Processor: We recommend an 11th- or 12th-generation Intel Core i3 or Core i5 processor or a 5000- or 6000-series AMD Ryzen 3 or Ryzen 5 processor.

You could buy a laptop with a hard drive and replace the drive with an SSD later to save some money, but that’s more upgrading than most people feel comfortable doing, so we concentrated on models that came with flash storage. But avoid Windows laptops with less than 64 GB of flash storage-you can’t even run Windows updates on them without an external drive.

In our testing, we found that having flash storage (ideally an SSD, but an eMMC drive is also fast enough) instead of a traditional hard drive dramatically improved everyday performance, even more than a faster processor or more memory.

Storage: Some cheap Windows laptops still have spinning hard drives or hybrid drives that feel unbearably slow-booting the laptop, launching apps, and browsing files each take so long that you have time to sip coffee and stretch before you can do anything.

This laptop is by far the best value I’ve seen in nearly a decade of testing laptops if you need a Windows laptop and can spend just a little more than $500, this is the one to get. As an added bonus, the Inspiron 14 (5410) has a reliable fingerprint reader built into the power button. Its 14-inch 1920×1080 display is the best of the models we tested this year, as is its comfortable backlit keyboard and sturdy build quality. (We haven’t tested the Core i5 model, but aside from the processor, it’s identical to the Core i3 model we tested.) The Inspiron 14 (5410) is compact and light, and the Core i3 model we tested had above-average battery life of about 8.5 hours in our tests we expect the Core i5 model’s battery life to be a bit shorter but not by too much.

But as of this writing, the version with a Core i5-11300H processor, 8 GB of memory, and a 512 GB solid-state drive is still available for $550, which is unbeatable performance for that price.

It was going to be our top pick, but unfortunately Dell discontinued the sub-$500 model with an i3 processor. The Dell Inspiron 14 (5410) is a surprisingly great laptop. If you can spend just a little more than $500…

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