Budget Laptop for Linux?

[Kent Pirkle <kpirkle@mindspring.com>]

I'm looking at buying a low cost laptop to run Debian on. 

A lot of the big names are making low-end consumer laptops
in the $1000-$1400 range like the IBM Thinkpad iSeries, the
Compaq K6 laptops, etc. From the Laptops on Linux page, it
looks like some folks have had problems getting some of these
to work under Linux.

I've also seen a lot of refurbished older laptops that were
higher end models in the $399-$799 range. Usually P133-233 range,
with 32Mb+, 2GB hard drives, etc. A lot of these seem to have
more support under Linux because many of the problems have been
worked out since they came out.

What is the better choice for a Linux laptop? I know Linux can
make better use of older hardware, but is that a better way to
go than the low end, cheap new hardware?

Thanks,

Kent Pirkle