Best Budget Laptops For Streaming in 2023

Streaming videos, conference calls, and games have become quite ubiquitous these days. All this is made possible by high-bandwidth internet and powerful machines.

While the PC is considered the best platform to stream videos, nothing can beat the portability of a laptop. Surprisingly, laptops these days come with enough power to match PC in performance. We believe, laptops can very much handle streaming without costing you a fortune. 

Here we have compiled a list of the best budget laptops for streaming. Whether it is game streaming on Twitch, Youtube, or Facebook Gaming, or watching on-demand movies and TV shows, these laptops would never disappoint you. Surely, some of them are better equipped to perform one task, let’s say live streaming video games, and some at another, let’s say video conferencing, the main theme is their affordability.

Most of these laptops come with a dedicated graphic unit, a powerful CPU, and high RAM and Storage Capacity. We would discuss them later in a brief buying guide. 

Disclaimer: You should not raise your expectations too high as all of them are budget laptops. That means you might have to compromise on bells and whistles like Advanced Web-Cam, Metallic design, and RGB lighting. 

Our team has scoured the internet for hours to find the supported platforms for these laptops. As per user reviews, these laptops works best for 

  1. Twitch Streaming
  2. Watching Netflix 
  3. Zoom Meetings 
  4. Vimeo live stream
  5. Facebook or Instagram live

Without further ado, let get to our first pick.

Best Budget Laptops For Streaming

Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3:

$759.99
$645.00
 in stock
11 new from $645.00
1 used from $629.00
Amazon.com
as of September 22, 2023 4:50 am
Weight & Dimensions LxWxH‎4.85 pounds | ‎14.1 x 9.8 x 0.98 inches
CPUIntel Core i5 2.50 GHz
RAM8 GB DDR4
Storage256 GB Flash Memory Solid State
Display15.6″ display with 1920 x 1080 resolution
Battery6 hours and 19 minutes
GPUNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Up to 4 GB discrete graphic card

Lenovo Legion 5:

 out of stock
Amazon.com
as of September 22, 2023 4:50 am
Weight & Dimensions LxWxH‎5.41 pounds | ‎14.29 x 10.22 x 0.98 inches
CPU2.9 GHz ryzen_7_4800h
RAM16 GB DDR4
Storage512 GB SSD
Display15.6 Inches with 1920 x 1080 Pixels
Battery‎5 Hours
GPUNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660Ti 6GB (VRAM)

HP Pavilion Gaming:

$899.00  in stock
5 new from $899.00
1 used from $840.00
Amazon.com
as of September 22, 2023 4:50 am
Weight & Dimensions LxWxH & Dimensions LxWxH4.41 lbs | 20.3 x 12 x 2.6 inches
CPUAMD Ryzen 5 4600H 
RAM8GB DDR4 SDRAM
Storage‎256 GB SSD
Display15.6 inches, 1920 x 1080 pixels Display Resolution
Battery8 hours
GPUNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650

HP Laptop 15:

$453.00  in stock
46 new from $427.49
12 used from $303.51
Amazon.com
as of September 22, 2023 4:50 am
Weight & Dimensions LxWxH3.75 pounds | 14.11 x 9.53 x 0.71 inches
CPU4.2 GHz core_i5
RAM8 GB DDR4
Storage256 GB SSD
Display15.6 Inches with 1920 x 1080 Pixels
Battery8 Hours
GPU‎Intel Iris

Dell Inspiron 15 5502:

 out of stock
Amazon.com
as of September 22, 2023 4:50 am
Weight & Dimensions LxWxH‎2.67 pounds | ‎9.23 x 14.02 x 0.7 inches
CPUIntel Core i7-1165G7 
RAM8GB 3200MHz DDR4
Storage512 GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD
Display15.6-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) Anti-glare LED Backlight Narrow Border WVA Display
Battery7 Hours
GPUNVIDIA GeForce MX330 with 2 GB GDDR5 graphics memory

Dell G3 15:

 out of stock
Amazon.com
as of September 22, 2023 4:50 am
Weight & Dimensions LxWxH‎5.18 pounds | 14.4 x 10 x 0.85 inches
CPU‎2.5 GHz core_i5
RAM16 GB DDR4
Storage‎256 GB SSD
Display15.6 Inches with 1920 x 1080 Pixels
BatteryUpto 7 Hours
GPU‎NVIDIA GTX 1650 (4GB GDDR6)

Acer Swift 3:

$689.99
$632.83
 in stock
11 new from $627.75
3 used from $490.00
Free shipping
Amazon.com
as of September 22, 2023 4:50 am
Weight & Dimensions LxWxH‎2.65 pounds | 12.73 x 8.62 x 0.63 inches
CPU‎4.1 GHz ryzen_7_4700u
RAM8 Gb DDR4
Storage512 GB SSD
Display14 Inches with 1920 x 1080 Pixels
Battery‎5 Hours
GPUAMD Radeon Graphics

Acer Nitro 5:

$749.00  out of stock
7 new from $749.00
1 used from $799.00
Amazon.com
as of September 22, 2023 4:50 am
Weight & Dimensions LxWxH4.84 pounds | ‎20.9 x 12.6 x 2.8 inches
CPUIntel 4-Core i5-9300H
RAM8GB DDR4 SDRAM
Storage256 GB NVMe PCIe SSD + 1TB 5400 RPM HDD
Display15.6 FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS LED backligh Display
Battery‎8 Hours
GPUNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Graphics with 4 GB of dedicated GDDR5 VRAM

Acer Aspire 5:

$537.90  in stock
11 new from $537.90
2 used from $449.88
Amazon.com
as of September 22, 2023 4:50 am
Weight & Dimensions LxWxH‎3.97 pounds | 14.31 x 9.86 x 0.71 inches
CPU‎3.6 GHz core_i5_1035g1
RAM‎8 GB DDR4
Storage256 GB SSD
Display15.6 Inches with IPS 1920 x 1080 Pixels
Battery‎8 Hours
GPUIntel Integrated

Acer Predator Helios 300:

$1,499.99
$1,145.00
 in stock
9 new from $1,145.00
2 used from $999.99
Amazon.com
as of September 22, 2023 4:50 am
Weight & Dimensions LxWxH‎5.29 pounds | ‎14.23 x 10.01 x 0.9 inches
CPUIntel Core i7-9750H 6-Core Processor
RAM16 GB DDR4
Storage512GB PCIe NVMe SSD
Display15. 6″ Full HD (1920 x 1080) Widescreen LED-backlit IPS display (144Hz Refresh Rate, 3ms Overdrive Response Time, 300nit Brightness & 72% NTSC)
Battery‎6 Hours
GPUNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Graphics with 6 GB of dedicated GDDR6 VRAM

Apple Macbook Air:

$999.00
$749.99
 in stock
3 new from $749.99
2 used from $742.49
Free shipping
Amazon.com
as of September 22, 2023 4:50 am
Weight & Dimensions LxWxH2.8 pounds (1.29 kg) | 11.97 x 8.36 x 0.16–0.63 inch
CPUSystem on Chip (SoC) Apple M1 chip; 8-core CPU with 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores; Up to 8-core GPU; 16-core Neural Engine
RAM8GB
Storage256GB or 512GB SSD
Display13.3-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit widescreen display
Battery18 hours 
GPUUp to Apple 8-core GPU

Razer Blade 15 Base streaming Laptop 2022:

 out of stock
Amazon.com
as of September 22, 2023 4:50 am
Weight & Dimensions LxWxH‎4.5 pounds | ‎9.25 x 13.98 x 0.81 inches
CPU‎5 GHz corei7_10750h
RAM16 GB DDR4
Storage‎256 GB SSD
Display15.6 Inches with FHD 1920 x 1080 Pixels
Battery5 Hours
GPUNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti (6GB VRAM)

ASUS TUF ‎FX505GT-AB73 cheap streaming Laptop ($800):

$929.00  in stock
7 new from $916.95
3 used from $629.99
Amazon.com
as of September 22, 2023 4:50 am
Weight & Dimensions LxWxH4.85 pounds | ‎14.2 x 10.3 x 1.02 inches
CPUIntel Core i7-9750H Processor 
RAM8GB DDR4 2666MHz RAM
Storage12GB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD 
Display15.6” 144Hz FHD (1920×1080) IPS-Type display
Batteryan hour and 15 minutes
GPUNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 4GB GDDR5 (Base: 1395MHz, Boost: 1560MHz, TDP: 50W)

MSI GF63 Thin 9SC-066:

$1,099.00  in stock
5 new from $995.00
1 used from $969.00
Amazon.com
as of September 22, 2023 4:50 am
Weight & Dimensions LxWxH‎4.1 pounds | ‎14.13 x 9.99 x 0.85 inches
CPUIntel Core i7-9750H
RAM16GB SO-DIMM
Storage512GB NVMe SSD
Display15.6 Inches with IPS 1920 x 1080 Pixels
Battery4 Hours
GPUNVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 (4GB VRAM)

Frequently Asked Questions:

What To Look For In A Laptop For Streaming?

The laptops should meet the following bare minimum criteria.

  1. 8 GB of RAM
  2. Core i5 processor with at least Quad Cores
  3. Dedicated Graphic Card (2 GB VRAM)
  4. Decent Camera and Mic
  5. 500 GB HDD or 256 GB SSD storage.
  6. 15-inch or more 
  7. Good battery performance (3-4 hours)
  8. Multiple Ports and a powerful Wi-Fi Card

If you are into Game streaming, you will have to go for more powerful hardware specs as your laptop resources have to deal with two intensive tasks: playing games and live streaming. 

16 GB RAM, 1 TB storage, and a dedicated graphics card with 4 GB VRAM should be the specs you should look out for. These hardware units will ensure that you get the optimum streaming experience without freezing or lagging. 

How Does Live Streaming Works?

Live streaming consists of a number of steps in order. First off, the camera captures the video in frames. The processing unit compresses and encodes the data in real-time. The better the raw power of the laptop, the faster the compression. 

The data is then divided into segments than then set to the nearest Content Delivery Network. After CDN cashing, the receiver’s machine decodes the arrived data and turns it into a video playback on the screen. Reciever location and its proximity to CDN decide the latency of streaming, but the processing power of a laptop, strength of internet connection, and bandwidth do play an important role.