Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Pulled the Trigger ...

... on a new (OK, new to me) Chromebook.

Where I was:

I had a reasonably priced but also reasonably state of the art 15.6" Asus Chromebook on my Amazon Wish List. The screen on my previous Chromebook went out and it would have cost more to replace it than I deemed worth paying (may still turn that Chromebook into a "headless" desktop, since it's newer than my existing Chromebox). I've removed that item from the wish list.

Where I am:

I'm about a month out from a trip to Missouri so I need to get my traveling computer needs seen to.

Got an email this morning from Newegg. Clearance sale time! $79 for a refurbished HP Chromebook that hits my three main requirements: At least 14" screen (this one is 14"), at least 4Gb of RAM (this one has 4Gb) and an Intel rather than Arm CPU (check).

Not ideal -- I like the biggest screen I can get, and since this model is from 2015 it's unlikely it will run Android apps and certain it won't run native Linux apps -- but I hardly ever use a laptop except when traveling and I seldom travel more than a week or two of every year, so I think I can put up with a slightly less than optimal machine for a lot less money for that amount of time.

One of the triggers, obviously, was the clearance sale email from Newegg.

The other was an AMA question yesterday from Thane Eichenauer  about $79 "PC on a stick" machines. For the same price I just got a better processor, more RAM, and three times as many USB ports, not to mention a built-in screen, keyboard, and mouse.

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