Which laptop is better for $299?

In my opinion, the Lenovo, for a few reasons.

Firstly, Lenovo laptops are very reliable. Mine is still running like new after 2 years of fairly heavy use, unlike my previous HP and Acer laptops which died from hardware failure within that time.

Also, Lenovo has better build quality. My Lenovo was inexpensive and it's built like a tank. Contrast that with my Dad's more expensive Toshiba which feels like it's going to fall apart at any second.

Thirdly, Lenovo do not cut as many corners as some manufacturers do. Now I'll admit that Lenovo do put pretty poor displays in their low-mid range laptops. But this can sometimes be forgiven, considering you still get one of the best keyboards in the world and a great trackpad. And again, I'll make reference to my father's Toshiba, which may as well have a trackpad made of Playdough.

And last but not least, the Lenovo has a slightly better processor here. AMD E1's are the most basic of the basic processors, and really pretty nasty and best avoided. The Celeron is still going to give you some pretty speedy performance for low-demand tasks.

Toshiba

AMD E1s are probably some of the worst available today. Even my father's Intel Celeron 900 on his 6 year old laptop is barely beaten by most of the E1s.

I would get that lenovo for the better CPU, and possibly better build quality and reliability from what people say. I've never seen a Lenovo laptop in person so I can't say much. Even if I did I couldn't since quality and reliability varies greatly within each brand.

Anything that doesn't have an AMD E1 is the better.

The Toshiba is better for programming and heavier duty work where as the Lenovo is better for internet browsing and writing word DOCs

hope this helps!