Crazy Cheap Acer 11" Netbook / Laptop on Sale

I just ordered an 11.6" laptop for $129. Yep, $129. That is crazy.
Sure, it isn't a speed demon but $129. This would make a low power NAS, linux ultralight.

I saw my newsfeed flash a sale for an 11.6" notebook at $179. I went online to Best Buy and refreshed the page and it dropped to $129.99. This was around midnight on 2014-08-19. It sold out quick. It is an Acer Aspire 11.6" E3-111. The RAM is upgrade-able so I'll throw in an 8GB stick I have lying around.

It has a N2830 Celeron which isn't particularly fast but it has the same specs as the ASUS C200 Chromebook. It is completely fanless, so this should be very interesting.

I will update with a review once I get it.

Edit: This was legit. If it was a price mistake, Best Buy did honor the price and I picked it up.

Acer C7 Chromebook Quick Review

So I ended up getting an Acer C7 Chromebook. It was $122 refurb so I figured why not.

The Acer C7 Chromebook (C710-2847) is basically a rebadged, re-worked 11.6 netbook running Chrome OS. It is based off the Acer Aspire V5-171. Acer didn't do much to the design except swap out a few keyboard labels.

It is as boring as it gets. 11.6" screen with piss poor viewing angles and an anemic battery life of 3 hours. Did I mention I got it for $122? That is the saving grace. The chassis is made of the cheapest tupperware plastic that can be found yet it manages to pull down 3 pounds in weight. This is a half pound heaver than the Samsung Series 3 Chromebook.

So how does it compare to the Samsung's ARM based Chromebook? See below.

Generally speaking, the Acer is much faster due to the fact it is running an INTEL processor. There are various benchmarks showing the speed advantage of the Acer. It also has three USB ports, a VGA port, HDMI, and an 10/100 ethernet. The Samsung model lacks the ethernet, one less USB and does without the VGA. I can see the advantage to having the onboard ethernet for some scenarios.

Also, because it runs on an X86 platform, it has a much wider selection of INTEL only applications like VNC Viewer which is unavailable on the Samsung.

Another advantage to the Acer is it the fact it has a 320GB storage. That may or may not be important to you but with 320GB, you can probably store quite a few MP4 movies for local playback. Hence, the Acer isn't a total disaster. It is also much more upgrade-able. You can easily up the RAM cheaply and this makes it a decent UBUNTU portable netbook if you are so inclined to go that route. The 3 hour battery life can be fixed with a larger 6, 9 cell battery that you can buy later on.

However, I would still pick the Samsung over the Acer. The Samsung has a better fit-n-finish. The screen, keyboard, and trackpads are much better. The keyboard on the Samsung has better travel and the trackpad operates with less glitches than the Acer. The Acer also heats up under use. The Samsung can be used on a lap while lounging whereas the Acer gets warm after a few minutes. Lastly, out-of-the-box, the Samsung has a better runtime of 6-7 hours.

So there you have it. My short take on the Acer C7 Chromebook. Did I mention I got it for  $122!

Goodbye Thinkpad X120e. A Long term review.

I just recently unloaded a trusty X120e on Craigslist. It served me well for over a year and it is now time for a newer Linux machine. A Thinkpad T420/T430 is now calling my name.

This post is going to be  a long-term review of the Thinkpad X120e.

Released in March 2011, the X120e, along with the HP DM1, were the first wave of AMD based Fusion ATOM killers. Unlike a typical netbook, these had better performing GPU (AMD calls them APU) and larger screen size.  Before the "ultrabook" craze, there were cheap netbooks and the Macbook Air. Since I already have a Macbook Pro, it made no sense for me to get another one. With a project that required Windows 7 and Kinect,  this machine landed on my lap. Since, I've been using this as a secondary/third computer.

I've been through various netbooks starting from the original Asus EEEPC 701, Acer Aspire One to a Dell Mini 9. The typical netbook resolution at 1024x600 was a god awful. So this was an improvement at 11.6" and 1366x768 resolution. Furthermore, it didn't feel as crippled and dog slow as the Atom based CPUs.

A bit bulkier than normal, it still was very light weight at 3.4 lbs.  Some notable feature include an SD slot, 3 USB ports,  and HDMI. Very much like any typical netbook except this was a Thinkpad. Some people wouldn't call it a real Thinkpad but to me, it was close enough The red nubby trackpoint and black plastic is what makes it a Thinkpad for me. I am a big fan of the Thinkpad no-nonsense spartan black business look.  Plus, there was the legendary Thinkpad reputation of their keyboards. The chicklet keyboard is one of the best I've used with decent amount of travel.

Battery life under Linux is about 5 hours. I hardly ever use Windows 7 but when I checked, the indicator always indicated 6.5 hours with aggressive power management.

As for upgrades, I added 8GB RAM and a 120GB solid state drive SSD. Despite the low-end CPU, the machine was rather snappy for my occasional use (database queries, shell scripting, and connecting to overseas VPN for downloading large files). I didn't play any games or watch any movies on it so I can't comment on multimedia capabilities. With the SSD, Ubuntu boots into login in about 15-20 seconds.

I had no problems with Ubuntu 10.10 and 12.04. Everything pretty much installed without a hitch. The microphone works, SD mounts, it goes to sleep, WIFI connects, HDMI works.  In other words, none of the typical Linux laptop nightmares. The only major complaint is the inability to power 1080p resolution in a dual display setup. It does not have enough processing power to run 1366x768 built in display and an external 1920x1080p at the same time. I could run 1024x768 along with a HD monitor. The other solution is just to run an external monitor and power down the built in LCD.

If you are looking for something medium budget, this or the newer 130e may be worth some consideration.