The 10 best laptops under £1,000 of 2025, our feature-packed picks

Many of us may have a tablet like an iPad nowadays, but there's still great reasons to set your sights on the best laptops under £1000. As with many budget laptops, they often have larger screens, longer battery life and faster components than tablets – not to mention proper keyboards. We think there's no better option for those daily computing tasks and working on the move. And let's not forget – the right laptop should be fun as well as practical; suitable for browsing, messaging, entertainment and more.

So, what does £1,000 or less buy you? Well, you might be surprised at how much speed, storage and computing power your hard-earned cash can muster when you choose a laptop under 1000 pounds sterling. The benefits of not spending more than you have to is more than just about having money left over for extras like a laptop bag. Often the only features that a cheaper laptop lacks compared with one costing twice the price are the unnecessary ones. After all, if you're just looking to get some work done you probably won't need cutting edge Dolby Atmos sound or a 4K screen.

So, consider your needs carefully – you might need to keep things light and simple, or you may want a larger high-quality screen for watching films or editing photos. If your working day only needs a digital sidekick, you might want to look at a budget tablet, but if you want the flexibility to run normal Windows software (rather than the more limited apps that tablets run), a laptop with a good amount of RAM and storage is the only way to go. And let's not forget battery life and portability if you're out and about.

Our expert's choices of the best laptops under £1,000 are below. And if you're wondering what jargon like 'SSD' and 'RAM' means, don’t let that put you off. We’ve put together a handy guide for this too; as well as our answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about laptops under £1,000.

How we chose the best laptops under £1,000

We selected the best laptops under £1000 based on reliable and trusted brands, average user reviews, price, and suitability for each use case. We look carefully at the technical specifications of all products before we recommend them to ensure that they will meet buyers' needs without the need for costly additions to work as intended. With all of our selections for the best laptops under £1000, we look for a good balance of price with display quality, storage space, memory, audio features, build quality and overall design. We also look for good connectivity options and portability. Our writers also choose products based on hands-on experience where we own or have reviewed them ourselves – find out more about how we test products for Yours. Retailers are selected based on price, availability and reputation as reliable and trusted sellers.

Please note: All prices are correct at the time of writing. Prices, stock and deals are subject to change without notice.

Best laptops under £1,000 in 2025

Expert's choice: Best laptops under £1,000 of 2025

With so many to choose from in our run-down of recommended laptops, it was difficult to pick a clear winner. However, we've chosen the ASUS Vivobook 15 OLED X1505VA for its amazing OLED screen, excellent build quality and high specification. A close second is the Apple 2024 MacBook Air 13-inch Laptop, which, apart from being a rarity in terms of Apple affordability, has both a compact and lightweight design paired with possibly the best battery life we've seen from such a capable machine.

How to choose the right laptop under £1,000 for you

When you're deciding on the right laptop for you, it's important to consider all of the features and components. Every choice you make here will have an impact on how well you laptop will perform. The more high-end performance you think you'll need in one area – for instance, more RAM for sheer number-crunching power, or a massive storage drive for all of your files and projects – the closer to the £1000 mark you will be. Likewise, skimp too much on the important components and you might find yourself failing to achieve your computing goals as the laptop struggles to keep up.

What to look for in a laptop under £1,000

Don't worry about all of the laptop jargon, once you start looking at laptop specifications it will all come in handy. And remember: Just because you're not spending thousands on a new laptop that doesn't mean that you can't get a great laptop with more than enough power for all of your needs. The only people who really need a super-high spec are creative professionals or gamers. So, here's our run-down of the main areas to look out for:

RAM – your laptop's memory

RAM (which stands for Random Access Memory) is the laptop's capacity for running current tasks. It works alongside the processor to get things done. So, the higher the RAM, the more complex tasks you can do at once without the machine getting sluggish. It's measured in gigabytes (GB).

4GB: Now the most common specification in entry-level laptops and notebooks. It's a good amount of RAM for daily computer use, word processing, watching internet videos, and general browsing.

8GB: If your budget allows, 8GB is probably the ideal amount of RAM for a daily-use laptop. It's good for everyday tasks but can also stretch to more intensive work – like photo editing or basic video editing.

16GB: This is ideal for professionals and those who need several intensive applications open at once. Best suited to programmers or coders, designers or video editors.

32GB upwards: This amount of RAM is really only found in high-end laptops. It can handle pretty much anything you can throw at it.

GPU – Graphics Processing Unit

A typical budget laptop under £1,000 always comes with a GPU (also generally known as a graphics card) to send graphics to the screen. This includes everything on your display, including videos and graphics. But, sometimes the GPU is integrated inside the CPU to save money and this is less powerful than a dedicated GPU. The higher the graphics specification, the better the laptop will be at displaying any entertainment smoothly and at higher levels of detail.

So, more advanced users should always go for a graphics card that isn't integrated with the CPU. Just look out for terms like 'integrated GPU' or a CPU specification that clearly includes a graphics processor ('Integrated Intel graphics', eg).

Guide to screen resolution

Most laptops will be able to display Full HD (otherwise known as 1080p) nowadays, with higher resolutions for those who prefer their entertainment media at a high level of detail. A rule of thumb with screen resolution is the higher the better. Here are the most commonly found number of pixels for each resolution:

HD: 1280 × 720 pixels

Full HD: 1920 ×1080 pixels

Quad HD: 2560 x 1440 pixels

Ultra HD/4K: 3840 × 2160 pixels (this is ideal for movie and entertainment fans as well as photo and video editors)

Hard drive – your storage space

So, you've bought one of the best laptops under £1,000. It has a fast CPU, a ton of RAM and a graphics card that'll deliver the goods. But what about storage? After all, there's no point in having all of that power at your command without enough storage space on your drive for all of your applications.

The more storage the better, but you have two main types of drive to choose from Hard Disk Drives (HDD), and Solid State Drives (SSD).

HDDs are basically spinning discs. The technology is well-proven, reliable and most importantly affordable. They are also available in very high capacities, meaning you could have a laptop with up to 5TB (terabytes) or more. We recommend HDDs with 2TB or more for a laptop under £1,000.

SSDs are chips rather than spinning discs, so they don’t have moving parts (hence ‘Solid State’). They're blisteringly fast compared to HDDs. They also work silently. However, this comes at a price as they're more expensive than a traditional HDD. What you lose budget-wise you gain in speed. Your operating system will boot faster and your applications will run faster too.

CPU – Central Processing Unit

There's no point in having a lot of RAM if your CPU – the chip that will do all of the actual work – isn't fast enough to use it. We've made sure that our recommended models have CPUs with well-matched RAM.

Why should you trust us?

At Yours, our mission is to provide accurate and reliable reviews, ensuring our readers receive honest and transparent information about the best technology products available. Anything less would undermine our commitment to being a trusted source of unbiased product information.

Our dedicated in-house writing team comprises experts with extensive experience and a genuine passion for technology. Collectively, we have spent decades testing and writing about tech, leveraging our expertise in all our articles, advice pieces and reviews. You can find out more about how Yours test products here.

We maintain complete editorial independence and do not accept payment for product reviews. Our writers have full control over their content, ensuring that products are selected based solely on the needs of our readers. While we may earn commissions or other compensation from links on our website, this never affects our product choices. These links enable us to continue offering valuable consumer advice, without compromising the integrity of our reviews.

Chris Duffill is a Senior Tech Writer and Reviewer for Yours, Closer, Heat and other brands. He has written extensively as a tech expert for What's The Best. His background includes writing, editorial, marketing, design, video production and photography.

He specialises in home entertainment and audiovisual tech, including speakers, amplifiers, turntables, projectors and TVs. He is also one of our resident experts in computing (PCs, tablets, smartphones and more) and professional creative tech – including DSLR cameras, video cameras, PC peripherals and photography. He also writes about retro gaming, game consoles and various electronic gadgets. If it plugs in, lights up or makes a noise, he'll write about it.