Notebookcheck's Top 10 Budget Office/Business Laptops

The ThinkPad E-series is an inexpensive entry into Lenovo's world of office laptops. The Lenovo ThinkPad E480 (here in review) replaces the ThinkPad E470 and even the base configuration provides plenty of performance with Intel's Core i5-8250U. 4 GB RAM is not much, but it is easy to add more memory later on. The same applies for the SSD, which is just sufficient at 128 GB. The manufacturer also offers faster components like the Core i7-8550U as well as the discrete AMD Radeon RX 550, but the latter suffers from temperature issues and we recommend an SKU of the E480 without dedicated GPU.

The Lenovo ThinkPad E480 convinces with good build quality, very good input devices, and a matte IPS screen, which is not a matter of course in this segment.

The 14-inch system features a matte IPS-display, which is not common in this price range. Potential buyers should pay attention since the Lenovo ThinkPad E480 is also sold with an inferior TN panel. All in all, the ThinkPad E480 performs very well in general and we already praised the familiar input devices a couple of times.

The battery runtimes and mediocre Wi-Fi performance prevent a better rating. The slow SSD costs points as well, but Lenovo rolled out an update to resolve the issues. We will retest it, which might change the rating (even though there will not be major changes). The difference compared to the identical E580 with the AMD Radeon RX 550 is much more important. The latter loses important points due to high chassis temperature, so we can only recommend the ThinkPad E580 without a discrete graphics card.

Dell’s Latitude 5590 offered a decent performance with a well though-out connectivity distribution. Dell also offers a wide variety of configuration options for the Latitude 5590, which means it can be individually adjusted to one’s liking. It is primarily aimed at business customers.

The HP ProBook 430 G5 is the smallest ProBook and visually almost identical to its larger siblings. HP has renewed the entire line-up this year and standardized the layout.

The Dell Latitude 3490 (here in review) is an inexpensive and solid office laptop. Equipped with an Intel Core i5-8250U, 8 GB DDR4-RAM, and 256 GB SSD storage, it is a responsive system. We like the comfortable typing experience as well as the usable display. 

The Dell Latitude 3490 can be recommended if you are looking for a solid office worker.

There are some drawbacks like design as well as the somewhat cheap haptics. The card reader is slow and the CPU throttles on battery power. It still deserves a recommendation if you can with the mentioned drawbacks and need a reliable office laptop. The user also benefits from positive aspects like the good maintainability and long battery runtimes.

The Fujitsu Lifebook A357 (here in review) is a working device through and through. The technology of the 15-inch laptop is therefore simple. Intel's Core i5-7200U is not the latest model, but is still powerful enough for office apps. It is also very efficient, which ensures long battery runtimes.

In combination with the SSD and the good input devices, the Fujitsu Lifebook A357 convinced us during the review. The device also features a large maintenance hatch, which should make many users happy. The Lifebook A357 is equipped with a fast card reader, which is getting rarer. This might actually influence the purchase decision of some potential buyers. 

The Fujitsu Lifebook A357 is a business device with a solid list of features for a fair price. 

The manufacturer implements a matte IPS display, but it could be a bit brighter and have a better contrast ratio. This SKU is still recommendable for a price of ~600 Euros. Fujitsu unfortunately only ships the device with a one-year warranty.

The Lenovo IdeaPad 320S (here in review) is a 14-inch laptop. The CPU is unfortunately not really up-to-date anymore, but the two CPU cores of the Intel Core i5-7200U are still sufficient for the majority of business applications. The discrete graphics card (Nvidia GeForce 920MX), however, is not powerful enough for most modern games.

Overall, the Lenovo IdeaPad 320S manages a good result and collects important points in all individual sections. The matte IPS screen with its 1080p resolution is definitely one highlight, even though the average luminance of 235 nits is just not bright enough.

The Lenovo IdeaPad 320S-14IKB is a success, but a brighter panel and a background illumination for the keyboard would be nice additions.

You can only equip the IdeaPad 320S with one RAM module, which is definitely a drawback because you cannot use the dual-channel mode.

Acer's TravelMate P2510 (here in review) is a typical office laptop. The processor is an Intel Core i5-7200U, which is still sufficient for office applications. However, Acer has to improve in terms of quality, because our test sample suffered from some quality problems.

Otherwise, you will get a well-equipped device for a really fair price. The TravelMate P2510 even features USB Type-C and DisplayPort. The screen is thankfully an IPS model, but it is not very bright and the contrast is not very good, either. Still, these are common issues in this price range.

Acer's TravelMate P2510-M-51ZQ is actually a great office laptop with a good price-performance ratio. Only the major quality issues of the case on our test sample prevent a recommendation.

Potential buyers will like the good Wi-Fi performance and the decent battery runtime. The TravelMate P2510 also features usable input devices and stays very cool even under load, which results in a very decent Turbo utilization of the CPU.

The Lenovo IdeaPad 330S (here in review) is an inexpensive office laptop with a sturdy aluminum case. our review showed it is a solid all-rounder that handles most applications. The Intel Core i5-8250U is powerful enough for smooth handling and 16 GB Optane memory support the conventional hard drive. Lenovo also sells SKUs of the Ideapad 330S with SSDs.

You have to make compromises in terms of display. You get a 1080p-IPS screen despite the low price, but the average luminance of around 250 nits is not very high. The integrated SD reader is not very fast, either, and does not break any records with USB 2.0 transfer speeds.

The Lenovo IdeaPad 330S gets a recommendation thanks to the good price-performance ratio.

The Lenovo Ideapad 720S based on the new AMD Ryzen 5 2500U would provide decent performance figures, but the cooling solution can be an issue. The Ryzen 5 2500U is comparable to the Intel Core i5-8250U, but the AMD APU is equipped with a much more powerful iGPU (AMD Radeon RX Vega 8). It is much faster than the Intel UHD Graphics, but the Lenovo Ideapad 720S with the AMD Radeon RX Vega 8 still cannot replace a gaming laptop.

However, the Lenovo Ideapad 720S has problems under sustained workloads, because the cooling unit is not powerful enough. As a result, the performance of the Ryzen 5 2500U drops to the level of an Intel Core i7-7500U.

The battery runtime is not an argument for the Ideapad, either, because our WLAN test only runs for 3.5 hours. The Ideapad 720S with an Intel CPU managed a much better result at 10 hours.

The Lenovo Ideapad 720S is a good choice if you are looking for an inexpensive working device at home. You should still consider the limitations due to the insufficient cooling performance.

If you are locked onto the Ideapad 720S, you can also consider the device with the Intel CPU, but the more expensive device has the same problems like the limited number of ports, bad maintainability, and the lack of dual-channel memory.