Best Laptops Under £600 In The UK 2022: Reviews + Buying Guide

Laptops are an essential tool for a lot of people these days, whether they be students or former office workers now working remotely, but they are also quite expensive. However, there are some cheaper, but still very good laptop options out there if you know where to look.

In this article, we are aiming to help those of you who don’t have the time to shop around for a good laptop by going over some of the best laptops that are available at budget prices.

In particular, we are going to be focusing on finding the best laptop under £600 in the UK. If you want to skip our review list, the option that we recommend is the ASUS VivoBook S 15.

A Spotlight On Some of The Best Laptops Under £600 In The UK 2022:

 

ASUS VivoBook S 15

For the first review on our best laptop under £600 in the UK we wanted to really focus on a high-quality machine that gives you a good idea of the quality that you can expect from the laptops appearing on this list.

We really wanted to show you that there are good options available at a budget price and that not all budget friendly laptops are bad.

ASUS is a fairly prolific brand as far as laptops go (although they probably aren’t the most famous that we will be looking at), so there is a pretty decent chance that you might have heard of them before, and you might have even used one of their products before.

To begin, we want to tell you that this laptop is no slouch in the power department. A big part of why the ASUS is able to perform at such a high level is because of its beefy intel i-5 processor.

For a laptop, that is a very strong processor, and it enables you to do medium to high-end tasks on your laptop with no slowdown whatsoever. Adding onto that, the ASUS VivoBook S 15 is also equipped with an impressive amount of ram (16 GB).

This combination of a high amount of ram and a good processor enables the ASUS to do a pretty wide variety of things. Not only can it be used quite easily for work related duties, but it can also function as a general entertainment laptop for things like playing games, watching movies, and more.

As we said before, the only real “issue” (if you can call it one) is that this laptop sits directly on the price threshold of £600 that we have set for this article.

The quality of the laptop for the price is amazing, but we can also understand that for some of you, going over your budget may be a nonstarter (if that’s the case, don’t worry as we will be reviewing cheaper options).

ASUS W202 HD Laptop

So far on our best laptops under £600 in the UK list we have reviewed a couple of high-end options, but for this next review, we want to review a much more affordable laptop that we imagine is going to really appeal to those of you who came to our review list looking for an extremely inexpensive option.

Whether you are looking for a starting option or just something to use for casual browsing, the ASUS W202 HD Laptop is designed to suit your needs.

Given how much of a big deal we made about the cost of this ASUS W202 HD Laptop, it is only natural that we start off by talking about that. We have reviewed and will review some pretty affordable laptops as part of this list, but it is hard to imagine any of them managing to give the ASUS W202 a run for its money when it comes to affordability.

With a price tag in the £150 range, this is one of the best options for anyone looking for something budget friendly, this includes students, people who just want something for occasional use, and more. The fact that this laptop is also equipped with a bunch of features that make it easier to use (such as a beginner friendly keyboard) also make it a great option for more casual use.

Obviously, given that this is a more casual option and also quite a cheap one, it isn’t exactly a high-performance option. Don’t take this the wrong way as this laptop has the ability to do most of what you would expect a laptop to be able to do.

You can watch movies, browse Facebook, type documents, etc. But it is quite a basic unit overall so don’t expect it to be able to do much more than the basics.

Lenovo IdeaPad 1i Laptop

In this next review, we want to take a look at a laptop that is extremely affordable, even by the already very high bar set by the rest of the laptops on this list.

The Lenovo IdeaPad 1i Laptop is probably the ideal option for someone who wants a cheap, but still quite effective and reliable work laptop. With a price of about £150, this is definitely a budget laptop, and it is easily one of the least expensive options that you are going to find on the market.

What is most impressive about this laptop is the relatively reliable and stable performance that you get out of it for that price.

This is equipped with a reliable intel processor and a decent onboard graphics card, both of which are more than enough for basically any work-related task as well as basic entertainment (such as streaming movies).

Just in general, this is a laptop that is well-designed and really meant for office use, whether that office be a regular one or at the at-home office.

It is very thin, so it takes up minimal space on your desk. It is designed to cool itself without the use of a noisy internal fan; this may sound like a minor feature, but it can end up being extremely useful in smaller workspaces.

Sadly, the Lenovo does begin to reveal that it is a budget friendly laptop when it comes to ram. With only 4GB of ram, this is a very low-end laptop in that regard (with 8GB being the standard and recommended amount).

Now, depending on what you are planning on using the laptop for, this might not be a big deal. Things like light web surfing, online calling (Zoom for example) and watching movies, and other basic stuff can be done fine. Where the laptop might struggle is when it comes to heavy-duty applications like any sort of streaming, playing games, etc.

GeoFlex 340 Convertible Laptop

Next up on this best laptops under £600 in the UK list we want to review a fairly unique laptop. As many of you are probably aware, many people have opted for tablets instead of laptops because they find them to be more convenient.

At the same time, tablets have nowhere near the functionality of laptops, and they certainly aren’t very good for business use. Thankfully, there is a solution, and it involves blending the two. That is where the GeoFlex 340 Convertible Laptop comes into play.

The unique and interesting thing about this laptop is that it manages to combine the functionality of the laptop with the comfort of using a tablet.

The way that the GeoFlex 340 blends both laptops and tablets is by being very flexible (hence the name). It can act as both a regular laptop, but it can also be folded into something that looks exactly like a tablet.

You use the regular laptop mode for doing traditional work like typing, then you simply fold the laptop and use it like a tablet for when you want to watch a movie or surf on your couch. It is also quite small and compact, meaning that you could take this to work, use it there, then easily take it home and use it for entertainment. It is certainly quite a versatile product.

While the flexibility of the GeoFlex is certainly very nice and having the ability to turn it into a tablet is great, all of this does require some sacrifices on the part of the manufacturer.

To be more specific, the screen on this laptop had to be shortened quite a bit. As a result, it has a smaller screen than is standard for this type of laptop. The screen ends up being a sort of a hybrid between a laptop and a tablet in terms of size.

HP 15s-fq2016sa Laptop

For the final review on our list, we wanted to go back to reviewing really high-end laptops that are also remarkably cheap, at least given the quality of the product (much like we did with the first laptop that we reviewed).

Also, much like with that first review, we are going to be reviewing a laptop from a fairly reputable and well-known brand in the form of HP. We hardly need to introduce this brand so we can jump straight into reviewing their HP 15s-fq2016sa Laptop.

Much like the other powerful laptop that we reviewed, the HP Laptop is equipped with an extremely powerful processor for a budget laptop, which is the intel i-5 processor.

We have already covered before why this is such a good processor to find on a cheap laptop and so we will move on to some more unique features of this computer. For example, while the laptop has an integrated graphics card, it is quite a good one when compared to most integrated graphics cards out there, and you shouldn’t notice much of a difference when compared to units with actual graphics cards.

There are two main issues with the HP 15s-fq2016sa Laptop that we need to discuss. The first is the fact that this only comes with about 8GB of DDR4 ram. While that isn’t a bad amount on its own, given that we have reviewed a similarly priced laptop with double that amount of ram, it is a bit disappointing.

The second thing is something that we already mentioned, which is that this is another laptop that, much like the first one that we reviewed, is basically sitting at the price threshold that we have set for this article (indeed with things like taxes and shipping it may go over it). As we have said before, it isn’t too big of a deal because the quality of the laptop ends up being tremendously high.

Best Laptops Under £600 In The UK: The Buying Guide

Despite everyone using computers these days, it is more than fair to say that most people don’t really understand how they work. However, we firmly believe that knowing a bit about laptops is key to finding one that is both affordable and also good enough to use consistently.

With this in mind, we wanted to do this guide so that we could talk a bit more about laptops and what to look for without also reviewing individual products. This guide will be purely informational.

Video Cards

 

One of the first things that we want to start off with is video cards. Something that you might not be aware of is the fact that a lot of the cost involved in buying a laptop has to do with the video card in the laptop. The reason for this is that video cards are one of the currently most expensive computer components out there.

As a result, any laptop that has a video card in it is going to be expensive. The thing is though, most people don’t really need video cards in their laptops as they are only important for things like gaming and other video-heavy applications.

Most people can get by with the onboard graphics component of their processor. So, step one for saving a lot of money when buying a laptop is to avoid any option with a name brand graphics card.

Processing Power

 

The next big thing that we want to address is processing power. This essentially determines how fast your computer loads things, opens up websites, etc. Evaluating processors can be tricky, especially if you don’t know anything about computers. Generally speaking, the more that you plan to do with the laptop, the stronger of a processor that you want.

It can be tricky to tell with some brands whether you are getting a good processor or not as it is always isn’t clear. With some brands, such as intel, it is a bit easier as there is a clear number that indicates what generation processor you are getting.

While there are a lot of good processor brands out there, we would personally recommend intel. They tend to be both reliable and easy to find. Likewise, they are quite a prolific brand so it isn’t uncommon to find intel i-5 processor equipped laptops for cheap (an i-5 is more than enough for a laptop).

Operating System

 

Something that a lot of people will overlook when buying laptops, especially less expensive ones, is what operating systems it is equipped with. Operating systems are extremely important as many programs and websites may only work with a certain type of operating system.

The current most common operating system is Windows 10 and you should never buy anything that has something less than Windows 10 installed. We should also note that Windows 11 was recently released, so if you see a laptop that is either equipped with that system or that offers a free upgrade to that system down the line, jump on it right away.

Portability

 

While laptops are always more portable than full desktop computers, not all laptops are built alike in this regard. Some laptops are definitely a lot more portable than others. If you are planning to travel a lot with your laptop, then you not only want one that is thin, but you will also want some carrying accessories.

Also, remember that when it comes to laptops, it is thickness not length that determines how heavy it is. A wide laptop that also happens to be thin is still going to be much easier to carry than a short, stocky laptop.

Conclusion

 

If you still have any left over questions that we couldn’t answer in our best laptops under £600 in the UK article, we would say to use our comment section to get them answered.