8 Best Cheap Laptops That Can Run Fortnite

Desktop With Laptop And Toys

I’m not going to judge you because I’m a broke gamer myself 😅 Hopefully you soon make enough money that you’ll be able to custom your own gaming PC, and at the same time be able to do that as often as you like!

Anyway, I hope this list helps you out. I went ahead and looked for all the cheap laptops I could find that can run Fortnite at a playable and smooth frame rate. Right now, I own Acer Predator Helios 300 i7 gaming laptop from 2017, and Fortnite runs buttery smooth on it. However, my Internet isn’t that great-really slow pings overall-so I’m unable to enjoy it entirely as I’d like to, unfortunately. But still, It’s great to have this gaming laptop as my daily work machine, as things move pretty fast when you have a fast gaming laptop for everyday use. 😉

Also see: Best 1440p 144Hz Monitors Under 300

Before we get started, I’d like to share the minimum and recommended system requirements you need to run Fortnite.

Recommended System Requirements
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 or AMD Radeon HD 7870 or equivalent DX11 GPU
Video Memory: 2 GB VRAM
Processor: Core i5-7300U 3.5 GHz
Memory: 8 GB RAM
OS: Windows 7/8/10 64-bit or Mac OS Mojave 10.14.6

Minimum System Requirements
Video Card: Intel HD 4000 on PC or Intel Iris Pro 5200 or equivalent AMD GPU on Mac
Processor: Core i3-3225 3.3 GHz
Memory: 4 GB RAM
OS: Windows 7/8/10 64-bit or Mac OS Mojave 10.14.6

If you just meet the minimum system requirements, Fortnite will run on your machine, but probably not on the highest settings. Reducing the graphics settings in Fortnite and disabling background apps will help.

Epic Games

Quick Comparison Of The Winners

Now, without further ado, let’s dive into the list of 7 best cheap laptops that can run Fortnite.

8 Cheap Laptops That Can Run Fortnite

You may ask, what are the criteria I’ve used to pick these laptops? I’ve compared the specifications of these laptops with the minimum requirements of Fortnite, and the ones that barely meet the requirements; are cost too much that it does not fall under a cheap laptop, are generally laptops that aren’t listed in the top 1-4 spots, they go down. The ones on top, 1-4, are the laptops that either meet the minimum requirements of Fortnite or also exceed them in one way or another.

Another criterion is that the laptops need to have a good number of reviews and highest ratings possible to be in the #1 spot in this list. The lower the rating and review number gets, the lower the ranking they get in this list.

Let’s have a look at the laptops now.

#1 Dell Inspiron 3000


Dell Inspiron 3000 is the cheapest of the bunch that I’ve listed here.

It’s an i3 laptop that meets the minimum requirements of the Fortnite and has 8GB of DDR4 ram that meets the standard requirements of the game.

It is a touchscreen display laptop which is something I really miss in my Helios 300 from 2017; because touch screen makes things so much faster, otherwise you just have to drag the mouse all the time. And the touchscreen feature looks really cool as well – to me at least it does, cool and futuristic.

It’s a 10th gen i3 CPU, which means that it’s really powerful and isn’t anything to compare with if you’re thinking about an i3 laptop from like a few years ago even. These ones today are very powerful compared to those old i3 laptops, and much more efficient too. These consume less power and offer more performance and less heat and all that good stuff, being modern laptop CPUs.

It has a 128GB SSD drive for you to store your Operating System on and has a 1TB of HDD to store those huge game files. I really like that it has two drives, makes things much more cleaner and organized. Because if you look at my desktop, it is filled with icons and God knows what. It becomes messy really quickly, so organization is key to succeed in life.

Here, let me show you what my desktop looks like! 😅

messy desktop full of icons and random files

For me though, I really like this laptop, and I’d get it if I was on a budget and was looking for a cheap laptop that can play Fortnite.

One last thing; because this laptop doesn’t have a dedicated graphics card, I thought why not show you how its integrated intel UHD graphics handle the Fortnite gameplay. After all, that is why you’re interested in this laptop in the first place, so it only made sense to include this video clip.

If you think you’ll be able to enjoy Fortnite with the similar performance shown in the video, definitely get the Dell Inspiron 3000 laptop.

#2 Dell Inspiron 15.6″

Here’s another laptop from Dell that is cheap and can run Fortnite. If you’re wondering, that these both laptops are almost similar, then why did I put this one at the #2 spot?

Well, that’s because it has an older 8th gen i3 CPU, meaning it is less powerful, would consume more energy and less battery life overall and more heating issues.

While the other one on the #1 spot, it has the latest 10th gen CPU and is more optimized and is two generations ahead; and because it is two generations ahead, I would not consider this one myself, to be honest. But, I still included it in the list so you could have an option, at least, in case the first laptop runs out of stock.

If I find a better option in future, I’ll make sure that I update this post and update the ranking as well, if that laptop deserves to be at the #1 spot in the list.

Anyways, this laptop has an older 8th gen i3 CPU that checks the box of the minimum requirements you need to be able to run Fortnite. It also has an 8GB of DDR4 ram, which is more than the minimum 4GB of requirement.

It also has 128GB of SSD storage, which is good. But, it does not have an extra HDD that we had with our #1 pick, meaning you can’t store games on it; you’ll either have to buy an external HDD or get the #1 pick that we have here on our list because it has the HDD in the same price.

By the way, if you’ll be getting an external HDD, I’ve linked to an Amazon’s Choice HDD, and it’s a 1TB drive. Feel free to get that one if you ever need one for some data storage needs.

Seagate Portable 1TB External Hard Drive HDD
Seagate Portable 1TB External Hard Drive HDD

The laptop also has a touchscreen display, which is useful but not needed as it doesn’t contribute to anything that helps in running Fortnite on the laptop. Still, it’s an extra feature that I love to have whenever possible.

#3 Lenovo Ideapad S145

This one also looks promising with its 10th gen i3 CPU that goes up to 3.4GHz. It has 8GB of DDR4 ram, a 128GB SSD. All of these things tick the box of the minimum requirements needed to run Fortnite, AND it costs less than all the laptops mentioned above.

Now you may be wondering if it costs less, why is it at the #3 spot and not on the 1st? That’s because it does not have a lot of reviews as the other two options do, so I am not sure how the experience of the users is going to be. Hence it is on this 3rd spot, and it had a lot of good reviews, I’d have probably added it on the number 1 position in this ranking.

Anyways, it seems like a good laptop overall, but we’ll have to see once a few more people post their reviews on it. By the time you’re going to find this post, if it has more good reviews than just under 10, then go ahead and get this laptop if this one is more appealing to you because of the less price than the other two options.

It doesn’t have a touchscreen, which is why it may be cheaper than the above two laptops. It’s not a deal-breaker or anything, but it is a nice feature to have to be able to get things done quicker, as moving the mouse and then clicking the objects seems slower to me, IMHO.

#4 Lenovo IdeaPad 3 15″

Here’s another one from Lenovo. It also has a 10th gen i3 CPU, 8GB DDR4 Ram, 256GB of SSD storage and a touchscreen.

It meets the minimum requirements for playing Fortnite. I think it gives a little bit more value than the top two choices, but this one also does not have a lot of reviews, so it has to be on the 4th position in the ranking.

You may also be wondering why am I not talking about the battery life of these laptops? Because, these are budget laptops and do not have beefy specs; so in my opinion, they will have to be plugged in while you play Fortnite or any other game that works on these laptops. So there’s no point talking about the battery life if they’re plugged in while you game, as that’s when the most amount of battery power is consumed- in gaming.

Otherwise, when you’re not playing games, these laptops will have a great battery life, because for one the processor is modern and is greatly optimized to maximum performance on the lowest consumption of power. Second, the specs aren’t that high that it will require much power to do ordinary tasks like browsing the web and watching videos, etc.

#5 Acer Nitro 5 (Ryzen)

I’ve listed another version of Acer Nitro 5 below that’s a bit more higher in price, but this one steels the show!

It has the Ryzen 5 4600H processor inside that’s more than enough for gaming on a budget, especially playing Fortnite, as it is not as demanding of a game as some of the other titles out there.

It also has a dedicated GPU, which is an exceptional value in this price range, because this GPU is a little brother to the GPU that’s inside the Dell XPS 15- that one is 1650 Ti.

It has an 8GB of DDR4 RAM as well as a 256GB of SSD storage- again, and exceptional value at this price point. The only reason I did not list this laptop as the #1 choice, is because it is more expensive than the one that IS listed as #1 right now. If you can spend a little bit more, this laptop is like a thousand percent more recommended than that laptop.

#6 HP 15 15.6″

Here comes a bomb for you! 😅 This quite more expensive than the laptops we’ve been talking about so far.

To check its exact and current price, visit the Amazon link I’ve linked above, as we are not allowed to talk about the exact prices in our articles, as they change time to time because of the promotions and discounts coming and going.

This laptop has an i5 10th gen CPU which is a delicate balance between performance and cost-effectiveness. It has 16GB of DDR 4 ram in this price range, which is a good thing because our next laptop has a bit higher price but less 8GB of ram. It also has 512GB of SSD storage, and it also is more than our next pick at less cost. (for now)

It’s a USB-C laptop which is another good thing, as all the things need to be USB-C now and I’m sure you’ll agree, as there are a lot of cables lying around me right now that I wish I could only have USB-C devices and use only one cable with all of them.

This laptop from HP meets the standard requirements of the Fortnite, so you’ll have no issues running Fortnite on this laptop unless your internet sucks as mine does 😜

#7 Acer Nitro 5 AN515-54-54W2-15.6″

Don’t get confused by the name, the name of this laptop is Acer Nitro 5 alone 😛 The rest you can ignore.

Acer Nitro 5 is one of the best laptops I’d recommend to play Fortnite. It meets the standard requirements by a long shot, but it only has a 9th gen i5 processor.

If it had a 10th gen CPU, I’d have probably featured it on the 1st spot.

But because we’re talking about budget or cheap laptops here, so that’s not going to happen.

It has an 8GB of DDR 4 ram and a 256GB of SSD storage. It does not have any extra HDD for storing games, so I’d again recommend that you check out that external HDD I suggested you earlier.

Seagate Portable 1TB External Hard Drive HDD

It has a GTX 1050 GPU, which is a little bit less capable than its beefier brother 1050ti but is more than capable of handling Fortnite, and probably you can even crank up the setting a little bit, to enjoy higher detailed gameplay than you’d be able to on the other choices I’ve listed above.

My helios 300 that I use has a GTX 1060 6GB of VRAM GPU, and I was really proud of it once I got that laptop, as not much people had that configuration at that time, but by now it is a 3 generation old CPU, so I feel ashamed again to have an old laptop. 😅

#8 Asus TUF Gaming Laptop

Hands down, this one is the best laptop on this list, but it is also one of the costlier ones.

It is excellent for multitasking and productivity, but for gaming, it is going to play almost any game you want that you can play on any other intel budget laptop.

This is a Ryzen CPU based laptop which is why I’ve placed it at the last number because most people prefer Intel over Ryzen when it comes to gaming; respecting their choice, I had to put it at the very last spot. But believe me, this is a better laptop in my opinion, than the #6 spot I’ve given to.

You can not only game on this laptop but also edit videos, in case you like to record your game-play and start a YouTube channel. You may also start streaming your game-plays, but then again, it may require you to step down your game settings a little, as this is not a full-fledged Ryzen 7 processor that’s inside this laptop. It is still one of the best ones though, because Ryzen 5 is also very capable, as you may see in this video I’m going to link below.

Hopefully, this post was of some help to you; and I didn’t excite you too much about all the laptops featured here. Because we gamers get excited to even hear about specs, let alone see choices of laptops to pick one from.

Cheap Laptops For Fortnite Conclusion

Now if you’re still confused, let me clear things up a bit. If you’re interested in a cheap gaming laptop that can run Fortnite smoothly, and at the playable frame-rates, I’d highly recommend you check out the #1 laptop in this list.

However, if you spend just a little bit more, I’d very highly recommend that you go with this Nitro 5 Ryzen laptop that’s at the last #5 number. Because it is one of the best laptops that I’ve come across while researching this article. And, I would get it myself if I was looking for an excellent decent priced gaming laptop that could also do other tasks as well, such as youtube video editing and other productivity tasks.

Finally, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask below in the comments, or you can reach me out through my email which I’ve mentioned on the contact page. I really love helping people out; I wasn’t joking when I said that 😉

One thing I’ve learned after writing this article is that limited budget really limits your choices and options in life because I had a tough time coming up with these laptops that met the requirements of Fortnite and still were in the budget, or some of these were at least 😅

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