I only buy refurbished ThinkPad T-series now and they are dirt cheap on Amazon or Ebay and run Linux without any issues.
Discussion
I hadn't thought of a refurb... thank you
I guess I've always hesitated with buying a refurbished laptop and installing it myself... I'm digitally savvy but no coder... so if stuff goes wrong its a major pain
Perhaps things have advanced enough to come down to my level
Perhaps it's time to take the leap
Any flavour of Linux you favour?