I've had great luck with the "dell outlet" where dell sells "scratch&dent" computers. My last 3 have been from there,they were all flawless, and are still in use today.

Dell Factory Outlet

No matter what brand/model you get, before you buy look up the service info for the particular machine. When you get it you want to replace the stock thermal grease/thermal pad on the CPU, GPU, bridge, etc. with "artic silver 5" or "ICD 7" thermal compound. That is the secret to getting long life and low temps from a computer.

From the factory, manufacturers use thermal tape that is "good enough" to last maybe 6mos->2 years, and is constantly letting the CPU get hot. Switching to one of the aformentioned compounds can drop your temps 5°F-15°F, increasing your speed, battery life, and CPU life. I have brought 4-5 laptops "back from the dead" by re-applying thermal compound

If you can handle disassembling the fine internals of a firearm, then you can easily handle a computer-just watch out for static, and make sure it's unplugged when you open it up :p

This. (Oh, and in reply to the other post, Asus has not been widely known, but they've been selling laptops since at least 2006. They're not a new fly-by-nighter, especially since they make components for other manufacturers' machines as well.)

I've been using Asus products for years - also bought a net book when I was in college. It's hideously outperformed now but it still trucks along after 5-6 years of daily use. It even survived a 32" tube tv falling straight on it (although the battey is dented) just replaced the screen. If I didn't have newer/faster/lighter stuff via my job I would still be using it. Good stuff.

Let it go. He's not going to find a Mac for 400 dollars unless it's 6 or 8 years old. Pee See's have crap resale and are cheap to begin with. That's what he's looking for and what he needs. The Asus machines I've seen were quality. Asus produced PowerBooks for Apple under contract for years until Apple set up their own shop.
My son got a very nicely equipped Dell given to him as part of a college grant. We looked it up and it retailed for 650. He didn't want it. He had a tough time getting 400 for it new in the box and unregistered.

I still have an Eee PC that I use pretty frequently and carry when I travel. Bought it used for $100 or so in 2010, if it gets stolen then it's beer money.

IMO, when you can but a basically "new" one (manufacturer refurb, which , in my mind means some poor slob consumer had a chance to provide quality control) for under $300, why bother with used? You know a used battery is likely crap. People tend to want to sell their stuff for some percentage on the price they paid new. That doesn't work well for technology that is constantly getting faster , better and cheaper.

Last laptop I bought off ebay that I thought was a decent deal wasn't after I bought a $50 battery.

Thanks for the input, folks. Many of the suggestions were along the lines of what I was thinking.

No matter what you get, don't forget the artic silver 5. It is totally worth the $10 and hour or two. If you don't want to order it online ratshack sells it at a markup.

Because you can buy for $100 or $150, or even get for free, and it keeps money out of the Chinese pockets.

This thread is slightly timely for me now, bottle of soda leaked on my laptop bag and now my macbook is an expensive doorstop (for the time being at least, its in a bag of rice). Word of warning for the mac-lovers. Better prepare your anus should anything go wrong, I'm looking at least $700 for a new "logic board" since of course everything is proprietary. Also in most laptops you can pop the HD out and hook it up in an encllosure to get all your data. Not on a macbook!

I've done that with older macs and fairly recently with my son's older 08 macbook when we converted it to a SSD. When did the change happen and why?

Look under the counter at Walmart for the red price tags. Some computers get marked down significantly. Strong processors and big screens are worth a little extra. Brand names translate to "made in china". I spent $420 last time around and would have had to have spent $700 for the same power next door.

Look at wireless mice, worth it.

My guess is that they couldn't fit a regular SSD into the tiny chassis. Mine is actually an air (unbelievably thin, right now I feel like I'm typing on a dinosaur) but of course they use a proprietary connector (which is actually just PCI-E repurposed) so you have to buy the more expensive licensed mac-approved SSDs.

Mine dates to mid-2012 btw, I think that's when they started it.