Help Buying A School Laptop

I am looking for a small, low cost, laptop for school. Ideally I would like an 11.6 inch laptop with a long battery life. I will be running linux, so the operating system doesn't matter. My price range is anywhere between 300-500 dollars. I have been looking at the Samsung Chromebook 2, but was wondering if there were any better alternatives. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.