The Best Laptops for Under £700 — Our Top 3 for 2026

Specs: a laptop under £700 means compromising on something — but don't compromise on 8GB of RAM

Honestly, if you're aiming for under £700 these days, compromising on some spec or other is unavoidable. Prices have gone up across the board recently, so laptops under £700 are a genuinely tough ask to begin with.

Of all the specs, the one to prioritise is RAM. Go for at least 8GB. Modern operating systems eat through memory these days, so 8GB really is the bare minimum you need.

The really cut-price laptops tend to come with 4GB. Whatever you do, steer well clear of 4GB models. With 4GB, things genuinely judder and stutter to the point of being unusable. Get at least 8GB, no exceptions.

By the way, if you happen to spot a 16GB model for under £700, that's a proper find. It's practically buried treasure, and it could turn out to be a genuinely excellent machine✨.

The CPU will likely be an Intel Celeron, Core 3, or Ryzen 3 — that's just something you'll have to accept.

And I'll be straight with you: at this price point, you'll have to put up with a bit of lag and stutter here and there. If you're only browsing the web or using it a few times a month, low specs are fine, but if you want more than that, you need to be prepared. So being honest with yourself about how you'll actually use it is the number one tip for not regretting your purchase at this price.

Budget laptops tend to use plastic to cut costs, but honestly, that's not really something to worry about.

Usability: don't jump at a cheap price and end up with a used or refurbished model

Another important tip is don't casually reach for a used or refurbished laptop. I completely understand wanting to save money, but this is something I want to shout from the rooftops. With a used laptop, you often get:

• A battery that's degraded and runs flat quickly
• A worn keyboard that's uncomfortable to type on
• A CPU that's several generations old, or just 4GB of RAM

Search on Amazon and you'll find plenty of used and refurbished listings. And sure, the price alone looks tempting😂. But more often than not, they come mixed in with "landmines" like a degraded battery, a worn keyboard, an old CPU, or 4GB of RAM.

And if you're looking for a laptop under £700, chances are you're just starting out with laptops. Honestly, judging the condition of a used machine yourself is genuinely difficult. It's something even I'm careful about, and I've handled loads of these things, so I think it's risky for a beginner to jump at one purely because it's cheap.

Fortunately, there are actually quite a few new laptops going for under £700 these days. So there's no need to take the risk with a used one. For the same budget, going with a new laptop whose condition you actually know gives you far more peace of mind in the long run.

And there's nothing quite as deflating as a used laptop with a shiny, worn keyboard. You won't get that with a new one.

Price: if you can, stretch your budget just a bit further, up to £800

Last up, a bit of honesty. Truthfully, under £700 is a pretty tough ask. That's exactly why, if you possibly can, I'd love for you to stretch your budget up to around £800 — that's my genuine advice😉.

That's because that small gap between £700 and £800 makes a real difference to what you can choose from. The specs that were full of compromises under £700 suddenly reach a genuinely decent level once you can stretch to £800. How snappy it feels, how little it stresses you out day to day — that all shifts noticeably at this point.

You don't replace a laptop all that often, do you? It's basically a tool you'll be living with for years. Which is exactly why you want it running smoothly the whole time you own it. If adding just a little more at the start makes the next few years noticeably more comfortable, I'd call that a cheap investment.

Trim back a bit elsewhere and stretching to around £800 is surprisingly achievable. Adding just a little more to your budget — that's the shortest route to a laptop you won't regret. That said, I'll still go on to introduce the laptops under £700 that I can genuinely recommend👍