Laptops

3 Best 2-in-1 Laptops Under $300 Reviewed

Convertible laptops have been trending for many years. However, when they had first come out, they were premium and expensive machines.

Fortunately, as this trend has picked up, convertible mechanism has been adopted by the budget laptop market as well.

Here we will look at the best 2 in 1 laptops under $300 in 2021. This is an ultra budget price range where you can find entry level convertible notebooks.

Do not expect to run professionals software or games on these notebooks.

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What Can You Expect at this Price Range?

As mentioned earlier, under $300 is an ultra budget price range. Therefore, the hardware that you can expect should be very basic.

Plus, the convertible mechanism comes at a premium. For example, you can easily find Intel Pentium processors in laptop under $300 IF you go for non convertible laptops.

However, with convertible laptops, you will mostly be limited to the weaker Intel Celeron or AMD equivalent processors.

Read more about the difference between Intel Atom, Celeron and Pentium Processors.

Chromebooks

You can expect to find plenty of Chromebooks in this price range.

What is a Chromebook?

A Chromebook is a notebook that operates using the Google Operating System. It is heavily reliant on the cloud based storage and web applications.

The benefit of Chromebooks is that they are cheap. Since they use web based applications, they do not need a powerful internal hardware.

Chromebooks encourage you to utilize the internet to its full extent. Therefore, your word processing, photo editing, etc will all be done using web applications.

Another benefit that they posses is a very secure OS. They are less prone to hacks and attacks as compared to Windows based laptops.

Lastly, if you are used to Android Tablets, then you will find using the Chromebooks very intuitive and easy.

Size of the Laptops

Another important consideration is the size that you can expect at this price range.

The best 2 in 1 laptops under $300 have a maximum size of 13.3″. In fact, most of the options are 11.6″.

Smaller size has its advantages as well as its disadvantages.

The benefit here is that smaller sized laptops are much easier to carry around. Plus they are thin as well as light.

Furthermore, the biggest benefit of a small convertible laptop is that carrying it around in Tablet mode would be very comfortable.

On the other hand, a larger screen (i.e 14″or 15.6″) is more comfortable to work on. However, larger laptops are not as portable and also they cannot be carried around in tablet mode comfortably.


List of Top 2 in 1 Laptops Under $300 in 2021

We have selected the following as the best convertible laptops under $300.

  1. 1
    Lenovo Flex 11 – 11.6″ – Recommended 2 in 1 Laptop Under $300
  2. 2
    Lenovo Chromebook C330– 11.6″ – Recommended Convertible Chromebook
  3. 3
    HP x360 – 11.6″ – Cheapest Convertible Chromebook
  4. 4
    Acer R 13 Chromebook – 13.3 inch in Size
  5. 5
    Dell Inspiron 3000 – 11.6″ – Windows Based Budget Convertible Laptop

Best 2 in 1 Laptops Under 300 Dollars Reviewed

1. Lenovo Chromebook C330 – 11.6″ – Recommended Convertible Chromebook

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Next up we have yet another 11.6 inch Convertible laptop. However, this time it is a Google Chromebook.

We talked about Google Chromebooks earlier. Basically, these machines are different compared to a typical windows based laptop. These are heavily reliant on web applications and cloud storage.

To use these to their fullest extent, you will certainly need a stable and a good internet connection.

Just like most Chromebooks, this has a very weak internal hardware. However, the good news is that it is highly optimized for the Google Apps.

Its processor, the MediaTek Mt8173C, is a high end processor for Android based devices like Chromebook. In terms of performance, it is similar to high end Intel Celeron processors, but the comparison here is quite vague.

Besides that if offers the typical 4 GB of RAM and 64GB of eMMC hard drive. Again, like with most Chromebooks, you will either need to spend on an external hard drive or Cloud storage to save your multimedia files.

All in all, if you are looking for a highly capable and compact Chromebook, then this is one of the best 2-in-1 laptops under $300.

Good
  • Fairly powerful and specialized processor for Android based devices and apps.
  • Plethora of connectivity options including USB 3.1, USB 3.1 Type C, HDMI, SD slot, as well DisplayPort.
  • It is rare to find IPS display at this price range – IPS panels have better color reproduction compared to normal TN panels.
Bad
  • Not compatible with any stylus
  • You must note that around 15 GB of the total storage is reserved by the system.
  • Not good for CPU intensive work or heavy multitasking


2. HP x360 – 11.6″ – Cheapest Convertible Chromebook

HP Chromebook 4GB RAM, 16GB eMMC with Chrome...
  • Intel Celeron Processor N3350
  • Intel HD Graphics 500
  • 11.6-inch diagonal HD(33) IPS WLED-backlit...
  • 4 GB LPDDR4 SDRAM

We have selected this laptop because it is one of the cheapest, yet respectable, Chromebook in the market.

If you need a convertible notebook that is well within the $300 range, then we highly recommend this.

One great feature about this laptop (relatively speaking) is that it offers a mid range Celeron processor i.e N3350 instead of the weakest variant like the N3050 or N3060.

While the performance will still be very weak, the N3350 does have a slightly upper hand compared to many budget convertible Chromebooks out there.

Unfortunately, while it does have a mid range Celeron processor, it suffers from a low storage space like most Chromebooks here at 32 GB SSD. On top of that, most of that storage will be occupied by the system itself.

You will HAVE to spend on cloud storage, external HDD or on an SD card for expanding your storage.

In the end, if you want the cheapest convertible Chromebook, then this is one of the best 2-in-1 laptops under $300 in the market.

Read more about Chromebooks Under $200.

Good
  • Cheapest convertible chromebook
  • Mid range Celeron processor instead of the weakest variant
  • IPS panel screen despite its price range
Bad
  • Abysmally low storage
  • Do not expect much in terms of performance. Even with the Mid range Celeron processor, this laptop is weak.

3. Dell Inspiron 3000 – 11.6″ – Windows Based Budget Convertible Laptop

Dell i3185-A760GRY Inspiron...
  • TOUCH Inspiron 11 3185, 11.6-inch HD (1366 x...
  • 7th Generation AMD A6-9220e Processor with...
  • 10 Home 64bit English

If you do not care much for Chromebooks and are just looking for cheapest Windows based convertible option, then Dell Inspiron 3000 should interest you.

The laptop offers AMD A6-9220e processor which is comparable to Intel Celeron in terms of performance. It also offers the usual 4 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage.

Basically, this is the Windows equivalent of a Chromebook. You will still be forced to utilize an external hard disk or cloud storage due to the serious lack of internal storage.

When choosing this laptop, you must understand that it’ll be extremely slow. It is good for working on one thing at a time.

If you plan to have multiple browser Windows open while you type a report and have music running in the background too, this laptop will surely lag.

All in all, if you are looking for the cheapest possible windows based option, then this is one of the best 2-in-1 laptops under $300.

Good
  • Cheapest Windows based convertible laptop
  • Great for basic work like sending emails, Skype face time, reading and typing
  • List Element
Bad
  • Will show limits when multitasking
  • Opening multiple browser Windows will slow it down

Conclusion

Here we looked at the best 2-in-1 laptops under $300. The most common issue we found with these laptops is that they all featured a very weak hardware.

The laptops mentioned here are great if you are going to be using them primarily in Tablet mode. They are great for running apps, and here is our top pick.

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