaming performance without compromising much on portability and the look of the laptop. Finding the right balance between portability, aesthetics, and performance is the key here, and it’s never really easy to find all these three traits in a single laptop. That’s why we have considered a few aspects while choosing the products in this catalog while bringing you the best 14 inch gaming laptop under 500$.
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Handpicked the best 14 inch gaming laptop under 500$.
Gone are the days when gaming laptops were considered to be bulky and heavy and a hassle to carry around. With the latest technology from Intel, AMD, and Nvidia, a 500$ 14 inch laptop too can run most AAA titles in low to medium settings. Sure the visuals won’t be that great compared to the expensive counterparts, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be fun. And with a tight budget of 500$, we have to compromise a little here and there.
Here are the key things we’ve considered while picking these products-
- A decent 14-inch display – Someone may miss the wide monitors, but a 14-inch screen is enough for decent gaming with good performance.
- A good processor – processor should handle at least medium-end games and should consistently give good performance for long hours.
- dedicated graphics card, if possible – Dedicated graphics card is the cherry on top for a $500 laptop. We tried our best to find laptops with dedicated graphics cards for under $500.
- Minimum 8 GB of RAM – The laptop must have at least 8 GB of RAM and be expandable up to more size.
- Fast m.2 Name SSD – Solid State Drives make things even faster and boost gaming performance. We selected SSD laptops only.
Here is a list of 5 products that fit our criteria-
1] ASUS VivoBook S14 S433
Asus VivoBook s14 is a perfect laptop under 500$ for working professionals and students, which can handle most AAA games in low to medium settings. It’s a sleek, stylish laptop with an excellent 14-inch IPS display with full HD resolution and narrow bezels. Features a decent i5 11th gen processor and a 512GB SSD. The integrated Intel iris XE graphics card handles graphic-heavy games like RDR2 at 30 fps with low settings. It also has good battery life. It’s an excellent balanced laptop for College students and working professionals who like casual gaming from time to time.
Key Specifications:
| Processor: | Intel Core i5-1135G7 CPU |
| GPU: | Integrated Intel Iris XE Graphics |
| RAM: | 8GB DDR4 SDRAM |
| Storage: | 512GB SSD |
| Display: | 14-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) |
| Dimensions: | 12.76 x 0.63 x 8.39 inches |
| Weight: | 3.09 lbs |
| Connectivity: | 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C2x USB 2.0 Type-A 1x HDMI 1.4 1x 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack 1x Headphone out Three in1 card reader SD/MMC/MS Micro SD card reader |
Pro and Cons of ASUS VivoBook S14 S433
| Pros | Cons |
| Excellent Display | No dedicated Graphics card |
| Fingerprint sensor | |
| 8 GB of RAM, expandable up to 16 GB | |
| Thunderbolt 3 USB C port |
2] ASUS Zenbook 14 Q407
The second product in our list is an attractive package with a current price of 549$ on amazon. It’s a little over 500$, but the laptop price gets as low as 400$ frequently on warehouse deals. This 14-inch laptop features an excellent corner-to-corner IPS Full HD NanoEdge display with a 92% screen-to-body ratio which offers an above avg industry standard 300 nits brightness. It’s one of the smallest 14-inch laptops in the world and also one of the lightest, with only 2.5 lbs of weight.
It also handles a lot of games pretty well, thanks to the dedicated NVIDIA® GeForce® MX350
2GB GDDR5 VRAM graphics card, it handles most AAA games with low to medium settings with ease. The processing power comes from an equally excellent Ryzen 5 4500U processor with speeds up to 3.8 GHz. The laptop offers up to 10 hours of battery life with a 50wh battery.
Key Specification:
| Processor: | AMD Ryzen 5 4500U |
| GPU: | NVIDIA® GeForce® MX350 (2GB GDDR5 VRAM) |
| RAM: | 8GB 4266MHz LPDDR4X |
| Storage: | 256 GB PCIe® x2 SSD |
| Display: | 14 inch FHD (1920 x 1080) |
| Dimensions: | 12.6 inches ×0.72 inches×7.83 inches |
| Weight: | 3.09 lbs |
| Connectivity: | 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C™ (up to 10Gbps) 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A (up to 10Gbps) 1 x USB 2.0 1 x Standard HDMI 1 x MicroSD card reader 1 x Audio combo jack 1 x DC-in |
| Battery | 50Wh 3-cell lithium-polymer battery |
Pros and Cons of ASUS Zenbook 14 Q407
| Pros | Cons |
| Excellent Display | No Fingerprint scanner |
| Dedicated Graphics card | Only 256GB of storage |
| Decent port selection | |
| 8 GB of RAM, expandable up to 16 GB | |
| Thunderbolt 3 USB C port |
3] Acer Swift 3 SF314-42-R7LH
Regarding budget category laptops, Acer is one such brand name that provides the most value for your bucks, and that is the case with the best 14 inch gaming laptop under 500$ as well. The Swift series of laptops is known for its elegance and balanced performance. The Acer Swift 3 comes with the best processor in our list of the best 14 inch gaming laptop under 500$, and it’s a hexacore version of the Ryzen 5 4500U. AMD Radeon Graphics handles graphical power, and some version of the laptop comes with an Nvidia GeForce mx330 graphics card, both of which handles most AAA games with low to medium settings.
Apart from providing excellent value, the best thing about this laptop is it’s stylish and one of the very lightweight laptops with only 2.65 lb. It comes with an above avg full HD IPS panel and provides excellent 11 hours of battery life. A brand new Swift 3 will cost you a little over 500$ at 549$, but the used ones on amazon are pretty cheap at 400$.
Key Specifications:
| Processor: | AMD Ryzen 5 4500U Hexa Core |
| GPU: | NVIDIA® GeForce® MX330 (2GB GDDR5 VRAM) or AMD Radeon Graphics card |
| RAM: | 8GB 4266MHz LPDDR4X |
| Storage: | 256 GB PCIe® x2 SSD |
| Display: | 14 inch FHD (1920 x 1080) |
| Dimensions: | 12.73 inches ×0.71 inches×8.62 inches |
| Weight: | 2.65 lb |
| Connectivity: | 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C 1 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A 1 x USB 2.0 1 x Standard HDMI 1 x MicroSD card reader 1 x Audio combo jack 1 x DC-in |
Pros and Cons of Acer Swift 3 SF314-42-R7LH
| Pros | Cons |
| Excellent Display | Only 256GB of storage for the base model. |
| Decent port selection | |
| 8 GB of RAM, expandable up to 16 GB | |
| 3.2 Gen 2 Ports (USB Type-C) | |
| Fingerprint scanner | |
4] Lenovo Ideapad 3
The 4th product on our list is from Lenovo. Lenovo is a giant when it comes to laptops, and it offers one of the best banks for your bucks when it comes to budget laptops. The 14 inch Lenovo IdeaPad 3 is also not an exception regarding great value. It’s one of the latest models available at 494$ on amazon. The laptop comes with an 11th gen core i5 processor. Graphics duty is handled by an above avg Intel Iris X Graphics card, which handles a lot of AAA titles barring a few latest ones.
Key Specification:
| Processor: | Intel Core i5-1135G7 (4C / 8T, 2.4 / 4.2GHz, 8MB) |
| GPU: | Intel Iris X |
| RAM: | 8GB 4266MHz LPDDR4X |
| Storage: | 512 GB SSD |
| Display: | 14″ FHD (1920×1080) TN 250nits Anti-glare, 45% NTSC |
| Dimensions: | 12.76 x 8.49 x 0.78 inches |
| Weight: | 3.1 lbs |
| Connectivity: | 1x USB 2.0 1x USB 3.2 Gen 1 1x USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 (support data transfer only) 1x HDMI 1.4b 1x Card reader 1x Headphone/microphone combo jack (3.5mm) 1x Power connector |
| Battery | 50Wh 3-cell lithium-polymer battery |
Pros and Cons of Lenovo Ideapad 3
| Pros | Cons |
| Excellent Display | No fingerprint scanner |
| Dedicated Graphics card | No backlit keyboard |
| Decent port selection | |
| 8 GB of RAM, expandable up to 16 GB | |
| 3.2 Gen 1 Ports (USB Type-C) |
Final Words:
These are the four laptops we could manage to find in our list of the best 14 inch gaming laptop under 500$. Finding a compact all-in-one laptop is always a challenge regarding budget laptops. Still, the one we’ve suggested provides great value with excellent gaming performance for the price. You can find dedicated gaming laptops for under 600 dollars if you can manage with slightly bigger and heavier laptops, but if you. But when it comes to portability and compactness, there are always some compromises you have to make because of hardware limitations.
Even if manufacturers include a powerful GPU in a compact body, the laptop wouldn’t be able to sustain performance for a longer duration. The amount of heat a powerful GPU will produce requires an excellent thermal system to cool down, which is not the case for compact laptops. There isn’t much space for multiple fans or heatsinks. Eventually, the performance will dip due to excess heat, and the laptop will start throttling. We would suggest using a cooling pad if you can while gaming on such compact laptops and keeping the graphics settings low for a smoother experience.