The 5 best notebooks between 600 and 1200 euros to buy: buying guide

Which notebook do I buy with a budget of between 600 and 1200 euros? The advice for the purchase are among the questions you ask us most often among the comments on the reviews of laptops and it is also for this reason that we have decided to create a series of guides that will help you in choosing the solution that best suits your needs. It is a content that will come updated quarterly and which will be joined by two other product selections, one relating to low-end notebooks up to € 600 and the other from € 1200 to € 2000; all then converging in a generic guide. In short, whatever your budget, here on HDblog you will always find our tips for buying.

Before starting, however, we must make a quick introduction. The prices of the products you find here fluctuate, in excess and in defect, in an unpredictable way and therefore it may be that the moment you are reading the figures do not match. Do not despair, the offers return cyclically and the prices drop according to the availability of the products. These, moreover, are our recommendations that also serve to give you an idea of ​​what type of product it can be convenient to buy at that moment at that given price; if you find very similar solutions at the same price, it will probably be an equally valid notebook.

Announced earlier this year Matebook D14 represents the cheapest proposal of the Huawei lineup but, as we have already seen with the model of last year and reaffirmed inside of our review, let's talk about a solution that is still able to guarantee a excellent relationship between quality, price and performance. It is currently available at a price of 649 euros but I think that in a few months we will often see it under 600 euros and therefore it may soon leave this selection to sit among the cheapest products.

Let's talk about a notebook equipped with a 14-inch display diagonal, with FullHD resolution and matte finish that allows to better contain the reflections when we observe it in the presence of important light sources. I liked the construction very much; the body is entirely in metal and the assembly is excellent. The keyboard also has good sized keycaps and offers enviable ergonomics. Sufficient the provision of ports that includes two standard USB, a Type-C, an HDMI and the audio jack.

One is hidden inside the body CPU AMD Ryzen 5 3500U together with 8 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage on NVMe PCIe SSD. Do not miss the reader for fingerprint recognition integrated in the power button that allows you to securely access Windwos via Windows Hello. A notebook that adapts to many types of use and that manages to combine an affordable price and a definitely good overall quality.

SIMILAR ALTERNATIVE: ACER SWIFT 3

We go up a little price to get to the 899 euros for the Acer Aspire 5. Few frills and a lot, a lot of substance that translates into an absolutely enviable technical data sheet in this price range. Its strong point is certainly the hardware available which is balanced by a construction not exactly at the top. The shell is plastic and the panel behind the display is not the most rigid. But if you don't want to spend too much and you have to maximize performance in this notebook, you won't be disappointed.

Inside Aspire 3 we find a processor Latest generation Intel Core i7, to be precise, an i7 10510U, quad-core characterized by excellent performance. To support him there is no shortage 8 GB of DDR4 RAM and a 1TB NVMe SSD; everything is further enhanced by the presence of a discrete graphics card. It's about NVIDIA GeForce MX230, far more powerful than the graphics normally integrated in Intel chipsets.

The panel is a 15.6-inch FullHD with a matte finish and the provision of ports is discreet. In fact, we have 3 USBs available, including a 2.0 and two 3.0, the audio jack, an HDMI and the ethernet connector. You notice the lack of a USB Type C that, given the spread of the standard, it would certainly have been convenient.

SIMILAR ALTERNATIVE: ASUS VIVOBOOK S15

Another 100 euros precise and you get exactly 999.99 euros, exactly the price of the Lenovo Yoga C740, that I recently reviewed and that convinced me in several respects; so much to present it again in this guide. Its peculiarity is obviously that of being a convertible with a display that rotates 360 degrees on itself and allows you to take advantage of the touch panel as if you were using a tablet. In the package there is also a pressure sensitive nib thanks to which you can draw and write. A perfect product, therefore, for students who need to take notes on handouts or underline documents.

Inside this Yoga C740 we find a Intel Core i5 10210U processor, quad-core, flanked by 8 GB of RAM and a very fast 512 GB SSD. Unfortunately we do not have a dedicated graphics card and not even one of Intel's new Iris Plus that guarantee superior performance compared to the UUHD Graphics that we have here. Still remains a absolutely sufficient hardware to perform all common tasks.

I would have liked some more expansion ports such as an HDMI and a memory card reader, even if only microSD. The equipment is in fact limited to two standard USB and two Type C. Excellent keyboard, as per Lenovo tradition and very solid construction. The shell is made entirely of aluminum and the hinges are beautifully resistant. Overall, it is also a compact notebook, thanks above all to the 14-inch display with optimized frames and a thickness of just over 1.5 cm.

SIMILAR ALTERNATIVE: HP ENVY X360

From a compact product to a very compact one, the smallest and lightest of our selection. Let's talk aboutAsus ZenBook UX333; a notebook that points to maximum comfort on the move without renouncing some hardware solutions which are however able to guarantee a performance level able to satisfy many users. The design is refined and despite the reduced thickness and the weight of only 1.09 kg we are faced with an incredibly solid notebook.

As I said, despite the size, good components are not given up. There CPU is an Intel Core i7 8565U, no longer very recent but still able to have its say. In addition to this we have 8GB of RAM and a 256GB NVMe SSD. But the feature that differentiates this ultra-portable from other similar solutions is the presence of an NVIDIA MX 150 GPU, very rare in 13-inch products.

The panel is a IPS with anti-glare finish and in the upper frame we have the webcam and infrared sensors that allow you to access Windows through face recognition. Attention only to the very compact keyboard; if you have big hands, maybe it's better to prefer something else. The adoption of the NumberPad, basically the touch numeric keypad inserted inside the trackpad.

SIMILAR ALTERNATIVE: LENOVO YOGA S740

And we close our notebook quintet with l'HP Pavillon 14; the most expensive of the solutions proposed so far but also the one with the most powerful hardware. Let's also say that it is another product that maybe will not have a super attractive design but that does not hold back when you have to show your muscles. The lines are those of a classic notebook but do not give up on a fairly thin aluminum body and a weight of just over a pound and a half.

But let's get to the highlight, which is the engine of this laptop. Inside the body beats one 10th generation Intel Core i7 CPU, precisely an i7 1065G7 with 4 cores and 8 threads, accompanied by 16 GB of DDR4 RAM and from a 1TB NVMe SSD. Could a discrete GPU be missing? Obviously not. So here's NVIDIA GeForce MX 250, the most powerful solution before the GTX and RTX models that we find in solutions from Gaming or for Creators.

The display measures 14 inches diagonal it is of the IPS type and is coated with an anti-reflective finish. Few compromises also regarding the provision of ports, which includes two standard USB, a Type C, audio jack, HDMI, an ethernet port, connector for proprietary charging and a SD card reader, increasingly difficult to find even on higher-end solutions.

SIMILAR ALTERNATIVE: ACER ASPIRE 5