There's some fantastic deals on laptops out there. Somewhere around Black Friday I bought a latest gen (10) Intel i5 laptop with SSD, high quality display, etc for $280.
https://www.costco.com/.product.1371...hipped_product
The ad says i3, but it's actually an i5.
I bought it to be a low energy consuming security camera recorder (BlueIris), but I've been using it as a laptop since I haven't got around to buying video cameras yet.