So my Chromebook is getting a bit long in the tooth now, it still works 'OK' for what I need but it struggles with graphics-heavy websites, can be somewhat laggy doing Google docs/drive stuff, and is very much in that space where it's often not pleasant to use. (The Celeron processor and 2GB RAM were clearly the constraining factors.)
Now don't get me wrong here, I bought it 4 1/2 years ago for £200 so I'm not complaining at all, but it needed to be replaced.
https://www.beexcellenttoeachother.com/ ... 12#p834912Initially I was going to replace it with a better Chromebook, but to get out of the 'junk spec' range (i.e. at least at i3) you need to spend a few hundred quid, and you're still making the 'Chromebook Compromises' in the process. I was looking at spending £400-£500 on a nicely specced model, when this turned up on special offer for £300 at EBuyer. (Picture below.)
Allegedly it was reduced from about six billion pounds (£629 IIRC) but saner prices seem to put it around the £400-£450 mark, which is exactly what I was looking at spending on a Chromebook of similar (or lesser!) specs, at which point you may as well get full-fat Windows really.
Anyway it turned up today and it's pretty nifty. First off it didn't come pre-loaded with too much crap, just McAfee and a Cyberpower Suite of bollocks to uninstall as the main offenders. Thereafter it was the usual Windows rigmarole of updates and configuration, but it's all a lot less painless than it used to be, and the nippy processer plus 256GB SSD made it pretty quick to do.
Got it signing in with my Microsoft account for OneDrive and that, plus signed into Chrome for all the Google side of things. It runs Hearthstone nicely, Spotify is installed with my playlists stored locally, and overall it runs like an impressively snappy Windows system.
4GB RAM is a bit mean but OK for what it will be doing, however the main headlines are the dual-core i3 with hyper-threading at 2.4GHz, and that 256GB SSD which is (a) A nice amount of storage and (b) Very fast.
It's even got some aluminium in the build for the main keyboard part of the shell, the rest is plastic though.
Oh yes proper 1080p screen too.
Unfortunately EBuyer have sold out now (they cleared their entire stock on the special offer day), but if you see them pop up again at this price point there or anywhere else, they're a proper bargain IMO.
Chromebooks stop making sense when you can get a nicer specced Windows 10 machine for the same (or less!) money.
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