I looked up what my cheap workhorse was that saved my life years ago. The current version of it is the Dell Latitude E7450 . You can get one that:
* has “full HD” screen, 1920×1080
* SSD solid state drive
* 14″ screen and a nice keyboard, not too big
* 8Gb ram is good
* 8Gb ram is good
* i5 processor is good, specifically i5-5300u is common
One reason I like it is that it’s extremely cheap. You can get any of these, and they are still much better than what you got from Walmart:
* https://www.ebay.com/itm/-/
* https://www.ebay.com/itm/-/
* https://www.ebay.com/itm/-/
A couple of pointers for shopping on Ebay:
* 30-day return policy is required! Don’t buy electronics without a return policy.
* you may choose to buy extended warranty from squaretrade.com, $30-90 for 2 years, it used to be an excellent deal because everything breaks in 2 years
* you may choose to buy extended warranty from squaretrade.com, $30-90 for 2 years, it used to be an excellent deal because everything breaks in 2 years
* when searching, limit your search to “buy it now”, not an auction. Don’t bid on items that don’t have a “buy it now” price.
* sort by price+shipping descending.
So your search for “dell latitude e7450”, only “buy it now”, sorted by price+shipping descending, make sure that return policy allows you 30 days, and look into description of blemishes, and decide from these.
Ebay is an excellent place for hardware refurbishers. There are facilities that will process tens/hundreds of used laptops and list them for sale. They deal in volume, you get a good deal and the vendor accepts returns by USPS no questions asked.