Recommend A Laptop For Me Please

**mkmanifesto** · October 14th, 2013

This is what I just went with a couple weeks back...

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-i...&skuId=1751582

I'm currently running ubuntu 12.04 LTS with no problems. Everything works out of the box.

**Smallwheels** · October 14th, 2013

mkmankfesto you say everything works out of the box. Does that include the touch screen? Of course that machine is out of my price range this year but it is a good looking machine especially if the touch screen works well.

Last month I realized that for my needs I don't actually need an i5 or i7. The graphics cards on some of these machines have improved enough that videos on low end machines shouldn't be choppy.

I watched a video on Youtube about building a serviceable desktop machine for under $200. Right now I have my HP that has every feature I want other than USB 3 and a faster processor. I bet I could buy an i5 and a new board with USB 3 and install them with the other parts in the tower that I have and use regularly. This would be much cheaper than buying a new machine. I've never done it before but I can follow instructions to the T if I can get help with it. That is why I just want to get a good low end laptop for under $400. The Acer C720 is looking good but it is so new that there aren't any posts about people installing Ubuntu on one.

More suggestions in my price range are welcome. Anybody with great experience with something more expensive is welcome to give their opinions too. I just won't be spending beyond my budget.

Thank you.

**mkmanifesto** · October 15th, 2013

Originally Posted by Smallwheels

mkmankfesto you say everything works out of the box. Does that include the touch screen? Of course that machine is out of my price range this year but it is a good looking machine especially if the touch screen works well.

Last month I realized that for my needs I don't actually need an i5 or i7. The graphics cards on some of these machines have improved enough that videos on low end machines shouldn't be choppy.

I watched a video on Youtube about building a serviceable desktop machine for under $200. Right now I have my HP that has every feature I want other than USB 3 and a faster processor. I bet I could buy an i5 and a new board with USB 3 and install them with the other parts in the tower that I have and use regularly. This would be much cheaper than buying a new machine. I've never done it before but I can follow instructions to the T if I can get help with it. That is why I just want to get a good low end laptop for under $400. The Acer C720 is looking good but it is so new that there aren't any posts about people installing Ubuntu on one.

More suggestions in my price range are welcome. Anybody with great experience with something more expensive is welcome to give their opinions too. I just won't be spending beyond my budget.

Thank you.

Honestly that is one thing that doesn't work out of the box. I haven't even attempted to work with it and I don't have plans to ever use the touch screen. As soon as I bought this system I booted straight to USB and formatted the drive for Ubuntu 12.04. According to what I've read its not a hard thing to get working, but in general I would never buy a laptop Windows, Mac, or Linux with the intention of even interacting with a touch screen.

**NotCras** · October 15th, 2013

Originally Posted by Smallwheels

NotCras what processor is in the C7? How well does it play videos? My computers can play videos OK but they both have a bit of slowness when opening Youtube videos and such. The first fifteen seconds of video always stutters and jerks around until the graphics section of the computer can load the data and play it properly. This is the most frustrating thing on my Mac Book. It has old built in GMA X3100 Intel graphics.

The c7 has a 1.1 ghz Dual core intel celeron processor with an Intel HD2000 gpu. As I said before, its nothing that special at all. I tested several youtube videos just now. The network I was on had a low load. The computer loaded youtube videos at 720p pretty well. No issues there, but every now and then I'll get strange visual glitches and lag at 1080p. Enough that I can't watch it. So if you're fine with 720p, this should be great!

**hidden2** · October 16th, 2013

Originally Posted by NotCras

Since people brought up chromebooks I'd like to put my own two cents into this. I am using an Acer c7 with Chrubuntu installed, basically makes two partitions and puts ubuntu on one and chromeos on the other. Just to give you another option, I would recommend getting a c7 because its cheap, and unlike other chromebooks, it has a large hard drive size. Its got a 320 GB HDD. It's practically begging to get for ubuntu.

As I said, it's also ridiculously cheap ($200-250). Performance is nothing special, but its does its job. I use mine primarily for word-processing, internet browsing, listening to music, and watching videos/youtube. I have no experience rendering videos on it, so I can't give you anything on that. Its a 1.1 ghz intel celeron processor, so I don't know.

I just hopped over to the Acer website and can't find a C7 with a 320gb HDD. Can you provide a link for this Chromebook?

**NotCras** · October 16th, 2013

Yup! Here is a link from Amazon that I used to get mine. Its a little more expensive now because it was on sale... sorry about forgetting about that
http://www.amazon.com/Acer-C710-2487...LWU_B00BB9OXK2

**Smallwheels** · October 20th, 2013

The Acer C 720 is looking like a good alternative to the more expensive machines out there. All it needs is Ubuntu and an external storage medium to make it usable for conventional computing. I would still like some more suggestions.