On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 2:15 PM, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh@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.

(o< .: Per curiositas ad astra .: http://www.circuidipity.com
(/)_