Best work laptop under $500?

I need a laptop for work. It’s super important that it’s actually fast—I can't deal with any lag when I'm just doing basic stuff like multimedia, Office, or browsing. Any help would be huge!

Dell XPS 13 + Samsung SSD

Gotta grab a caddy too if you want to swap the DVD drive for an extra hard drive. They go for about $40 bucks...

Honestly, I’d much rather go with a different SSD altogether. ovo Starting with the budget-friendly options.
People seem to be boycotting the Samsung SSD more or less because... ovog

So now you’re stuck. I have the exact same 5558, just with the NVIDIA graphics, and the issue is that you aren't supposed to touch the SSD, upgrade the RAM, or heaven forbid swap out the optical drive for a caddy yourself. Why? Because you'll void the warranty. That means everything has to go through an authorized service center, which probably costs a fortune. Say you want an SSD now, then you have to save up for a while for more memory, and then again for a caddy, meaning a trip to the service center every single time. It's even worse if you don't live near Washington, D.C.

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Matthew Wright69 said:Now you're stuck. I've got the same Dell XPS 13, just with the nVidia card, and the issue is you can't touch the SSD, upgrade the RAM, or heaven forbid swap the optical drive for a caddy yourself without nuking the warranty. Everything has to go through an authorized service center. Which usually costs a premium. So if you want an SSD, then save up for more RAM, then save for a caddy... you're looking at multiple trips to the shop. Especially if you don't live in Washington, D.C....

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Just grab the laptop and the Samsung SSD from Best Buy and ask them to swap it out right there on the spot.
They did a RAM upgrade for me once like that, no issues at all.