Expect To See Sub-$250 Laptops in 2H 2014

[exfileme]

Here comes the wave of value-priced Windows 8.1 laptops.

Expect To See Sub-$250 Laptops in 2H 2014 : Read more

 

[dextermat]

ugh.... hp and atom in the same laptop.....

 

[InvalidError]

I would not use one of these things with less than 2GB RAM: all the swapfile trashing with only 1GB if doing anything useful on one of those would eat through the SSD's write endurance on fairly short order.

 

[TheMentalist]

Good for a starting web developer.

 

[joaompp]

I just threw up in my mouth alittle

 

[CaedenV]

It is great to see a little resurgence of cheap laptops again. Everyone knocked the old Netbook design (sometimes for good reason) but it really was a great thing that I wish more manufacturers took more seriously. I picked up an Acer win7 basic netbook back in the day and pimped it out with a 500GB HDD (came with 80GB) and 2GB of ram (came with 512MB lol) and that thing was awesome once you got all of the crap-ware off of it. I use to plug it into the output of mixing boards and record audio for local plays and shows and use that feed for the master audio for video editing later. The great thing about it was that you could set it to record, close the lid, and hide it behind the audio equipment so that you knew for sure that nobody was going to mess with it; and with the screen and wifi off it would be able to record 6-7 hours of content on a single charge so I didn't need to bring my power cord either. Granted if the wifi and screen were on then you would be lucky to get 2-3 hours on a charge which was problematic for other things like long school classes and whatnot, but it was still a great little $280 laptop with ~$150 in upgrades.

Today we have much better displays, much better processors, much faster drives or embedded memory storage, and could make a much better and cheaper netbook... but the only real competitor in the space is the ASUS T100. And don't get me wrong, for what it is, it is really great, but it would be nice to see something with that same form factor, screen, processor, etc. which could hold more than 2GB of RAM. 2GB of ram is simply not enough for a modern x86 machine if you have documents and browsers open to do school work. That same little box with double the memory however would be a great little system that would last a good long time.

 

[NeatOman]

if you knew where to look 2 years ago you could have been getting NEW laptops for $250 from ASUS with a Celeron 1000m (1.8 dual core with 2mb cache), 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD with a 14" screen and 4 hour battery life (ehh).

*not on black Friday either.

 

[canadianvice]

Low cost laptops like these are built to fail. I always tell people when I'm at work to buy something more expensive or get the warranty, because I've seen that these inevitably fail within the span of 2 or 3 years (always after the MF warranty though).

Oh well, a lot of them have learned the hard way that not every salesperson is just lying scum.

 

[iceTorch]

5 hour battery life is alright but IM spoiled by the 8 hour battery life on chromebooks.

 

[Gabriel Fonseca]

Oh yay, 10" screen coupled with a Atom CPU... reminds me of the horrid "netbooks" that were made a few years ago that were so bad that companies stopped making them and then started selling again and just calling them "ultrabooks" Sadly I have seen the Haswell Celeron do daily tasks twice as fast as even the quad core atom chips.. Ouch!

 

[thundervore]

Great to see the small laptops showing their heads again but it needs at least a 1024x 768 resolution. The old netbook resolution sucked so bad that websites didn't display correctly.

Also needs at least 6GB ram and a quad core processor

 

[InvalidError]

Great to see the small laptops showing their heads again but it needs at least a 1024x 768 resolution.

Tons of websites these days do not look right on anything lower than 1200xYYY so resolutions under 1280x720 really need to go away.

 

[el_Fenix7]

I would rather they go with an amd apu, the extra graphics helps incredibly on these cheap laptops.

 

[InvalidError]

I would rather they go with an amd apu, the extra graphics helps incredibly on these cheap laptops.

You won't be doing much gaming on a $250 laptop with only 1-2GB RAM and a 16GB SSD even if you had an A10 in there... not enough RAM to run any but the most trivial games remotely well and no storage to install them..

 

[el_Fenix7]

I would rather they go with an amd apu, the extra graphics helps incredibly on these cheap laptops.

You won't be doing much gaming on a $250 laptop with only 1-2GB RAM and a 16GB SSD even if you had an A10 in there... not enough RAM to run any but the most trivial games remotely well and no storage to install them..

Not even just for gaming, but for general usage. Also there are more than just triple A titles out there. and the requirements allow for a 500gb hardrive with the ssd.

 

[canadianvice]

Oh yay, 10" screen coupled with a Atom CPU... reminds me of the horrid "netbooks" that were made a few years ago that were so bad that companies stopped making them and then started selling again and just calling them "ultrabooks" Sadly I have seen the Haswell Celeron do daily tasks twice as fast as even the quad core atom chips.. Ouch!

Ultrabook was a trademarked term that Intel would only allow the use of if minimum standards were met. Ultrabooks most certainly were not netbooks. They had to have horsepower and parts as part of Intel's minimum requirements that placed them in fairly good straits.

 

[Bananaman8910]

Looks like Microsoft is taking Chromebooks more seriously.

 

[InvalidError]

Looks like Microsoft is taking Chromebooks more seriously.

With Intel and Microsoft's repeated failures at making significant headway in phone and tablet form factors, they had to put out something different like going back to basics to see if there is still a market for low-cost compact laptops.

For maybe 90% of the stuff I do on my N7, the lack of a physical keyboard, even as nothing more than a more ergonomic grip or self-support base for long reading sessions, bothers me more than performance.

 

[applegetsmelaid]

Atoms are the hot dog meat of processors.

 

[nero912]

Meh you can get brand new AMD A8 15inch laptop in 300 USD.

 

[damianrobertjones]

5 hour battery life is alright but IM spoiled by the 8 hour battery life on chromebooks.

Oh god the new fancy buzz word of Chromebook! There's windows laptops that have long battery life as well (usually with FAR more ram and storage)

Looks like Microsoft is taking Chromebooks more seriously.

What does this have to do with Microsoft? This is really more to do with the OEMs realising that they REALLY can sell crap to consumers (again - Just like all those Chromebooks and $150 tablets)

Wake up people... Try not to throw your cash away on crap.

 

[photonboy]

Asus already has a $250 laptop which has very good customer feedback.

A $200 to $250 can work just fine. I know plenty of people that only need basic graphics, 2GB of RAM and minimal CPU power as well.

You could even attach it to a 1920x1080 monitor for home usage.

 

[K-beam]

Low cost laptops like these are built to fail. I always tell people when I'm at work to buy something more expensive or get the warranty, because I've seen that these inevitably fail within the span of 2 or 3 years (always after the MF warranty though).
Oh well, a lot of them have learned the hard way that not every salesperson is just lying scum.

Uh, my 9" eeePC from 2008 is still working with WinXP. My son dropped it on the tile floor and the hinges are now quite loose, but the thing just keeps on going
Just 1 month ago I took it along for a PPT presentation and with the screen off it was only 50% at the end of the day (with the upgraded 8-cell battery).
The thing just won't die

 

[InvalidError]

The thing many people fail to understand when it comes to reliability is that semiconductors hardly ever fail (first) in a properly designed product and the engineering + parts cost of going from crappy electronic design to something that seemingly just won't die is often less than a dollar on a $200+ item.

 

[canadianvice]

Low cost laptops like these are built to fail. I always tell people when I'm at work to buy something more expensive or get the warranty, because I've seen that these inevitably fail within the span of 2 or 3 years (always after the MF warranty though).
Oh well, a lot of them have learned the hard way that not every salesperson is just lying scum.

Uh, my 9" eeePC from 2008 is still working with WinXP. My son dropped it on the tile floor and the hinges are now quite loose, but the thing just keeps on going
Just 1 month ago I took it along for a PPT presentation and with the screen off it was only 50% at the end of the day (with the upgraded 8-cell battery).
The thing just won't die

Lucky you. The years I've worked in retail however suggest a larger trend - the number of people who get screwed by cheapie systems is large enough that people should be concerned. Plus, that's a netbook. Those were designed to work and be cheaper - it's not so easy with a properly sized laptop that isn't running half a gig of RAM.