New laptop advice - worth considering refurbished?

[Whiffle]

Hi there.

I would be really grateful for some general advice on buying a laptop to replace my current desktop PC.

One of the main motivations is space - my wife and I both now work from home and we have a really tiny office.

We are thinking of taking it in turns to use the office, whilst the other one works at a breakfast bar.

My current tower is connected to two external monitors and there are a couple of external speakers as well.

I was hoping that I could put one of the monitors in the kitchen, so we could each have an external monitor.

I will look to sell the tower but not sure how much I will get for it (i3-2105 system with 8GB Ram).

Is it advisable to consider a refurbished laptop, rather than something brand new?

I have quite a limited budget (£300 but could push this up a little bit).

 

[Whiffle]

Thanks.

I was doing a bit more research, last night, and it seems that used Lenovo Thinkpads is the way to go (cheap, upgradeable, good supply of spare parts, well made).

I haven't bought any x86 hardware is so long (have been messing with RPi and Ordoid SBCs) that I am a bit out of touch with specs.

What should I be looking out for?

I realise that I am gong to have up my budget somewhat - I think I am going to have to have a 15" inch screen and at least 8GB RAM (with a view to upgrading this at some point). SSD size is not important as I have 1TB Crucial that I will whip out of my current Desktop PC.

 

[Whiffle]

I found a deal on a Lenovo ThickPad L580 that looks pretty good - 240GB SSD, 16GB RAM, i5-8350U, Windows 11 Standard for £352.50.

Has a few scratches on it (advertised as Grade C) but does come with 1 year warranty.

Do you think this looks worth considering?

I am a bit out of touch with CPUs (especially mobile ones) but 8th generation still seems to be pretty good in this day and age.