It used to be that processor technology was quite sluggish to change between 2010 to 2018 but since the arrival of ryzen, even new low-end laptops are comparable to mid tear models from the 2-3 years ago.
I am thinking of buying a thin and light with at least 4 cores. The new ryzen CPUs especially the 4300U and the 5300U are offering a lot in $400 laptops like the HP ones.
If I try to get 1-2 gen old laptops, the best I can get it are the ones with 8th gen i5s and they would bill be around $250 to $300. Is it worth buying a 2-year-old laptop for that, keeping in mind that there will be some drawbacks for $100 to $150 difference:
battery condition
SSD usage
no warranty
internal issues?
lacking screen improvements?
I am going to explain #5 a bit here. I see this in phones all the time. A screen from 2015 with 1080p resolution will be far inferior to a 1080p screen from 2019. Is this in laptops too?