Hey all. I'm in the market for a new laptop! I've had my current one for 5 years now and it's time to get a new one. A few things to note:

- My price range is between $300-$450. Pretty low but the last time I got a laptop I spent $1100 for a gaming one and was disappointed.

- It can't be too big or heavy. I'm going to be taking it with me to Israel this summer for archaeological work.

- I mostly need it for work but I'd of course love to be able to play some older and indie games on it. Think Medieval 2: Total War as a benchmark.

- Probably a 256GB hard drive is the minimum size.

Any suggestions would be amazing! I've already looked at laptops on newegg and amazon but I'd like an outside perspective.

I picked up an HP Stream 14 for work and am pretty happy with it. I think you have to slap an SD card in it for memory and I haven't really tried any games on it, but I've beat the crap out of it and it still runs/looks good for everything I need.

It was ~200 + tax. My last $1100+ laptop was also disappointing.

I'll keep it in mind. I'm leaning towards dropping the extra $100 for this: https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-E5-575G-53VG-15-6-Inch-Windows/dp/B01DT4A2R4

It's better than my current laptop but without the huge price tag.

I had that laptop! For your purposes, it would work really well. It ran every indie game with no issue and it even ran last-gen games such as Dishonored at around 30fps. I got a ton of usage out of that thing.

@octopusrocketmark: Did it feel flimsy? I'm also considering one of Lenovo's sturdy laptops because I'll need to be taking it with me to other countries.