Have you considered looking at factory certified refurbished laptops? For example, the
Dell Outlet has stuff for cheaper, but with the same warranty as new.
I went a slightly different route and got a used laptop off EBay. It was one of those resellers who buy up used top notch equipment from companies, wipe the hard drives, reinstall the OS, and then sell them on EBay with a limited warranty. It's been fantastic. Perfect for my needs and cheap.