Top 5 Best Laptops for Graphic Designing Under $500 (2022)

You are looking for a graphic design laptop and you are on a budget? Don’t worry I got it. Being a content creator and graphic designer myself, I had kickstarted my journey on a slow slugging laptop, which hardly supported my work.

My first laptop too was a budget laptop (under $500), which did quite well for my handling heavy apps including Photoshop, InDesign, and many others.

In other words, I know what a graphic designer would like to have to strive in his/her field from a laptop.

Yes, there is a long discussion on desktop and laptop competition, but in the end, we know that we are is more comfortable with a laptop, due to their portability and compactness.

The graphic design laptops under $500 that I choose for you are the latest models, and for a beginner to average graphic designer work, they would not let you down.

Even for a professional, if not too many heavy video or photo editing apps are not running, they are more than fine.

Keep in mind, that these laptops are budget models, not for heavy 3d modelling, or rendering work. They are good for college students, school students, PA schools, or medical school students.

Best Laptops for Graphic Design Under $500 (2022)

1. Lenovo IdeaPad 3
2. ASUS VivoBook 15
3. Dell Inspiron 15 3000
4. HP 15-dy1036nr
5. Acer Aspire 5 A515-56-50RS

Best Budget Graphic Designing Laptops Under $500 (2022)

If you travel a lot and looking for a slim, sleek, 14-inches go-to laptop for your graphic designing as well as regular home and studying a laptop, g with Lenovo IdeaPad 3 laptop.

It comes powered with a Ryzen 5 Processor, 8GB RAM, and 256GB SSD storage to help you do professional to personal scale computing.

You know that for a graphic designing or content creation laptop, what is the most important feature after CPU? It’s the RAM, and the incumbent laptop I am reviewing comes with 8GB RAM in two RAM slots.

One of the slots is not soldered in the motherboard which means, you can pull it out and installed an 8GB RAM, making it a total of 12GB RAM laptop. It can go up to 20GB, but I don’t think without a dedicated graphics card, you would like to have a 12GB RAM laptop.

Lenovo IdeaPad 3 14-inches comes with a 256GB SSD storage. It is an NVMe SSD storage, which is upgradable, if you have bigger storage to replace 256GB SSD go for it, but have the form factor in mind, this one is 2242, the smallest one.

It comes with a powerful process. Yes, I mean it. It has AMD Ryzen 5 5500U mobile processor with AMD Radeon 7 Graphics. I tried to take it for more competitive and hardcore tasks, and it without getting hot or any noise performed well.

In my view, if you are a light or casual gamer who who who who likes to play games kinds as RuneScape, Sim’s series, Minecraft, and others, it performs you well and serves you well.

And for the tasks in hand, Adobe Photoshop, and many other graphic designing work, it got more power than required, go for it without getting any doubt.

About the display, it checks the box right here too. It has a 14-inches FHD IPS display with nano-bezels to make the display fit in a smaller form factor.

Although I witnessed a tinier pixelation and IPS limit washout at different angles for the price, it is Okay.

It is not as bright as you would expect from a graphic designing laptop, but again, remember we are on a budget. We can’t afford to buy the brightest laptops available on the market.

Lenovo IdeaPad 3 laptop also supports a backlit keyboard. It is one of the best 500 dollars laptops with backlit Keys. Keys support multiple brightness settings, the keys get turned off when you don’t touch the keys for 10-seconds.

My only complaint with the laptop is its Type-C port. The Type-C port does not support video or power, it only supports data transfer. With an HDMI support and a regular USB 2.0 Port addition, it makes a good contender if you have to connect multiple computer peripherals at one time.

Most of the consumers had a complaint about the speakers. For me, I use headphones, so that was not the problem for me, but, yes, its speakers are on the bottom, which makes the sound dimmer than what it could have been if had been on the front.

Bottom Line:

If you ask me, this laptop checks all the boxes right not just for graphic design work but for students, light gamers, video editing, school students, back-to-school or distance learning, and much more than that due to its lightweight and battery backup.

---

If you are interested in buying the latest Windows 11 installed modern laptop, go with ASUS designed laptop. This laptop may cost you more than 500 dollars, at the time of writing this post, this is available on Sale on Amazon.

Well, Windows 11 is not the only positive aspect of this laptop; it has a good array of positive aspects to make itself the top contender as a graphic designing laptop.

For instance, it’s AMD Ryzen 7 5700U processor. It is an 8-core mobile CPU that has earned its name due to its high performance without wasting too much battery. Due to this efficient processor, the laptop can easily last up to 18-hours with a single charge.

For students or digital nomads, who have to carry their laptops along, longer battery runtime is something very much important.

It comes with integrated graphics, but those integrated graphics come with 500 MB of dedicated space to help you skyrocket your visual processing.

So, even if you have to run more than one graphic designing or editing app or software, this can handle them well.

ASUS VivoBook 15 thin laptop shares a 15.6 inches HHD display. Its display is something more than just incredible, the thin bezels around enhance the viewing area.

The laptop shares a stunning 84% of screen-to-body ratio, provide you with an enhanced viewing area, and good real estate to make you enjoy movies, streaming, photo editing, video editing, and even gaming too.

I am impressed that the laptop under this price also shares a backlit keyboard. The keys are not that incredible though, but good to go for the tasks. Keys support adjustable brightness, helping you increase or decrease the brightness as per your needs.

ASUS VivoBook 15 M515 Thin comes with 8GB RAM, but the incredible thing is, it shares two slots, and 8GB RAM occupies just one slot, the other slot is empty to help you upgrade the RAM without sacrificing any memory.

It got two variants, the other one has 16GB RAM if you think you require more than that, go with the 16GB Variant.

Asus VivoBook 15 comes with 256GB SSD storage, and an extra slot to make you easily upgrade the storage if the given one is not enough for you. If you use the laptop for storing photos, videos, and other files, you might have to increase the storage size.

This laptop comes with 4USB Ports. It has one USB 3.2 Type-A, USB 3.2 Type-C port, one USB 2.0, and one HDMI port to make you connect multiple computer peripherals.

The only issue I had with this laptop is its poor webcam. It comes with a 640×480 VGA cam, the poor webcam makes the virtual meetings, zoom meetings, webcamming, or Google Classroom classes miserable.

Bottom Line:

ASUS VivoBook 15 M515 is an incredible laptop for content creation on a budget. It does not have dedicated graphics, but the dedicated 500MB space makes it handle visual processing better.

It comes with many other amazing specs including processor, RAM, storage, ports, keyboards, and above all greatest battery backup.

---

If you are a graphic design student and looking for a cheap laptop that shares minimal weight and footprints, go with Dell-designed Inspiron 15 3000 laptop.

This laptop shares 1-pounds of weight which makes it highly portable to take around. You can call this laptop a cheap ultrabook.

It is not just the weight or compactness that makes this model the top contender on our list. It got everything a graphic designer or a graphic designing student can ask for.

For instance, it comes with a powerful processor, with an 11th Gen Intel core i5-1135G7 processor it can easily tackle most of the tasks a graphic designer has to throw.

It also shares an intel Iris Xe integrated graphics, this latest and modern graphics card designed by Intel makes this laptop good for video editors, photo editors, and even gamers too.

Again, I am not saying it is a good gaming laptop, but it helps you play some light PC games without any turbulence.

Its 15.6 inches FHD IPS display is none short of a treat. The IPS display is good bright, provides you vivid colours, and sharpness to make you edit through images and videos without any issue. The display got tiny bezels around, which to makes the viewing area bigger.

I love its keyboard, although the keyboard does not come with backlighting. But the keyboard is very responsive and provides tactical feedback to help those type a lot providing a hassle-free typing experience. The keyboard has a numeric keypad to help you tackle numeric streams of data.

If you are a bookkeeper, or a business or MBA student who has to handle excel file sheets or other numeric data, the dedicated number pad is no less than a blessing.

Don’t forget that you are going to get 12GB RAM under a $500 laptop. Along with a good-sized RAM, it also has 256GB SSD storage, which too not only adds a quickness to the speed of the laptop but makes your tasks get processed faster.

One more added benefit of having this Dell-designed Inspiron 3000 laptop is its great number of ports. The laptop comes with a 3-in-1 SD Card reader, 2 USB 3.2 Type-A ports, one USB 3.2 Type-C port, one USB 2.0 Port, and one HDMI port.

The only issue with the laptop is its Windows 10 Operating system with S Mode. Don’t get frightened with Windows S mode, you can easily switch it to Windows 10 Home mode, it would not take more than one minute to do that.

Bottom Line:

If you want an all-line one laptop for content creation as well as other things a regular user has to handle, believe me, this laptop checks all the boxes right.

---

If you are a graphic designer professional and looking for a cheap laptop to handle your everyday tasks, believe me, you can’t get wrong with HP-designed 15-inches laptops.

I Find this laptop extremely portable and opens up in just 7-seconds. Yes, you just press the power button, and within 7-8 seconds of turning on the button, it shows you the desktop.

So, if you want speed to go through your everyday computing operation, believe me, this is the best laptop you can buy.

The laptop comes powered by a 10th Generation Intel Core i5-1035G1 processor. It is a quad-core processor, with a base frequency of 1.0 GHz that goes up to 3.6 GHz clock speed. So, as long as the graphic design needs, it falls right on the criterion.

It comes powered with 8GB RAM, the RAM is not upgradable, it comes with soldered memory. For storage, it has 256GB NVMe SSD storage, the storage though is upgradable.

Again, as I mentioned, the storage is very fast, it boots up within 8-seconds, which adds a boost to your copying data and rendering too.

It also comes integrated with a 15.6 inches FHD IPS display. The display is brighter than other 500-dollars laptops, provides a super smooth viewing experience, and makes you look at the images and videos in the right contrast.

With more than 82-percent of the screen-to-body ratio, it provides you with a greater viewing experience.

One more thing, some of the users mentioned that the display is dim or slugging. In my view, they must have gotten the faulty product, as long as my personal experience is concerned, the display is good bright and good enough for a graphic designing work.

The keyboard does not support backlighting. That was the only negative point, an aspect I am disappointed at. The backlit keyboard has become an essential part of even a budget or cheap laptop. Even 200-dollars of Chromebooks would come with a backlit keyboard.

The battery too is not as good as the above-reviewed laptops come with. It lasts around 8-10 hours, and if you use it at peak like for streaming and browsing or handling docs besides, it might not last for more than 6-hours. To get fully charged, it takes around 1 hour and 6-minute.

Bottom Line:

There are very few to not like about this laptop. It makes a great graphic design laptop under a budget price range.

It has the right processor, good-sized RAM and storage, a bright FHD display, a dedicated number pad keyboard, and above all its faster booting and excellent smooth performance.

---

If you are looking for an affordable laptop with the latest and modern hardware configuration, this is the laptop you should get hands-on.

This laptop costs around 500 dollars but integrates many advanced features such as a backlit keyboard and fingerprint reader.

Acer Aspire 5 laptop comes powered with 11th Gen Intel core i5-1135G7 Processor. It is a quad-core processor with a clock speed going up to 4.2 GHz and an 8MB cache.

This processor competes in performance with the high-end laptops, kinds as ASUS Zenbook when we compared its CPU performance with high-end laptops.

The Acer Aspire 5 comes powered with 256GB SSD storage, which makes you get through daily computing tasks or operations without any hiccup.

Not only for everyday tasks but many high-end operations kinds as photo editing, video editing, and much other such application or software.

If you like to store lots of photos on your laptop as well as videos, you can use an extra slot. This laptop also has an extra slot, this slot helps you expand the storage.

Acer Aspire 5 comes with 8GB RAM. The RAM size is upgradable, 8GB RAM comes in two slots, you can remove one slot and expand the total RAM size up to 12, 16, and 20GB.

I liked the display of the laptop, yes, it got a 15.6 inches FHD IPS LED display. With viewing angles so great, and in-plane switching technology integrated, this makes an ideal contender for streaming, viewing, editing, and many other tasks.

I liked its I/O options, it comes with one USB 3.2 Type-C port,2 USB 3.2 Gen A-port, one USB 2.0 Port, one HDMI port, and a combo audio jack. Its I/O options are the most suited for the users, it features both wireless and wired options. You can use your laptop on your couch as well as on your desk.

The most prominent aspect of this laptop includes its keyboard. It got a backlit keyboard; the blue backlighting keys help you type in low light conditions. The laptop has a dedicated number pad, to help those handle numeric data lot.

There are a few drawbacks of this laptop too, its weight is the biggest drawback. With 4.19 pounds of weight, this laptop makes it hard to carry around a machine. Well, I don’t count it as a bulky laptop, but we can’t say it is an ultrabook or a highly portable laptop.

In terms of battery too, the laptop does not give a pace to the other we mentioned. It lasts around 8-hours on one charge, which is good compared to the price of the laptop, still, you can’t compare the battery hours with Lenovo IdeaPad or Asus VivoBook.

Bottom Line:

If you check the price and its modern hardware configuration, it seems like the best deal. You get a plethora of connectivity options, a backlit keyboard, IPS FHD display, fingerprint reader, and an 11th Gen processor with upgradeable RAM and storage, what else do you want from a 500 dollars laptop.

Features to Consider for a graphic design Laptop Under $500:

I am sure you too might have been confused about the specs or hardware configuration you should consider for a graphic designing laptop.

On the other hand, one might tell you the right processor or the type of display best for graphic designing work, but keep in mind, that we are on a budget.

We don’t have 1000 dollars or 1500 dollars to buy a dedicated PC for graphic design.

Let’s have a look at the hardware configuration that best suits a graphic design laptop for a price under $500.

Processor:

For a 500 dollars graphic designing laptop, the processor is the most important part. Because, for the price, we would not be getting a dedicated graphics card, the processor is going to take it all.

Not only for a graphic design laptop but even for a regular laptop for students such as civil engineering students, networking professionals, and electrical engineering students, a processor is the most vital aspect.

But for a 500 dollars price, we can’t expect a core i9 processor. For that, if you want to go with an AMD processor, expect at least Ryzen 7 processor. In our one laptop, you see a Ryzen 7 processor, the best for 500 dollars laptop you can get.

But, if you don’t go with Ryzen series processor because of their heat issues, go with at least a core i5 processor that has a 2.0 GHz clock speed, that’s the least. You can easily get an 11th Gen core i5 quad-core processor for this price.

RAM:

For me, even for a 500 dollars Graphic designing or content creation laptop, I can’t go with less than 8GB RAM. That’s why I tried to add only that laptop that had 8GB RAM at least with upgradability features.

So, the laptops we reviewed of them have 8GB RAM, and one laptop shares 12GB RAM too, with an extra slot to help you expand the RAM.

The reason for picking only an 8GB RAM laptop is that, for graphic designing, sometimes you might have to open more than just one software or application.

You know that graphic designing and content creation apps are heavy, with 4GB RAM, you will suffer not only in performance but sometimes gets freezing or slugging speed issues.

So, don’t settle for a laptop for graphic designing lesser than 8GB RAM.

Storage:

Well, storage is important in a way that you don’t pick an HDD or traditional storage for a graphic designing laptop. SSD storage has become the norm these days even cheaper Chromebooks, or 2000 dollars, 300 dollars laptops are coming with SSD storage.

For us, in graphic design, SSD storage is important in a way that, you have to edit images, and videos for your work.

And to even run the apps or software the SSD storage adds a swiftness or quickness to your laptop, leave aside copying and pasting the data.

As long as the size of an SSD is concerned for our budget, for 500 dollars we can easily get a 256GB SSD storage. And also look for an extra slot, that slot helps you expand the storage when you got money and require more storage.

Resolution:

Content creators though most like to go with a desktop or a desktop replacement laptop. But portability is the biggest issue for desktops, that’s why most of the content creators pick 17-inches laptops.

But, if you have a portability issue or travel a laptop, there are 13-inches laptops with good hardware configuration to help you go through your tasks.

As long as the resolution is concerned, the more is always better. The more resolution your laptop has, that means, more pixels it has, and finder or rich-in details images or videos will be presented on the screens.

Content creators though always prefer 4K resolution, but for a 500 dollars laptop, you can’t expect a UHD display or a 4K display, the max you can get is an FHD display.

Keep in mind, for graphic designing work, don’t settle for less than an FHD display, don’t go with an HD 720 display.

Graphics Card:

If You had asked me to recommend an ideal laptop for graphic designing, I would have made the graphics card the most essential part of it.

But the problem here is, we don’t have the budget for that.

We are looking for a graphic design laptop under $500, so for the budget, we can’t get a dedicated graphics laptop for the price.

So, look for a good CPU with an integrated graphics card. If it is an 11th Gen processor, you get an Intel Iris Xe graphics card with that, which is pretty amazing and easily helps you go through regular graphic designing operations.

Frequently Asked Questions: (FAQs For Graphics Design Laptops Under $500)

What is the best Laptop for Photo and Video editing for Under $500?

If we had the budget, we would have recommended you a laptop with dedicated graphics. But, as we are on a budget, in my view, ASUS VivoBook or Lenovo IdeaPad 3 are the best options to get hands-on.

These laptops are good enough to help you go through your regular graphic designing such as photo editing or video editing tasks.

If you are a professional dealing with professional video editing, go with a laptop that could easily handle High-res video editing. In our one guide, we also recommended you 1000 dollars for video editing laptops.

What is the best laptop for digital Artists?

Digital Artists prefer buying 2 in 1 laptops. Convertible laptops allow them to use a digital pen which helps them draw on the screen and use it for many other tasks.

Furthermore, a convertible laptop is great for students as well, they help them take notes on the screen while taking online classes, or Google classrooms classes.

Final Thoughts:

In this long guide, we scrubbed through dozens of pages to find the most suitable budget laptops for graphic designing.

These laptops are not only great for photo or video editing but a regular laptop for students, as well as professionals.