There are several laptops in the $300-$500 range that would work depending on your needs. (i.e. the cheaper ones have i3 cpus.) Asus, HP, Dell, Acer, etc. Make

There are several laptops in the $300-$500 range that would work depending on your needs. (i.e. the cheaper ones have i3 cpus.) Asus, HP, Dell, Acer, etc. Make sure to select one (though many are) that you can upgrade -- for lots of them you can put in up to 32 GB of RAM (some 64), install an m.2 SSD... I've had my eye on https://www.amazon.com/Acer-E5-575-33BM-15-6-Inch-Notebook-Generation/dp/B01K1IO3QW https://www.amazon.com/Acer-E5-575-33BM-15-6-Inch-Notebook-G... for a long time in the event I need to get a new laptop for personal light dev use -- looks like they just refreshed a newer model too, linked from that page, though maybe not worth it if you're going to upgrade it.