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Need a cheapo machine for gf's school stuff

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etherealfocus

Senior member
I just saw the AT review of the Acer C7 Chromebook for $200 and my first thought was "ooh, I can put a spare Win7 license on that and give it to the gf so she can replace her crappy old Samsung N210 netbook" (which still works, but the battery's dead and it's about $30 of a new one, ie 15% of the cost of a new C7). So I figure I can pry sell the N210 for $80ish even with a dead battery, then blowing $120 for a new machine with better keyboard, better screen, better CPU, twice the RAM, and a warranty isn't a bad deal at all. I'm not using Win7 anymore anyway, and the gf hates Win8 so it sounds like a perfect upgrade.

My only question: is there any assurance that Win7 (or 8 for that matter, whenever I convince her to upgrade) will actually work on a Chromebook/the C7 in particular? I'd imagine it's just a regular netbook with a different OS, but don't wanna be surprised by a lack of Windows drivers for some random part.

Also, any indications on the relative battery life of Windows vs ChromeOS? The states 4 hrs on the C7 is already only acceptable because it's so cheap, and dropping to ~3 hrs would kill the value proposition.
 
Same notebook with Windows.

I'd get the linked one. More RAM, Windows license included. Simple.

Also, there's some BIOS trickery. So it probably won't boot Windows ever. There's youtube tutorials on installing Ubuntu.

Also, if you have a household/family pack of Windows Licenses, your gf probably doesn't count.

The CPU's actually a dual core. I admit I'm intrigued.

<Insert snide remarks about upgrading your girlfriend to one whose academic goals requires better-than-netbook computing experience here.>
 
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$320 for the same thing with a Windows license? Color me unimpressed - that's not much cheaper than a decent entry-level thin and light like the Asus X401 (older version comes with a Pentium G960 or thereabouts, saw it for 350 at BB a few weeks ago). Acer's probably paying $30-40 for the Windows license and the extra RAM is worth like $15. Besides, I have the Win7 license I'm not using so that's a freebie. Not a family pack, just one that was attached to an old desktop I pawned off to a Linux guy on craigslist.

As for the gf upgrade, I built her a pretty nice desktop (just a Pentium G620/4GB/1TB but it does everything it needs to with a 23" monitor) for real work and gave her my last laptop (14" Sandy i3, 4GB, 320GB) for heavy mobile stuff. She just wants something lighter/with longer battery life to carry to class for note-taking. She's a sociology PhD student and mostly just uses SAS, SPSS, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Firefox.

I've been working on picking up SAS myself actually... it's a pretty cool app, though I'm not a stats ninja by any stretch.
 
Too bad about the BIOS shenanigans; it would've fit the bill perfectly. And probably been a bit less horrible of a typing experience than that N210. Yuck.
 
etherealfocus said:
Besides, I have the Win7 license I'm not using so that's a freebie. Not a family pack, just one that was attached to an old desktop I pawned off to a Linux guy on craigslist.
Click to expand...

Also not legit. 😛

As for the gf upgrade, I built her a pretty nice desktop (just a Pentium G620/4GB/1TB but it does everything it needs to with a 23" monitor) for real work and gave her my last laptop (14" Sandy i3, 4GB, 320GB) for heavy mobile stuff.
Click to expand...

Get her a pair of these.
 
Retail license, not OEM. I build my own, thanks.

The weight issue is one of back/shoulder strain, not muscles. Packs get heavy with a few fat books and a laptop. Maybe we'll just wait for some cheap knockoff of Surface, cause that'd be about perfect.
 
etherealfocus said:
Retail license, not OEM. I build my own, thanks.
Click to expand...

Touche.

It occurs to me that, if she's just using it as a note taking machine, couldn't you just get the $200 Chromebook and install Linux/Openoffice on it? As I mentioned, the Ubuntu installation is pretty well documented online.

Or even just use it as is and do the cloud sync thing.

Surely, if she's getting her PhD, her brain won't turn to mush if she has to use a slightly different UI. Or is SAS Windows-only? (Not familiar with it. But even then, it might run in WINE or a VM. Or, if she's still on-campus, she can RDP into her desktop.)
 
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SAS is Windows only, and I believe SPSS is too (not sure on that). The PhD as mentioned is sociology - she's good at using her programs but really isn't a computer person despite being with me for almost 4 years.

Given that she still gets frustrated with the UI changes in Win8 despite it being on the desktop, laptop, and netbook since the beta, I doubt if she'd appreciate Ubuntu - much less the headaches that always come with WINE. RDP into the desktop is a possibility, but it's sluggish especially over the crappy UNT wifi system. We can't even login sometimes.

Seems like the correct answer here is just to either spend a little extra on a somewhat overpriced battery or just let her keep taking the laptop to school. I can probably trade it for something smaller like a used Asus X301 and get the best of both worlds.

Actually, it'd pry pay to replace the battery even if we just sell the netbook. I asked her about it a while back and apparently the slightly-larger-than-a-cellphone keyboard doesn't bother her so much. Maybe I just hate it because I have giant gorilla hands. 😛
 
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