Buying a laptop

mrwaistcoat

I know there are chromebooks...and I know there are (very expensive ) Linux laptops coming out now....

I am looking to buy a laptop, but on a budget

sad to say, having looked into it a lot , the best option seems to be to buy a cheap windows laptop

I will probably install lxle onto a usb3 hard drive (really cheap now ) and boot into that to test out hardware comparability. I'll probably also use windows (with open source software ) until I feel brave enough to fully wipe it. Reckon if I get an Intel cpu with an Acer I'll hopefully be ok..,:

In the UK, I can buy a half decent laptop for £250, compared to about £600 for a linux designed one

hopefully the prices will come down in time...

shame the chromebooks only have a tiny SSD...,

lxle

Set a base price, a low base price, buy the best laptop you can on ebay. Take all the usuals into consideration, memory, hdd, processor, cache, etc. Stay away from celerons, and then throw a nice lightweight linux on it. To me finding a good deal on an old laptop or pc and renewing it with a lightweight linux is equivalent to restoring old furniture. Incredibly rewarding and at least to the user/owner, valuable.

Zaka

Amen to that, lxle.

That's exactly how I picked up my Thinkpads (T400). They suck up LXLE like a charm and are built like tanks.

You can find quite a few that have new SSDs in them to make them saleable, and often, they will be formatted with Ubuntu. Simple enough to reformat with LXLE.

Corporate Thinkpads go off-lease in batches and are picked up for a song and they show up on eBay with fantastic prices.

I'd rather have a used two or three year old Cadillac than a new econo-box any day.

mrwaistcoat

Thanks both. That sounds like really good advice

I've really enjoyed using lxle on old machines, but it's time for me to experience it on something very decent!

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories