I got a ~$250 Toshiba in 2012 for college. I added a small SSD and 4GBs ram so maybe $350 total. A few years later I replaced the CD drive with a hard drive sin

I got a ~$250 Toshiba in 2012 for college. I added a small SSD and 4GBs ram so maybe $350 total. A few years later I replaced the CD drive with a hard drive since the SSD filled up pretty quick. I still use it daily 8 years later. My only complaint is the cheap plastic case has deteriorated so it's partially held together by tape now. I also had to replace the screen hinges a few years ago. But compared to the Acer before it (2008 bad Nvidia GPU) and my wife's trash HP laptop the Toshiba has been worth every penny.