BUDGET
Save your money: a cheap laptop doesn’t need to look or run like a slug
Acer Swift 1
from £300 / stuff.tv/Swift1
If you want an affordable laptop but don’t want to be whacked over the head by its cheapness whenever you fire the thing up, get an Acer Swift 1. It has three things you don’t often see in laptops this affordable, and they all count.
The first is display quality. Sure, it won’t challenge a MacBook but you get a Full HD 14in IPS panel that’s 35% brighter than some other low-end models. This matters a lot if you want to use it anywhere other than indoors at home.
Secondly, it’s not the chunky laptop you might imagine when spending this little: at just 15mm thick and roughly 1.3kg, its portable cred is as solid as laptops three times the price.