[GTALUG] Thinkpad choices today?

[Giles Orr]

On 14 November 2014 14:54, Daniel Wayne Armstrong
<daniel at circuidipity.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 2:15 PM, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh at mimosa.com> wrote:
>>
>> One thought is a cheap throw-away notebook as a placeholder until
>> something good comes along.
>>
> [...]
>>
>> This generation of dirt-cheap Windows notebooks use eMMC SSDs: small,
>> slow, and soldered in.  The M.2 SSDs used in the Acer C720 Chromebook
>> we have is much better: faster and replaceable (but smaller still).
>> And the C720 has a Haswell-based Celeron.  I discovered yesterday that
>> it can even drive my UHD TV set (3840 x 2160 @ 30Hz).
>
>
> Second the C720 Chromebook as a cheap and cheerful Linux laptop. I replaced
> Chrome OS with Lubuntu 14.04. My install notes (with Synaptic config):
>
> http://www.circuidipity.com/c720-lubuntubook.html
>
> Bit hard to find on sale (at a reasonable price) in Canada... though Newegg
> and Tigerdirect had some refurbished units on sale a few weeks back for
> $170CDN.

I was going to second the C720 comment, but I'm reduced to third
because Daniel beat me to it.  I have the same Chromebook he does (I
think mine has a bigger SSD than his, but they're otherwise
identical), and its been lovely.

My experience with the Atoms has been that my 2010 Atom-based netbook
makes my 2005 Pentium-M laptop look like an absolute speed demon.  I
really, really don't like the Atom.

-- 
Giles
http://www.gilesorr.com/
gilesorr at gmail.com