Image: HP
Budget is a relative and highly personal term, and one that sometimes gets abused. If you only have $500 to spend on a laptop, then anything above $500 is not “budget” for you. Which can be a real pickle if you’re looking for something with enough power to actually run Windows 11 smoothly. This HP laptop fits the bill, thanks to a Ryzen processor and plenty of RAM for just $499 at Walmart.
The Omnibook 5 16 is a pretty basic design, and with that 16-inch, 1920×1200 screen, it’s bigger than most laptops on the market (though not too heavy at just under four pounds, 1.8 kilograms). But the value here is in the specs. It’s got 16GB of DDR5 RAM, which is the minimum I’d recommend for a Windows laptop right now, and 512GB of storage. The biggest appeal might be the Ryzen AI 7 350 processor, an 8-core chip with integrated Radeon 860M graphics. That’s not going to beat a gaming laptop, but it’s more than enough to play a little Fortnite during downtime.
Other highlights include a full-sized, backlit keyboard, a big speaker above said keyboard, and plenty of ports (double USB-C, double USB-A, and full-sized HDMI), and a face-scanning camera for Windows Hello login. HP claims “up to 14 hours and 45 minutes” of battery life, which is pretty meh in terms of the competition (and I wouldn’t count on more than 7 to 8 hours if you’re doing web browsing). It also lacks a touchscreen, which might be a plus or a minus for you.
Walmart is selling this for $499 even, nearly half off its quoted retail price. Alternatively, HP is offering a nearly identical build of this laptop with an Intel Core 5 120U processor instead of AMD for almost exactly the same price, $499.99. Personally I’d go with AMD, since it’s a newer processor design with slightly better benchmarks and considerably better integrated graphics, but hey, Intel fans are a thing! If neither one is appealing to you, then check out PCWorld’s picks of the best laptops on the market.
Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld
Michael is a 10-year veteran of technology journalism, covering everything from Apple to ZTE. On PCWorld he’s the resident keyboard nut, always using a new one for a review and building a new mechanical board or expanding his desktop “battlestation” in his off hours. Michael’s previous bylines include Android Police, Digital Trends, Wired, Lifehacker, and How-To Geek, and he’s covered events like CES and Mobile World Congress live. Michael lives in Pennsylvania where he’s always looking forward to his next kayaking trip.
