I'm sorry but this article makes little to no sense unless there are a bunch of typos embedded in it.
Firstly a 'budget' laptop with an i5/16GB/512GB/1080P would seem to be well outfitted and the only difference between models being the GENERATION of i5 (12 vs 13) really does not seem to provide a performance difference (maybe in cost with the older parts costing less?).
A fairly well outfitted Intel based systems for less than $500 sounds like an awesome deal!!