Five stand-alone laptops with a 15-17-inch screen under $1000

Acer TravelMate P2 TMP-215-41-G2 is an affordable office laptop with a balanced hardware platform and decent battery life.

The model will serve as a mobile assistant for studying and working remotely. Its body is made of plastic, but it is protected from mechanical damage in accordance with the requirements of the MIL-STD-810G standard. After falls from a small height, the laptop remains operational. The device weighs about 1.8 kg. The top cover of the laptop has a standard 15.6-inch diagonal IPS screen built into it. The model’s display displays images in Full HD resolution (1920x1080 pixels), and its only flaw is the narrow color gamut (approximately 62% of the sRGB range).

In terms of hardware , the device was equipped with an eight-core 16-thread Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U processor from the AMD Cezanne (Zen 3) cavalry. There is no discrete video adapter here; instead, it is provided with integrated AMD Radeon Vega 8 graphics. The Acer TravelMate P2 TMP-215-41-G2 RAM has a capacity of 16 GB and operates in single-channel mode. A free slot for an additional SO-DIMM RAM chip is kindly provided to the user. The laptop has 512 GB of memory, for which an NVMe solid-state drive is used.

The model was equipped with an expanded set of connection interfaces, including even a VGA video connector. The laptop also has a built-in card reader, fingerprint scanner, and HD webcam with a protective shutter. The energy core of the laptop is a rechargeable battery with a capacity of 48 Wh with a rated battery life of up to 12 hours. In fact, the battery charge is enough for 8-9 hours of device operation without recharging, which covers the needs of a full day of work at the computer.

For comfortable work, study and gaming, the Acer Aspire 7 A715-42G mid-range laptop is ideal. The model’s big ace up its sleeve is discrete graphics.

In the engine compartment of the laptop there is a powerful combo of a 12-thread six-core Ryzen 5 5500U and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 video card with 4 GB of memory. There are two slots allocated for RAM in the model. One of them is empty, the second is occupied by 8 GB DDR4 memory. The laptop's hardware platform is characterized by high performance when performing everyday tasks and has good gaming potential. The model will easily run many resource-intensive games like Cyberpunk 2077 or Metro Exodus, albeit at low graphics display settings.

The weak point of the Acer Aspire 7 A715-42G is the screen. More precisely, the display’s narrow color gamut (only slightly more than half of the sRGB “triangle”). The contrast, brightness and color rendering of the IPS panel leave much to be desired. The screen can be praised for its matte finish and good viewing angles. The model's keyboard unit is full-size, with a separate Num-pad. And in the corner of the device's touchpad there is a fingerprint scanner for unlocking the laptop using a fingerprint.

The laptop is powered by a 48 Wh battery. According to the “passport”, it claims about 11.5 hours of battery life, but in reality the battery lasts for about 7 hours when operating office applications. Unfortunately, the laptop cannot be charged via the USB C port, since this interface does not support Power Delivery. In contrast, it is necessary to note the wide variety of connection ports - here you have the USB A trio, the aforementioned USB C, and HDMI, and even a gigabit LAN connector. Compared to executive-level models, the laptop is inferior in terms of design and plastic body materials. However, these nuances are compensated by the affordable price of the laptop.

If a large screen size is a priority, the 2E Complex Pro 17 NS70PU laptop will be the optimal purchase in terms of price and performance balance.

A laptop computer from the Ukrainian electronics brand 2E is assembled from high-quality components in a durable aluminum case. The screen for the model was a 17.3-inch diagonal IPS panel with traditional Full HD resolution (1920x1080 pixels) and a standard refresh rate of 60 Hz. The display is framed by thin frames; the only protruding element above it is a plate with an HD webcam lens and a user’s face scanner.

The laptop is powered by a 12-core Intel Core i5-1240P processor from the Alder Lake family. The model has a 16-thread processor, complemented by integrated Iris Xe Graphics G7 graphics. The laptop also has 16 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM. User data is stored in the memory of a 512 GB NVMe drive. The laptop can handle any office tasks and many games with ease.

The intelligent interior decoration is supported by a variety of interfaces according to the latest fashion. For example, at the end of the laptop case there is a brand new USB4 port with support for Thunderbolt 4 and the ability to connect an external monitor. There is also a built-in card reader and a gigabit Ethernet port. In addition, the model is equipped with a fingerprint scanner and an RGB backlighting system for the keyboard. The laptop's powerful 73 Wh battery supports charging via the USB C connector using the Power Delivery protocol. In offline mode, you can squeeze out up to 14 hours of device operation without external power supply. At the same time, the model costs an order of magnitude cheaper than analogues with similar equipment.

Laptops from Hewlett-Packard have proven themselves in a purely positive way, whether we are talking about budget office solutions or powerful gaming laptops. In the medium segment of laptops for business, the HP ProBook 450 G8 model seems to be an interesting proposal.

The device body is made of aluminum alloy and plastic. The model turned out to be quite compact and lightweight (1.74 kg), and it was also awarded the certificate of the American military protection standard MIL-STD-810H. At the same time, the surface of the island keyboard with white backlit buttons is noted for its moisture protection. The touchpad on the model is made in the form of a clickpad - its entire touch surface responds well to touches.

The “iron” heart of the laptop is a quad-core Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor from the Tiger Lake generation. The built-in Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 graphics card handles graphics calculations well. The model has two slots for RAM, one of which is occupied by an 8 GB slot. The RAM has a modern DDR4 standard and a bus frequency of up to 3200 MHz. To store files, the HP ProBook 450 G8 has a fast 512 GB SSD drive.

The lion's share of the laptop's connection interfaces is concentrated on the right side of the case. On this side there is a power connector, a symmetrical USB C port with support for Power Delivery, two full-size USB A, an audio output and a card reader tray for microSD cards. The left side of the device body is occupied by a Kensington lock, a gigabit LAN port and another USB connector. In terms of autonomy, a fully charged laptop battery is enough for 8-9 hours of screen time while surfing the web and performing office tasks. The characteristics of the model include a figure of up to 12.5 hours of autonomy. The fast charging function allows you to replenish the energy reserves in the battery cells by 50% in just 30 minutes. The HP ProBook 450 G8 can be taken with you on a long journey and used for a long time outside of electrical civilization.

Productive multitasking and developed gaming potential are the two pillars on which the long-lived gaming laptop Asus TUF Gaming A15 FA506QE rests.

The exterior of the model uses a discreet design with a large “TUF” inscription on the outer surface of the lid. Inside, there is a fast IPS screen with a diagonal size of 15.6 inches, Full HD image resolution (1920x1080 pixels) and an increased refresh rate of 144 Hz. The laptop display supports Adaptive-Sync technology, which eliminates the effect of frame tearing and reduces display lag in dynamic scenes.

The laptop was equipped with a 12-thread Ryzen 5 5600H processor based on the Zen 3 core, 16 GB of RAM with increased frequencies of 3200 MHz and an RTX 3050 Ti video card with 4 GB of video memory. In games, the laptop confidently pulls out a frame rate of around 60 fps, if you don’t use ultra-graphics settings and limit yourself to Full HD resolution. To upgrade the hardware, you can resort to the services of a second slot for RAM. The same trick is played with the drive, adding a second M.2 SSD to the system in addition to the existing 512 GB capacity.

The laptop's audio system is compatible with DTS X Ultra and boasts a set of pre-installed sound profiles for shooters, strategy games, role-playing games and sports simulators. The laptop’s connection interfaces are also very diverse, including a USB C port with Alternate Mode support. Compared to its gaming counterparts, the model stands out for its good autonomy - a 90 Wh battery provides 12-14 hours of active screen time when performing work tasks. In games, this figure, of course, drops. The icing on the cake in the model is the RGB backlighting of the keyboard unit with dedicated WSAD buttons.