On Thu, Apr 27, 2023 at 10:50 PM William Park via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

Hi all,

Following the current thread on "cheap small computers", I've been browsing again. I have 11.5" chromebook and am looking for similarly small but decent laptop to run Linux on. I looked at 15", 16", 17" laptops, but decided that even T450, that I already have, is too big.

I've been eying ThinkPad 11e laptop, partly because Lenovo has been spamming me. Is there any alternatives you know of or recommend?

Last year I bought an ASUS W202, a small low-end laptop that I've installed Debian on. I like it, but serious gamers and other power users beware to keep the price down, this small laptop, with a modest 11.6-inch has somewhat low performance. I like the W202, and as long as you understand that this is NOT a desktop replacement laptop but rather a collect notes / data for later transfer to a desktop PC this can be a fine choice. My $0.02. Colin.

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| From: William Park via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | Following the current thread on "cheap small computers", I've been browsing | again. I have 11.5" chromebook and am looking for similarly small but decent | laptop to run Linux on. I looked at 15", 16", 17" laptops, but decided that | even T450, that I already have, is too big. It all depends on what you value. Each of us is different. You've been clear that you want small. Do you care about: - price? (Probably not as much as I do.) - battery run time? - CPU power - disk capacity, speed and upgradeability - RAM size and upgradeability - format: eg. 360 degree hinged clamshell, tablet with keyboard and kickstand, conventional clamshell | I've been eying ThinkPad 11e laptop, partly because Lenovo has been spamming | me. Is there any alternatives you know of or recommend? Which "Gen"? There are several different models. Lenovo blew out ones with pre-Zen AMD processors which were terrible. The one I see at lenovo.com seems overpriced to me. https://www.lenovo.com/ca/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad11e/thinkpad-yoga-11... - $333.66. Never pay attention to Lenovo's list prices! - Pentium Silver N5030 processor (Atom micro-architecture) Probably OK if you value battery run-time; not if you want crunch. - 8G DDR4 RAM (good for this price point); soldered (no upgrading) - display: + 11.6" (good) + 1366 x 768 (unacceptable to me) + IPS (good) + 250 nits (not so great) + touch (I kind of like touch but it isn't very important in a notebook) - disk: 128GB SSD m.2 2242 + much better than eMMC + can be upgraded later but the physical size is not common + if you want to dual-boot Windows and Linux, 128 GB is large enough for the OSes but only leaves you about 50GB for your data - format: 360 degree clamshell ("Yoga"). I like the good old clamshell form factor. I don't find that a 360 degree hinge is a big advantage to me. It usually makes the device heavier. - I often like ThinkPad brand stuff. But this one is aimed at the education market (k-12 students). That may have affected some design trade-off. =================================== This looks like an excellent deal if you can replace ChromeOS with Linux. You can with some Chromebooks but not all. Is 14" too large? <https://forums.redflagdeals.com/lenovo-canada-thinkpad-c14-chromebook-14-c-intel-laptop-price-error-440-70-i5-1245u-8-gb-lpddr4x-4266mhz-256-gb-ssd-2615275/> It is worth reading more than the first message in the thread if you are interested in buying one. There is an option for a better display, for example.