We just finished doing our asset recovery at work and cycled our laptops. We sell off the old stock to employees who want them for personal use. Lenovo T420s for $150 (with i7s, 8gb RAM, 160gb SSDs, Bluetooth, card reader, etc). This is a large accounting company where we have about 5000. Before this I worked for the City where again using lenovos for police, fire, construction, engineers, and many civil, then before that many in various large hospitals across the province (if you see a Lenovo in Calgary, I probably touched it at one point in time or another). All this laptops get cycled and sold off for cheap. Because the business side is so saturated with them you can get them used for a couple hundred, and even out of warranty it will most likely last you for years. If you happen to find an inexpensive T430/T430s you get the added benefit of being able to do some gaming on it. Whatever you decide though, regardless of the brand, get an SSD in it.
