Thinkpad is a good choice. If you live in the US and you budget is $300 you can easily get a T430s (s is thinner than non-s). If you are patient and willing to

Thinkpad is a good choice. If you live in the US and you budget is $300 you can easily get a T430s (s is thinner than non-s). If you are patient and willing to spend some time on ebay you could find X240 or T440 under $300. I would try to get FHD IPS display. If you can't find one, you can get one for ~$60-$80 and replace it yourself (very easy to do and manuals and howto videos made by lenovo are available online). EDIT: Many used thinkpads come with HDD. I highly recommend replacing it with SSD. I got the cheapest 120GB sandisk SSD from amazon (~$50) for a X230 I got from ebay and I am very happy with it.