Nov 26th 2015, 23:43:23
I have bought three lenovo laptops in the last 15 months, all under 1k (one under $400), and I've been super happy with them. These days $1k buys a lot of laptop.
If you need a laptop to carry back and forth to class I'd buy a brand name machine. You could build a lsptop - but its tricky and not cost effective. If you can get by with a desktop, the go the newegg route and roll your own.