Any recommendations? I don’t mind a refurbished machine.
If you don’t need it right away, sign up for deal alerts on Slickdeals.net. You can find some really great deals that way. I got a WAY better laptop than I otherwise would have for the price that way. I got laptop deal alerts in email all the time from them but it took a couple weeks to get the right one for me.
What do you need it for? If you need a gaming laptop I wouldn’t bother. I bought the cheapest gaming laptop I could find by checking slickdeals and fatwallet for months and it was $500 for a refurbished. And that was the cheapest I could find.
If you just want a regular laptop, I would check staples or BB. They usually have $600 models go for $350 once or so a month.
Acer is the biggest player in that space.
Kinda helps to know what size screen you want and some of the key things you want to use it for, so please share.
Toshiba Satellite is also big in that price range. Some entry level HPs go down to that price too.
Asus often gets mentioned as the most reliable laptop.
They offer many laptops in your price range.
I have had 3 of them in your price range, and I have never had any problems with any of them.
The screen size isn’t very important to me. I’d prefer something larger than fourteen inches, but a small screen isn’t anything close to a dealbreaker to me. I definitely want a good processor. A dual core, at least, with good specs. I’d also like to do some light gaming and image editing, so I’d much prefer a machine with a solid independent gpu. I’m not expecting to be able to play anything from the past several years, but being able to play a few older games would be great. Four gigs of ram too, preferably.
I’ve been looking at Newegg. I’ll add slickdeals, which was a great suggestion. Acer and Asus are good recommendations, too.
I got a Lenovo for about that price at Fry’s a few months ago. I’d say if you can get your hands on a Lenovo for that price, go for it. It’s one of the best damn laptops I’ve ever had… despite how cheap it was.