Yet another new laptop thread!

[suttonred]

Yeah be careful. Most manufacturers have ditched those for usb c connections. Not many even have HDMI any more. Lunacy. I agree with PV I was always a dell man, but Lenovo very rarely fail

[Simon Pieman]

Lovely.  But the one problem, which shows the luddite nature of the wife and the IT department, she really wants it to have an ethernet port so the internet can be hardwired.  Despite our wifi being good she  and the IT seem to think her being kicked off the VPN is to do with glitching on the wifi.

You can get one of these which solves the problem.

https://www.ebuyer.com/870789-lenovo-thinkpad-usb-3-0-ethernet-adapter-4x90s91830?mkwid=s_dc&pcrid=51508046099&pkw=&pmt=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIhuel1rCQ6QIVhcx3Ch0cvwepEAYYBSABEgJnrPD_BwE

[Saxondale]

Thankyou.

[suttonred]

Get 2 though.

[Kinky Tom]

Hi folks, I'm thinking of getting a refurbished Chromebook, all I'm wanting it for is to reliably run iFollow, Sky Go and BT Sports to connect via HDMI to my TV.  

I dropped my laptop a while ago so replaced the physical side of things with a refurbed hp machine which works perfectly but has no hdmi port, this wasn't a problem as I also have a shitty linx windows tablet which has a mini hdmi port which was sufficient for what I needed it for but it's so unreliable insofar as the mini hdmi goes, I've had to buy so many cables and it's so temperamental projecting to the TV now.  It'll still do what I might need it to do as a tablet for travelling etc so I don't need anything else from a Chromebook other than stated above.

I don't care if and refurbed machine has no battery life as I'll only ever use it domestically so can be plugged in.  I've found a couple, namely the Dell 11 and the Acer C720 available for £109.99.  I've never had any experience with a Chromebook and I see a few saying that for basic needs they're fine.  

Anyone with any experience able to offer thoughts on how well they scale up to large TVs and if they tend to lag live streaming?  Also, is it worth waiting for Prime Day 2020 to buy a new one?  I've never checked in for Prime Day so have no idea how good the deals tend to be.

Sorry to go over old ground and thanks.

[Peter Venkman]

Not much help with Chromebooks as they are not my speciality, sorry, but what I have is an old core i5 4490k with 32gb memory running off an old 250gb ssd and a R7 250 GPU, I built it onto a wooden opencase that I put together from old bits of wood, thats plugged via HDMI cable into the 60 inch TV for when I need to watch films from HDD and streaming from iFollow/Netflix etc.

Basically what I am saying is that do you not have an old PC sat around even with shit hardware that has a HDMI output from GPU that you can use rather than buying a CHromebook/laptop etc? as you do not need the use of it being portable.

I built mine so it can easily slide into an empty under TV cabinet as its about 15w by 10l by 6 inches high all inclusive with power supply etc too.

Just a thought, if you were closer to me I have loads of old PC internals like that you could have had for bugger all that would do the job.

Anyway in answer to your initial query....I have found that Black Friday/Prime Day deals are decent if you are in the right place at the right time but they also go very quickly and you tend to save no more than 5 to 10% at most.

Or look around and pick up an old laptop with a broken screen for peanuts and run it on HDMI to TV?

Just a few options mate, sorry to not be of much help.

[horlock07]

Stupid question, what's the difference between a Chromebook and a 'lap top', is it just a size thing i.e. used to be the whole lap top/note book thingy?

[Peter Venkman]

Stupid question, what's the difference between a Chromebook and a 'lap top', is it just a size thing i.e. used to be the whole lap top/note book thingy?

Mostly just operating system, one uses Chrome OS or Android and the other Windows 10 basic.

[Kinky Tom]

Thanks PV, some good ideas, my dad was a self employed computer consultant for many years and built countless PCs but I think any left over parts from his time are redundant now.  I don't think I have anything kicking around I could re-purpose myself.

Only other thing I should have mentioned is that sometimes if I'm working while we're playing I plug into on of the TVs at the bar if it's not too busy so it would be best if it were portable for at least that reason.

Thanks for the thoughts though, I'll see if there are any laptops that are still running but with broken screens like you say, good shout.

[horlock07]

Mostly just operating system, one uses Chrome OS or Android and the other Windows 10 basic.

Ta, learnt something today!

[Sippo]

A lot of people don’t realise you can install chrome os on any old kit. I have used 5 year old hardware and chrome just flies. Don’t throw old kit out, reuse it.

[Peter Venkman]

A lot of people don’t realise you can install chrome os on any old kit. I have used 5 year old hardware and chrome just flies. Don’t throw old kit out, reuse it.

Absolutely, old tech is fine, even a 15 year old Pentium 4 with 4gb ram can act great as a Chrome machine or even Windows 7.

I am given probably 20+ old PC systems every year ranging from 20 years old to under 3 years old and I refurbish them, clean them out and instal either a free OS or Chrome/Android/Lunix OS and donate them to the local charity store to either sell on or give away, at most these systems would reach no more than £150 and often about £50 to £100 and they hardly worth selling for that price and they are donated to me so I pass them on to those who need them.

I have also given several away to the local "special needs" schools so they can give them to parents for their children knowing that if they break them it has cost them nothing.

Basically unless you have parts older than about 2001 you can still reuse them as servers/homework machines/internet browsers for zero cost.

[Simon Pieman]

Thanks PV, some good ideas, my dad was a self employed computer consultant for many years and built countless PCs but I think any left over parts from his time are redundant now.  I don't think I have anything kicking around I could re-purpose myself.

Only other thing I should have mentioned is that sometimes if I'm working while we're playing I plug into on of the TVs at the bar if it's not too busy so it would be best if it were portable for at least that reason.

Thanks for the thoughts though, I'll see if there are any laptops that are still running but with broken screens like you say, good shout.

The HP laptop I kept when I left my job has a display port output. I got a display port to hdmi cable and it works fine. Does yours have anything similar?

[Kinky Tom]

Cheers Si, I do have a vga port so could get an adaptor but then that presents the problem of audio.  Having had more of a look around I've ordered a refurbed CB for £90, it just ended up seeming the least bother.  Thanks for the help though.