My main laptop is an off the shelf mid range (mainly black) Toshiba. It works just fine as is but i might upgrade a little later.
I have two others (packed up at the moment) one is an absolutely knackered laptop, which was free, poor specs but works fine with Linux.
I'm also building a desktop for free, it was a challenge from a friend. I've collected some of the stuff i need i'm just on a hunt for working motherboard.
FB