Quote:
Originally Posted by 81MC
Hi,
Missus wants a device for running Office suite. All I need is some torrents and effective streaming. We do zero gaming, graphics or audio work with it. My current laptop is 10 years old and the motherboard just crapped out.
Looking to replace this evening, honestly with likely the cheapest laptop we can find, maybe spring a bit for something like the Asus Flip so she can easily use it on her spin bike or something.
One laptop comes with "S" mode - I understand what it is, but is it a good warning sign to just not waste the money?
Anyone experienced with any of the bottom of the barrel laptops currently on the market (350-500 range)?
I understand Chromebooks essentially can't run programs that don't come through Play. F that. Unless I shouldnt?
Thanks for any advice guys. I seriously don't care much about performance or graphics quality...it'll be used to for fitness apps and maybe downloading some old shows or something.
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My mom just picked up an Asus L410 for $270 from Walmart, which runs Windows S, and asked me to set it up the other week.
First thing I did was disable 's' mode and now it's perfectly useable for her purposes with just-good-enough specs to upgrade to W11 once that is available for it. My only nitpicks are that 4GB of ram is a little low, and it seems to run a bit hotter than any laptop I have owned in the past decade, I assume because it is fanless and not a lot of metal heatsinking to reduce size and weight. Even the processor, a Pentium 1.1ghz, seems decent enough for basic tasks and watching movies. It has a 128GB ssd which is the bare minimum I would deem acceptable, and I did notice some other L410s online dip down to 64GB ssds which I would not find useable since modern OSes take up a huge chunk of that.
I had no difficulty getting Tixati working and running video files on MPC-BE once I exited 'S' mode.
I probably wouldn't settle for it for myself due to how warm it gets on the underside, but it's definitely a strong option for a new basic use laptop. I doubt other options in the same price range run much cooler? And I do like Asus as a brand