The other obvious facet is the number pad permanently drawn on to the touchpad. It still works fine, though, and I've endured much looser touchpads than this one. It feels a bit flimsier than more-premium touchpads, which have little to no discernible movement and feel very sturdy.

It’s built as many budget touchpads are: When you press down, the whole pad tilts down low at the bottom, moving as one unit. Much of what you’re compromising will involve the components, and we’ll get to that in a moment, but let’s move on to the touchpad. You’ll also note a single standout key: The Enter key is highlighted in a yellow-green color, just for fun. Many of these laptops are black or grey rectangles, so I’m all for a splash of color. Part of this is thanks to the paint job, blue with a sparkling finish, which adds a touch of style to the budget lineup. This laptop’s design may not be the most thrilling, but you may not guess it’s a $265 laptop at first glance. Still, compromises are expected, and this is among the better picks out there under $300. If you have more wiggle room in your budget, we recommend the MSI Modern 14. The screen quality leaves a lot to be desired, though, and anything other than basic tasks will be a tough ask for the Celeron CPU, 4GB of memory, and 64GB of storage. Only a select few Win 10 models (like the HP Stream 11) cost any less than that new, and for this price, you do get a functional Windows 10 system with a surprisingly sturdy build, useful ports, and decent battery life. We consider budget laptops to cost under $500, and the L410 model we reviewed (L410MA-DB02) is just over half that, at $264.99.

The Asus Laptop L410 is the one of the true super-affordable Windows 10 systems, even by the standards of other budget laptops.

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