If you were searching for a new gaming laptop under $600 a few years ago, people would’ve made fun of you because there’s no way you could run new-gen games on hardware that costs less than $600. However, times have changed since, and advancement in the field of chip manufacturing, and the overall costs of processors and other related hardware coming down, has given rise to new segments that didn’t exist before. Nowadays, you can get a good laptop for less than $500 to care for your basic needs.

Best Laptops Under $600 (Our Best Picks)

You can go even lower and cop a Chromebook, which can handle everything a student or a regular user throws in its direction. But you’re not here for a Chromebook, and you’re neither an average person, you’re a gamer, and not just any game, a gamer on a budget, a $600 budget, to be precise.

We will be honest with you, under $600, you shouldn’t expect games like the Demon Souls remake or even Elden Ring to run smoothly, heck, even run at all, because the hardware can’t handle new gen AAA titles. But don’t be disappointed because there are many games you can still play on these laptops.

Games like Fortnite, Valorant, GTA 5, and Minecraft run as smoothly as butter on these. And if you get bored, you can always go back in time and play games that were released in the past.

So in this article, we bring the most comprehensive list of the best budget gaming laptops under $600!

Minimum Specifications For Affordable $600 Gaming Laptops

We know you’re on a tight budget, and we’re here to help you, so make sure you bookmark our post. It will help you when you start shortlisting your Laptops. Speaking of shortlisting, here is a minimum spec requirement you should follow because anything less than this is not worth $600

• Processor: Core i3 – Core i5
• RAM: 8GB
• Storage: 256GB (You might not always get SSD)
• Display: 13.5-inch HD
• Graphics: Intel UHD
• Battery: 5 hours+.

Best Budget Gaming Laptops Under $600

That said, here are the most affordable gaming laptops under $600 in 2022 to buy today.

1. Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3 – Best Overall

If you’ve been on other sites or videos, you might’ve seen this coming because it’s such a great pick. The Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3 is considered, by many, to be the best gaming laptop in this range. Having personally used it, I only have good things to say about it!

Although it goes over the $600 mark, every penny extra spent on this laptop is worth it.

You’d be lucky to find a good processor in this price bracket, let alone a Graphics Card. Still, the Ideapad comes with a solid AMD Processor (AMD Ryzen 5) and a GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card. This is enough for light gaming; with such hardware, you can run AAA titles on low to medium settings!

Also, the laptop has an ergonomically sound design and looks pretty good. It’s sturdy and doesn’t heat much, which we rarely see in gaming laptops.

As mentioned earlier, you can easily game on this laptop so that the regular day-to-day tasks will run smoothly; you can open multiple chrome tabs and face no lag. Plus, you’re getting a 256 GB SSD, which is insane at this price point.

2. Acer Nitro 5 – Best for gaming

The Acer Nitro comes in close 2nd place to the Ideapad gaming 3. But if I’m being honest, you can go for either option and won’t feel bad about it because that’s how good both are.

The Acer Nitro 5 comes jam-packed with an intel 15-9300H Processor, GeForce GTX 1650 Graphics, and 8GB of dedicated GDDR5 VRAM. 

With the out-of-the-box specification of this laptop, you can easily play games like Fortnite, Valorant, and even Battlefield. But then again, it is a budget laptop, so games that demand heavy hardware won’t be able to run at max settings, but the game should be playable. If you aren’t a graphics nerd, then this is the perfect deal for you!

The Laptop looks great as well, the backlit keyboard adds to the sharp, futuristic aesthetic of the laptop, and the laptop chassis is well-made; it shows a gaming laptop, and you’ll feel it’s a gaming laptop because it is on the heavier side.

3. Acer Aspire 5 Slim Laptop – The most affordable

This design of a laptop from Acer might not look like it’s for gaming, but don’t let that fool you because it is fully equipped with hardware that’ll allow you to play your games without any issues.

It launched with an AMD Ryzen 5 3500U Quad-Core processor, along with 8 GB of DDR4 RAM. This is the standard in this price point, and the Acer does pull up to the standard and even does better in some aspects. The Laptop is well-optimized and uses the hardware to its full capability!

The laptop uses AMD Radeon Vega 8 Mobile graphics. It has an excellent 1920×1080 resolution display that will give you a great gaming experience!

The laptop also shines in the storage, as it comes with a 256GB SSD, which is more than enough for your daily task and is fast. You won’t feel like you’re running out of space anytime soon, nor will your files take too long to open.

The Laptop gives you good gaming performance; as mentioned in the article earlier, you can’t expect to play every game on the highest settings. Still, games like GTA 5 and Valorant run smoothly.

The regular daily to-day tasks that a student or work professional may have run smoothly on the laptop. You can open up multiple chrome tabs, and you won’t face any drops in performance!

4. HP 15 – Editor Pick 1

The HP 15 came out this year and had been crushing. The Laptop has very competitive specs, and it has double the RAM than any Laptop in this blog post, so you will get that extra frame rate when gaming.

The HP 15 comes with an AMD Ryzen 5 5500u Processor, which is more than capable of handling your day-to-day tasks, like coding, watching youtube, sending mail, etc. It also performs excellent when gaming; as said earlier; the Ryzen 5 55oou can handle games like Valorant, Rocket League, League of legends, etc., and AAA titles, but you’ll have to compromise on the graphics when doing that.

The battery life is decent for when you’re not gaming, but when you start gaming, the battery will be drained quickly. But this is the case with most gaming laptops; you have to plug and play.

The laptop features a 15.6-inch FHD display, a standard on this list. Most manufacturers try to give you the best hardware possible without worrying about the laptop’s screen. So you can’t expect pretty looking screen on this one or any laptop here. They won’t have the same quality that mobile phones nowadays have.

The biggest drawback of this laptop is the missing ethernet port. This might be a deal breaker for many because most gamers want a wired connection, especially when playing a competitive match online. You can always use an adapter, but in the end, the choice is yours.

5. MSI GF63 – Editor Pick 2

The MSI GF63 looks like a gaming laptop; the design and the colors used in the laptop chassis are the best in the price segment. MSI surely knows how to please the gamers out there as they’ve given a matt black chassis, which every gamer likes.

The LED backlit keyboard looks fantastic on the laptop, so the Laptop scored a 10/10 in the looks department. But can it run games? And the answer to that question is a big Yes; the MSI GF63 was designed and built keeping gamers in mind, so it comes stacked with hardware that’ll allow you to play most of the games right now!

With an Intel i5 8300H CPU, you can expect nothing less than a smooth experience. The laptop also has an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 GPU, which, combined with the processor, will give you excellent performance.

And if you’re ready to loosen up your wallet a little more, you can go for the higher-spec version of this same laptop; if you add $300 extra, you’ll get the performance with a GTX 1050Ti which is way more powerful than the one you have in this one.

The display also is not very good; many have called it ‘dim’ or  ‘dull,’ but that’s what you get in a gaming laptop. Also, the battery life isn’t the best compared to the other laptops on this list.

But again, you’re looking for a casual gaming experience at this price point, so you’ll have to cut some corners. But overall, for this laptop’s price range, it’s a great deal.

6. Lenovo Ideapad 5i – Best for lite gamers

The Lenovo Ideapad already won the number 1 spot on this list. Still, the series is so good that it made no sense to leave this machine out just because it already had a member.

The Ideapad 5i lives up to the name and delivers great performance at a lower price point.

The newest version of the laptop comes loaded with an 11th-generation intel i5 11300H, which is good (it’s better than the i7 10710u). With 8GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce MX450 Graphics, and a whopping 512GB SSD, which is the most in this list, this laptop is a heavy hitter.

As with every laptop on this list, the battery life won’t be good either, but it makes up for it by giving you decent performance when plugged in. The laptop chassis is well-built and has the best display on this list.

It also comes with the latest Windows 11, which not all new laptops have in 2022.

So if you’re someone who plays games casually and only the lower-end titles, and wants a better display for a great viewing experience, then this is the laptop that should be in your shopping cart right now!