I suspect that the popularity of tablets is putting tight pricing requirements on today’s laptops. For surfing and lightweight computing needs a tablet is hard to beat.
I keep a couple of older DELL laptops. One originally had Windows XP on it and the other had Vista. That gives you an idea as to their vintage. I stripped off the old Microsoft OS and put Linux on both. They both fly now and the cases, screens and keyboards are OK.
Cool! Sounds like some nice setups you have there!