Eh, if you're most of the time going to be plugged in, then Haswell actually makes sense. IT was the last of the M series, which will slaughter the Broadwell or Skylake U series in pure processing power (this is of course what happens when you go from 35/45-watt cpu's to 15-watt cpu's).

Motile M142-BK 14" FHD Ryzen 5 3500U 2.1GHz 8GB RAM 256GB SSD Win 10 Home Black

US $281.00

NEW Lenovo FHD 15.6 Quadcore AMD Ryzen 5 2500U 3.6GHz 256GB SSD 8GB RAM WIN10

US $344.44

Lots of those 11.6" screen Lenovo ThinkPad educational laptops being dumped on eBay and sold dirt cheap as schools migrate to cheap Chromebooks.
These "built like a tank" computers X130e, X131e, X140e ... etc, etc sport some kind of Windows usually 7 which can be upgraded to 10 free or overwritten with a Linux distro.
I have a couple of these running Linux distros and one running w10 that I got for less than $50 and am quite happy with.

I've found that it's best to research the specific model that you're thinking of buying component by component rather than draw blanket conclusions about a brand name in regards to Linux compatibility.
Other peoples mistakes are cheaper to learn from than your own.

Case in point:
I bought ThinkPads X130e and a X131e that ran Linux Mint very well.
Assumed the same would be true with a X140e I got for $25 (couldn't turn it down at that price).
Long story short ... It wasn't.
I finally got the X140e with it's Broadcom wifi card to run very well on Peppermint 10 with a proprietary wifi driver.

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I never even knew WalMart made their own brand of laptop. Too bad that's all sold out, I'd be willing to put down that much for a Zen+ mobile to try it out...

$281! $344.44!
A kings ransom for a Linux box but to each their own.

I've been a little reluctant to try the Ryzen CPU's due to how new they are.

I know what you mean Minux1 about distro expectations on hardware. While distro searching for one of my laptops some folks were really praising and suggesting Bodhi Linux. While it looked all pretty and appeared to run fast, it was one of the worst choices for the hardware I was running as it didn't detect my wifi at all.

I have 2 of the Ryzen 2000 series mobiles, and a Ryzen desktop. They work fine as long as you use a moderately recent kernel.

<$300 for a brand new 8GB quad core octo-threaded 1080p? That's CHEAP I can't deal with <1080p, everything is literally to large for me to use it as a laptop, as my arms aren't long enough to set far enough away to be comfortable. So most of the low end garbage out there I can't use.

The "low end garbage" is fine by me.

Depends on what you want your computer to do.
For me computing is pure recreation so 5-10 year old discards reincarnated into Linux boxes are fine.

On the other side of the coin a friend of mine who runs a photography business says his I7 2017 MacBook Pro with 16 GB RAM and a Retina display is "gettin kinda slow".
The use the tool will be put to pretty well dictates the kind of tool you'll consider adequate to the job at hand.

I don't mind the "low end garbage" for general use. Between those 2 links, I'd pick the Lenovo first and even then I'd want at least a 500GB+ drive in it. Right now, having a good amount of storage space AND a faster CPU clock speed are some bigger priorities b/c of doing video editing. Storage obviously for holding the video files (which they do eventually get put away on my file server) and the CPU speed to help in processing the video files faster.

Right now, I'm using a quad core at 1.6Ghz. Depending on the video and its length I am looking at 30-45min to compress all my edits to a single video file. It works and I tough it out...but if I can get it to process a video a little quicker that'd be nice.

I've always found HP laptops the most reliable and have two 10 year old ones still going strong. Good laptops and good value as well. Some are a lot more than $500 of course like the HP Spectre X360 (I got a used one of those for son for a good price - it's a great laptop and the only brand that has a convertible laptop with a fast processor - the others all use energy saving processors that are really quite slow - a few people have been caught by that. Eg the Dell xps - super popular super fast. The Dell xps convertible - very slow! I can't remember which is which now but you need to look if it's a y or u processor. A core i7 U is fast a core i7 Y could be really quite slow and slower than a core i3U. I'm no expert though - just did my research when buying a used laptop!

Assuming you're not bothered about convertibles, HP make some good standard laptops for reasonable prices - if you don't want touchscreen it's cheaper.

My list for laptops would be out of

Used HP Spectre 13 Core i7 (have one here but typing on battered old HP Pavilion DM4)
Used HP Envy 13 Core i7
This: 500GB SSD, Core i5U processor, 8GB ram. All day battery life. Don't think you could go wrong with it really. They seem to last forever in my experience!

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/comput...93333-pdt.html

Depends if 14" screen is big enough - I like that size. HP seem to have more 13" and 14" than larger ones.

Dell Inspiron are known as reliable but not sure if you'd get one for the budget.

I got this lenovo ideapad 330s ryzen 5 2400u for 222.change like brand new in an auction ebay, they're running from 300 and up. USD
8GB ram . pulled the 4GB stick out and put a 16GB stick in to get 20GB. they soldier there ram on -- stupid, others do not have to do that for a thin laptop like as thin as this one is. I just still am getting use to a 15.x" laptop keyboard, 14x" is what I am use to.

that one just keep checking ebay for that model, and look into youtube to get reviews of them and others before buying.

Oh yeah and to get into the BIOS on this lenovo ideapad 330s
haha
You have to have a sim card pin that you push into the side of a little hole to get it to boot into the BIOS. stupid - no more Lenovo's (!?!)

For me, everything is about the display. <15" must be 1080P, or I can't tolerate it. 15"+ really needs to be 1440p or it's too low (although my Latitude 3500 isn't HORRIBLE with just 1080P, but I do use it more on the dock with an external monitor than I use it directly). I'd gladly use a low end processor with 8GB ram and a 256 SSD as long as I have a good display to not hurt my eyes.

500 and under.. it meets OP requirements.
plus as stated new to almost new. that is a good price for a little quad core 1080p laptop.

yeah looking at the specs and everything look really good 14 or 15x screen then I go to look at what the screen does its only 1366 x 768, bye bye... next pls