Notebookcheck's Top 10 Budget Multimedia Notebooks

Lenovo’s Ideapad S340 [see review here] turned out to be a solid device and managed to secure one of the top spots in our top 10 list of budget multimedia notebooks. Its robust case is available in four different colors, and thanks to its conservative design it does not look out of place in typical office environments. Thanks to Intel’s latest Whiskey Lake generation of processors, the Core i7-8565U, it offered plenty of oomph. Its good overall system performance certainly benefitted from the fast 512 GB PCIe SSD. An extra 2.5-inch hard drive bay is available for retroactive upgrades. Unfortunately, the RAM is fixed at 8 GB and cannot be upgraded.

Most users will be more than satisfied with the display that did not show any signs of PWM flickering whatsoever. Unfortunately, it comes at a price: poor color accuracy, poor color space coverage, and a dim backlight. Therefore, it is not suited for professional use. Its battery life was also comparatively short, and it only lasted 6 hours in our Wi-Fi test.

Lenovo’s Ideapad S340 is a decent device offering decent system performance. Unfortunately, battery life is comparatively short.

Thanks to its GeForce MX230 GPU the Ideapad S340 is even capable of gaming, albeit we advise you to steer clear of current games if at all possible. The GPU is, after all, based on an entry-level chip design.

Acer's Aspire 5 A515-52G (here in review) is an inexpensive multimedia notebook based on a Whiskey Lake CPU. The Intel Core i5-8265U is more than powerful enough for the majority of multimedia workloads. The case is now a bit slimmer compared to the predecessor. A fast SSD and 8 GB DDR4-RAM in a dual-channel configuration ensure a responsive system performance.

The allrounder is equipped with a matte IPS panel, which is not the brightest model. The step towards displays with wide angles in the low-price segment is still a positive trend.

For about 900 Euros, you get a solid laptop with dedicated graphics card (GeForce MX150), which can handle some gaming, but you will have to waive high resolutions and details. You can also implement an additional storage drive if the 256 GB SSD is not sufficient. An empty 2.5-inch slot is available. The Acer Aspire 5 A515-52G is a good allrounder without any real drawbacks.

Asus expands its VivoBook-series with the 14-inch and slim Ultrabook (here in review) including the dedicated Nvidia GeForce MX230. For 800 Euros you get a fast system with a modern Whiskey Lake CPU. The chassis only uses a base unit made of plastic, but it does not feel cheap.

The display is unfortunately a bit below our expectations. it has a matte surface, but it is still not ideal for outdoor use due to the dim backlight.

The Asus VivoBook 14 turns out to be a solid all-rounder for everyday use despite some small drawbacks. It is not too expensive, either.

Nvidia's GeForce MX230 is no typical gaming GPU, but it is still powerful enough for older titles, which will even run at higher settings. All in all, the MX230 is slightly faster than the old Nvidia GeForce 940MX.

The Acer Aspire 7 A715-74G (see review here) is a decent all-rounder with gaming ambitions. It is based around Intel’s i5-9300H and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 and thus powerful enough for modern games. Another key element is the fast 512 GB large SSD. At 8 GB RAM is sufficient yet not enough for running many applications simultaneously.

Acer’s Aspire 7 A715-74G is a decent all-rounder with good multimedia qualities as well as the capability to run modern games.

Its largest pro is battery life that did not suffer despite powerful hardware. The display features an IPS panel with great viewing angles, a decent contrast ratio, and good color representation. However, brightness is too low for its class.

The Asus VivoBook 14 (see review here) is a slim and compact 14-inch notebook. It features an Intel Core i5-8265U, which should be more than powerful enough for most applications, as well as a dedicated GeForce MX230 GPU. The latter transforms the VivoBook 14 into a multimedia device with limited gaming capabilities.

The cooler seems to be overburdened with the internal components, and both CPU and GPU are throttled after a short while. Overall system performance feels smooth thanks to the SSD.

The Asus VivoBook 14 is an affordable all-rounder for home users.

The matte display offers great viewing angles and a decent representation of colors. Brightness and contrast ratio are too low for its class.

We have already seen a laptop with two displays in the ZenBook Pro 15 UX580GE. This time around the ScreenPad 1.0 has been improved and can be found in the much cheaper Asus VivoBook S15 (see review here).

HP's Pavilion 15 is an inexpensive Multimedia laptop with an Intel Core i5-8250U and dedicated Nvidia GeForce MX130. The device also offers plenty of storage with a total of 1.25 TB thanks to a 256 GB SSD for the operating system and a 1 TB hard disk for additional data.

The Pavilion 15 certainly attracts attention with the appealing design, which appears very modern with its slim-bezel design. However, the chassis is not only modern, but also stable. All in all, the multimedia laptop offers good system performance for working tasks. Nvidia's GeForce MX130 is just too weak for modern games.

The biggest drawbacks of the HP Pavilion is the short battery runtime. We only determined a meager runtime of 4:44 hours in our Wi-Fi scenario, which is not good.

Dell’s Inspiron 15 5000 (see review here) surprised us with its great performance. Its AMD Ryzen 7 3700U offers a comparable multi-thread performance as Intel’s Core i7-8565U.

The Dell Inspiron 17 3000 3780 is a 17-inch multimedia laptop with an Intel Core i7-8565U, but the dedicated graphics card AMD Radeon 520 is pretty weak. This means the device is not suited for modern games.

The advantages include a display with a decent contrast ratio, an optical drive, which is rare nowadays, as well as the low price.