Advice Please on low tech laptop

midlife

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I did try to find a similar thread first without success so am asking for some advice please.

I am contemplating a low tech, inexpensive, small (11.6") laptop solely for use while travelling. I envisage using it solely for email, garmin basecamp, Photo storage and possibly some go pro film footage.
Sacrilege to most of you I realise, but would a cheap Acer 2mb 32GB that I have seen in Tesco do the job? or am I really underestimating what I need?
Thanks in advance
Rob
 
I've got a cheap and cheerless Asus 1000H (10" screen), about £30 or cheaper from Flea Bay, running Lubuntu Linux and Windows XP via virtualbox. XP has no network access. This limits potential malware/ ransomware issues due in vulnerabilities within XP as it is no longer supported my Microsoft. Some may say its over kill bit it works for me. Great for on the road.

Be aware that the latest version of Basecamp will not run on XP you will need to install Version 4.2.5.
 
I did try to find a similar thread first without success so am asking for some advice please.

I am contemplating a low tech, inexpensive, small (11.6") laptop solely for use while travelling. I envisage using it solely for email, garmin basecamp, Photo storage and possibly some go pro film footage.
Sacrilege to most of you I realise, but would a cheap Acer 2mb 32GB that I have seen in Tesco do the job? or am I really underestimating what I need?
Thanks in advance
Rob

If you want to run windows, and base camp and store photos and possible film footage then 2gb of ram and 32 gb ssd will not work. 32gb is way way to small, you can get sd cards for £20 that are double that in size.
I would suggest that what ever you look for then 4gb of Ram as a minimum and at least 128gb storage, and make sure you have sd/or micro sd slot at well.

I use an old Dell Venue 11 pro, I swapped out the 128gb ssd and fitted a 512gb, but its 4gb of ram, i5 processor, bluetooth, gps, wifi, built in sim card slot. Now its a tablet but I bought the extra keyboard and the tablet locks in place so it is effectivly a laptop but the keyboard is also a battery so I get over 9 hours of use.
Mine is old now its a 2013 model but great for the road,
 
I agree with bowser - with such low RAM and storage you will struggle to store and manipulate images and especially video. You'll wait ages to edit just a few minutes of go pro footage and Basecamp will take ages to refresh pages.

The device you refer to will be fine for general internet surfing and optimised for streaming things like iplayer and youtube through a web browser in a fairly low resolution. They are nt designed for storage or manipulating large datasets like images, videos and Garmin maps.
 
Something like that would work well and they are not expensive.http://cvc2.org/best-cheap-laptop-under-300-dollars/

would not work at all as you need to have windows in order to run basecamp, or Mac OS as there is a mac version but nothing for chrome, also 32gb ssd wont give sufficient space to store photos and video, and there is not much photo/video software for chrome that is much cop.

They are great for web browsing, email all that stuff, they dont address the use for which its needed.
 
I use a Asus e402 laptop for basic stuff it has a 32gb ssd onboard and is its main limitation I also have a 64gb micro usb drive in one of the ports for storage and a 4tb raid nas drive for long term storage. Battery life is about 8 hours use it plays video etc fine and for a cheap laptop £230 is well worth the money.
 
I did try to find a similar thread first without success so am asking for some advice please.

I am contemplating a low tech, inexpensive, small (11.6") laptop solely for use while travelling. I envisage using it solely for email, garmin basecamp, Photo storage and possibly some go pro film footage.
Sacrilege to most of you I realise, but would a cheap Acer 2mb 32GB that I have seen in Tesco do the job? or am I really underestimating what I need?
Thanks in advance
Rob

as long as you do not want to edit video footage or photos and do not want to store anything much on the laptop that Acer 2mb 32GB that I have seen in Tesco would do along with a suitable external hdd of about 1tb would do you, it would not be blisteringly quick with basecamp but would do.
 
I did try to find a similar thread first without success so am asking for some advice please.

I am contemplating a low tech, inexpensive, small (11.6") laptop solely for use while travelling. I envisage using it solely for email, garmin basecamp, Photo storage and possibly some go pro film footage.
Sacrilege to most of you I realise, but would a cheap Acer 2mb 32GB that I have seen in Tesco do the job? or am I really underestimating what I need?
Thanks in advance
Rob

have a look at morgans, the specilize in end of line, you can get a tough book, ideal for traveling, as computers go almost unbustable.

http://www.morgancomputers.co.uk/pr...uch-Screen-Fully-Windows-7-pro-Rugged-Laptop/

or if you want small and dont mind second hand try somthing like this

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sony-Vaio...868422?hash=item3d39b06c46:g:tl0AAOSww3tY3kcp

Ideal for on the road
 
Many thanks for all your replies. Memory and drive size recommendations duly noted.
Bowser, the links you posted are a bit more than I wanted to spend for a travel laptop that would not get used too often, but thank you anyway.
I have stumbled across a secondhand Acer laptop with 11.5" screen, 4Mb and 320mb with 3x usb, 1 x HDMI and card slot for £100 and 30 days refund . Feel it is worth a punt,
Once again thanks everyone
Rob
 
Many thanks for all your replies. Memory and drive size recommendations duly noted.
Bowser, the links you posted are a bit more than I wanted to spend for a travel laptop that would not get used too often, but thank you anyway.
I have stumbled across a secondhand Acer laptop with 11.5" screen, 4Mb and 320mb with 3x usb, 1 x HDMI and card slot for £100 and 30 days refund . Feel it is worth a punt,
Once again thanks everyone
Rob

that should do ideal for what you want
 


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