Hey all, Its been awhile since I posted on here... jeesh I can't believe that mechanical keyboard thread is still going. Anyway: I'm looking to get a cheap and cheerful notebook which I can take on my travels. I have a PC for games, so this will be for: movies, browsing and viewing documents (although I won't complain if it'll run something like Half-Life). This is for travelling so my main concerns are battery life and portability/weight. But other than that: Size: between 12" and 15.6" (more bias towards the latter) Cost: < £350. Could go over budget if the difference is worth it, but for the little time I'll be using the notebook I'd like to keep costs low. __ Main reason I'm posting is I've seen Chromebooks offering reasonable specs for £200-250, any recommendations from people who've used one before? I know the OS is very basic, but I've read a bit on installing Windows/Linux on a Chromebook - something I'm leaning towards as I think I'd get much better bang for buck (plus I have a spare Windows key). Thanks!
http://www.ebuyer.com/724984-hp-250-laptop-g4-n1a92ea-abu http://www.ebuyer.com/711779-asus-e402ma-laptop-notebook-e402ma-wx0055h There's some good deals at the moment for decent machines
If you can live without (PC) games and manage with google docs then a chromebook would fit the bill I'd say. Pretty cheap (even the "better specced" models) and they'll work offline just fine. Movies will play ok (may need to drop them on a USB stick though) I've currently got 3 (C720P, Asus C200 and a HP 11) and they're all great for web browsing, reading docs and films. C720 is touch screen which is really a great experience even though chromeOS isn't touch optimised - also one of the few chromebooks which supports user upgrades. There are 15" ones available but personally i love the portability of the 11" devices - anything bigger gets a little bulky to carry. Recently went on a work trip and took one, no issues squeezing it into carry-on luggage. Battery life is good and they're small & light. Some will support Android apps in a few releases time (there's a list online if you google) so it'd be worth getting one on that list if you can as that'll be a killer feature. Having used some of the HP stream style windows laptops (essentially the same spec as a chromebook just with windows) I wouldn't bother. They tend to slow down after a little use and generally need "taking care" of not to fill with crud. Never had any issues/slowdown on the chromebooks unless running a load of tabs & content hungry pages. Just my 2ps worth.
On the cheap end there's the Lenovo 100S if you must have the 12" screen, or the Lenovo Miix 300 if you can handle a 10" in exchange for being able to ditch the keyboard. They have pretty much the same hardware, save for 64 gigs storage on the Miix versus 32 on the 100S.
