[SOLVED] What computer to buy?

How about this computer

ASUS VivoBook F510UA FHD Laptop, Intel Core i5-8250U, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD, USB-C, NanoEdge Display, Fingerprint, Windows 10, Star Gray (F510UA-AH51)

Awesome deal on it right now $500.00. Also watching a couple from Beachboy2’s suggestions on eBay right now but the Asus seems like a great deal if it will work with Linux.
Thanks all your advice is appreciated and is helping me get closer to a purchase.

Those new Kaby Lake refresh chips are something nice. 15 watt quad core hyperthreaded. I'm waiting for a business model to offer them for me to upgrade.

Originally Posted by Timothy Miller Those new Kaby Lake refresh chips are something nice. 15 watt quad core hyperthreaded. I'm waiting for a business model to offer them for me to upgrade.

So do you think this Asus is a good deal? Reviews on the seller make me a little nervous they seem hit and miss with their products but wouldn’t Asus or Amazon stand behind it?

Can't speak for the seller, but the laptop is top-notch other than the fact that it has a spinning platter rather than a SSD. But a cheap 256 GB SSD and upgrade the drive and that thing will fly.

Also, EXTREMELY small for a 15.6" laptop. One of the few 15's I like due to it not being THAT much larger than a lot of the 14's.

Originally Posted by Timothy Miller Can't speak for the seller, but the laptop is top-notch other than the fact that it has a spinning platter rather than a SSD. But a cheap 256 GB SSD and upgrade the drive and that thing will fly. Also, EXTREMELY small for a 15.6" laptop. One of the few 15's I like due to it not being THAT much larger than a lot of the 14's.

Also have a watch on this one

Lenovo ThinkPad T420 i5 2520M @ 2.50GHz - 320Gb HDD - 8Gb RAM - DVD-RW It’s only 90.00

Great keyboards. One potential pitfall of that is it will never get a BIOS patch to address specter vulnerability (I have a T430, same boat). So that could be a dealbreaker for some people.

Originally Posted by Timothy Miller Great keyboards. One potential pitfall of that is it will never get a BIOS patch to address specter vulnerability (I have a T430, same boat). So that could be a dealbreaker for some people.

Good to know . Thankyou

This problem is almost solved I have stumbled on a free Lenovo ThinkPad E530 with a i5-3210M CPU @ 2.50 GHz; 6 GB of ram and 465 GB storage. It is currently running windows 10 Pro is this a good candidate to load Linux Mint on and is there anything any of you would do to upgrade it first. Thank you in advance to all those who have been so helpful to me already.

This is a good candidate actually. I recently found out that Lenovo is planning to release a BIOS update to the ?x30 series laptops to address specter next month, so it'll get patched for that, and the 3rd generation core chips that uses are actually much faster than many that followed (since they switched the U chips, they were more efficient and better IPC, but so much slower in actual frequency that overall the Ivy Bridge was actually more powerful).

If you can find one inexpensively, I'd get an SSD for it. I have 2 500 GB spinning drives and an SSD for my T430, and the SSD is SIGNIFICANTLY faster booting, faster at launching programs, faster shutting down. Feels like a much faster machine with the SSD in it.

Originally Posted by Timothy Miller This is a good candidate actually. I recently found out that Lenovo is planning to release a BIOS update to the ?x30 series laptops to address specter next month, so it'll get patched for that, and the 3rd generation core chips that uses are actually much faster than many that followed (since they switched the U chips, they were more efficient and better IPC, but so much slower in actual frequency that overall the Ivy Bridge was actually more powerful). If you can find one inexpensively, I'd get an SSD for it. I have 2 500 GB spinning drives and an SSD for my T430, and the SSD is SIGNIFICANTLY faster booting, faster at launching programs, faster shutting down. Feels like a much faster machine with the SSD in it.

Thank you Timothy I will look into that. Considering I am getting the laptop free I am not opposed to some investment for improvements.