With dozens of brands each releasing dozens of laptop models each year, how do you determine which laptops are the best to buy? There is no easy way and a very fine line between getting great value for money and paying well over the odds. One of the best ways is no doubt to spend hours reading genuine customer reviews, and the best platform for that is Amazon.com – America’s largest online retailer.
To save you the leg work we have identified the top rated laptops across numerous price ranges to suit your specific budget, this page looks at the top rated laptops under $1000 at time of writing.
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Apple MacBook Pro MC700LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop
First up with have one of the cheapest MacBooks on the market, the ultraportable MacBook Pro MC700LL/A. This superb little mac has an average customer rating of an almost perfect five stars out of five across well over 100 customer reviews on Amazon. They say that once you Mac you never go back, and there is no doubt that this affordable Apple system has converted a lot of former PC users. You always seem to get a little less for your money with Apple however, and as a result all of us involved in this website are avid PC’s!
For a small laptop the processor is great, it’s a 2.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, but if you aren’t one of those people who have to buy an Apple Mac you can find an Acer with a more recent Intel Core i7-2630QM Quad-Core Processor in the article Top Rated Laptops Under $900! That powerful processor is complimented by a great Intel HD Graphics 3000 graphics card, and this Mac will handle most graphically demanding games as well as movies, all of the stuff that you will generally expect a Mac to handle. Apple Mac screens are made from uninterrupted glass and as a result are perfect for viewing images.
A 5400RPM 320 GB SATA hard drive will be sufficient storage space for most, but yet again you get a lot more for your money when buying a PC, whilst the 4GB of RAM is typical for this price range and in this particular model can be upgraded to a mammoth 8GB if you ever find that necessary. As an ultraportable laptop the MC700LL/A is a decent option, but it is hardly a powerhouse and you aren’t going to find yourself a platform for advanced creativity unless you up your budget to $1500 when buying a Mac. We love them, but we just don’t think it is worth the transition to PC to Mac unless you have a big budget.
Awesome features include an integrated HD webcam and stereo speakers with subwoofer. The consumer obviously concludes that this is a great laptop for the money, and if you must insist on finding a Mac with a $1000 budget then this is your baby, but we remain pretty convinced that those who don’t mind to PC will be won over by the incredible HP Envy which is about to be featured. For more information on the MacBook Pro, and to buy at the best online price, head over to the Amazon product listing.
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HP Envy 14-1260SE Beats Edition Notebook
And this beautiful system, the HP Envy 14-1260SE, emphasizes just why we wouldn’t go Mac with a $1000 budget. This laptop has a usual retail price of $1312.00 yet is currently available for $999.99 with free shipping on everybody’s favorite online store Amazon. The Apple above as an i7 processor, this has an older Intel i5 processor, however the Intel Core i5-480M Processor used in this HP goes right to the top of the range (2.66GHz with Turbo Boost Technology up to 2.93 GHz).
Every other component is simply far superior, for example it comes with 6GB of RAM (which can be extended to 8GB), a mammoth 750GB SATA hard drive, and a powerful ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 graphics chip with up to 3738MB of total graphics memory. The major selling point is the audio quality, so often a laptop has all of the key characteristics of a top multimedia laptop but then lets itself down with the audio quality. I’m sure that most of us have owned a laptop which at times is hardly audible, or the sound is monotone and tinny.
As a result this laptop is perfect for music production on the move, or even for playing a few tunes at a party, it is even more perfect for streaming HD movies or watching DVDs. If we were entirely honest we would say that we are a little disappointed that HP used an AMD graphics chip rather than an Intel one, and we are entirely honest so we just did! We have noticed that the use of AMD components is commonplace in smaller laptops, and at 14.5 Inches and weighing just 5.69Ibs, HP have produced a system which is just perfect for light travel. That is reflected in the battery life too, you can use your laptop for up to 6.5 hours on a single charge!
This laptop just so happens to look fantastic too. So many people are attracted to Mac’s because let’s be true with ourselves, they do look fantastic. Often PC’s are dull and boring, bulky, square, but not the HP Envy 14-1260SE, a lot of emphasis has been put on style. Customer reviews have been fantastic too, and the consumer is never wrong, so we have no problem whatsoever recommending this laptop to anybody shopping in this price bracket. Head over to Amazon to read customer reviews or buy, or indeed for a more detailed look at the features and specifications.
There always has to be a catch though, doesn’t there? Whilst we like both of the laptops featured on here, if we had a $1000 budget we would actually be LOWERING it to $900 and buying either of the ASUS laptops featured on the page Top Rated Laptops Under $900, to be specific we would probably buy the ASUS N53SV-XE1 entertainment laptop, a system which we believe could quite easily justify a price tag of in excess of $1000 and comes with an Intel i7 quad-core processor, and Nvidia GT540M Graphics card, and the ability to extend the RAM to an astonishing 16GB!
