• tsonfeir@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      It’s always better to buy the better thing. But, you can get a Chromebook for under $80 USD if you can operate on a 16gb disk. < $300 can get you a ton of features. This is obviously not for heavy tasks.

      • cerement@slrpnk.net
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        9 months ago
        • can also use them as an alternative to Raspberry Pis
        • if you can work with tight limitations, you can go down to $30 or less
        • schools tend to be trying to get rid of palettes of the things because of Google’s policy of end-of-lifing the things after only a couple years
          • dan@upvote.au
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            9 months ago

            If you’re in the USA or Canada, take a look at https://www.govdeals.com/. A lot of government agencies auction off their old equipment on that site, including public school districts.

            If you’re lucky, pallets of 150 Chromebooks or other lower-end laptops can be had for $1000-2000 ($6-$13 each) plus taxes and fees. You have to arrange your own pickup though - none of the auctions offer delivery.

            Not guaranteed to be in perfect condition of course - they were used in a school after all.

          • cerement@slrpnk.net
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            9 months ago
            • a previous how-to (Reviving Chromebooks with Ubuntu) mentioned just talking to the IT contact for your local school
            • without going into a whole palette, search eBay for: chromebook lot of – people selling anything from lots of 4 to lots of 15, generally averaging $20 each (pretty much guaranteed to be expired, would check models against Chrultrabook for usability)
      • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
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        9 months ago

        Yeah, if you just need something to browse the internet and edit documents, it’s hard to do better than a Chromebook. A lot of them have insanely good battery life too since they are so light on compute power.

        I got one during my last couple years of university for around $200 that was so light you could hold it level with just your thumb and two fingers, and the battery lasted so long that I would sometimes forget to charge it after a whole day and it would still be good for the next day. I toyed with installing Linux on it, but at the time the experience was pretty horrible, so I stuck with the vanilla OS.

        • tsonfeir@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          Ubuntu Budgie ran really well. It is an HP 11 G5, 4 ram 16 disk. Most things are pretty snappy, but with that low of ram and no space for swap, it’s advisable to do only a few things at once.

    • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.netOP
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      9 months ago

      Both of which are generally a lot more money than a chromebook. I think this is a good guide for people who cannot afford those options, or already have a Chromebook they’d like to tinker with. :)