Amazon has a great section to buy refurb or similar devices. Good place to get a baseline. And you have recourse if DOA.

However look up battery prices and consider a new battery as part of your base price 

On Sat, Jan 5, 2019, 2:17 PM Mark Phillips <mark@phillipsmarketing.biz wrote:
Find the laptop you can afford (ie best processor, most RAM, large hard drive, weight and size  for what you want to do with the laptop) and then google "install mint on XXXX" where XXX =  make and model of that laptop. You will quickly see if there are any issues. If there are, pick another one!

Also, google the cost of a RAM upgrade and new hard drive for the model you pick - you may be able to save some bucks on buying a laptop with little RAM and a bad hard drive and replacing those yourself.

Finally, if buying a used laptop from a person, install mint on a usb stick and test if the laptop will boot from the usb stick and into mint.

I agree with Stephen, Latitudes and Thinkpads are usually Linux friendly

Mark

On Sat, Jan 5, 2019 at 2:11 PM Stephen Partington <cryptworks@gmail.com> wrote:
Thinkpads do well with this. Dell latitudes also do well. If you go with 1 Gen older you can usually learn that things have been included already. That being said my brand new alienware 15 r4 required a single blacklist entry and no free driver installation to work like a dream. 

On Sat, Jan 5, 2019, 2:07 PM Joe Lowder <joe@actionline.com wrote:
What would y'all recommend as the best (most affordable)
Linux laptop to give to someone as a gift?

One that comes with Linux (preferrably mint) pre-installed
and that would "just work" out of the box.

I see a bunch or them on Amazon for under $200, but
wonder if any of them would "just work" out of the box,
no muss, no fuss.



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