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We bought Walmart’s $140 laptop so you wouldn’t have to
- lordnacho 6y agoDoes this kind of device work as a simple tmux or screen device? The review sounds horrible, but I can run a terminal from a RBP reasonably at a much cheaper price point. With the screen it might make sense to compare?
- mumblemumble 6y agoMaybe read page 3 before you try. It doesn't sound like it fared too well running Fedora, either. Maybe a really stripped down Linux, without X, would work, though. Though, if your needs are so modest, why not go for an ARM-based linux laptop? You can almost certainly get something that will deliver a better experience at a lower price point. The only reason I can think of to choose something like this instead is if you absolutely need x86 for some reason.
- zozbot234 6y agoThe standard Fedora install runs GNOME and comes with lots of unneeded packages installed. Debian running Xfce (or even the old-style LXDE) will be a lot leaner and meaner on these specs, though sometimes Fedora has better hardware support.
- eyerony 6y agoI trialed a 2GB memory, dual-core-no-hyperthreading low-clocked Celeron ("hacked") Asus Chromebox as a workstation a couple weeks ago. As long as you can avoid running electron or other webshit and don't mind doing some things on the command line it could handle light tiling window managers (i3, dwm, awesome) just fine, even at 4K. Actually the Web was even pretty OK as long as I only had a couple pages open at a time and used Surf (just trying to open Firefox took so long I gave up—Surf is almost instant) If you've got a remote machine for you VMs or Docker and maybe for some remote X sessions for heavier web browsing, it's viable. Really as long as I avoided web garbage and used light software the thing felt fast. Very responsive, low input latency. Hell it even booted much faster than the beast of a machine I replaced it with (that's Void Linux's doing, by having a minimal default boot environment so the boot process isn't doing very much that I haven't explicitly told it to do, so no useless-to-me daemons or scripts slow the boot). Which shouldn't really be that surprising since my primary development and gaming desktop at one time was a fraction as powerful and did GUI multitasking just fine (including Firefox—I maintain they really lost their way as the lightweight-but-still-featureful browser we all loved after the 1.x series and have never been as good since), but, it is surprising these days when we have single browser tabs that can just about fill 2GB of RAM all on their own and forget what modern computers can do when we're not using them to run the computing equivalents of 3-legged-races. Only reasons I didn't upgrade the RAM and keep going with the experiment were 1) it could only drive my 60hz 4K display at 30hz, and 2) manually dicking around trying to fix 4K scaling issues isn't my idea of a good time and you pretty much have to run a heavy desktop on Linux to eliminate those problems without tons of fiddling, it seems, and such a machine cannot handle Gnome3 or KDE and all their background crap and Javascript (ew) and such.
- catalogia 6y agoThey tried it with Wayland/GNOME. I'm guessing something like X11/i3 would fair a lot better. I'd not buy one to test that theory though.
- neurostimulant 6y agoWith the dual core amd cpu throttled down to 1.5ghz, a cheap phone running termux is likely more performant than this laptop. For $140 you could buy a cheap android phone with a mediatek 2ghz octacore processor, 3gb of ram and 32gb storage. You can cast the screen to a chromecast, connect external/usb keyboard and launch termux, and you'll have a computing device much faster than this laptop. Heck, you can even run X via a vnc viewer if you want desktop linux running on termux.
- qqii 6y agoIt would depend on what services you'd like to run though. A decent chunk of apps may need proot to run in pure termux and others for you to root your device. Mobile (proper) Linux support for devices is still not thst great even if arm support for most applications is there.
- traverseda 6y agoI hear the pinebook pro is pretty nice.
- Theodores 6y ago640k should be enough for BASIC memes and 2Gb RAM should be enough for basic computing needs. Why they can't put together a hardware specific Linux build that performs on this sub-standard machine speaks of laziness.
- spiffytech 6y agoThey cover that in the article. The CPU is underclocked because the CPU has no active or passive cooling. And the disk has 4KB write latencies as high as 116ms. The device is designed to be legally sellable as a "computer", not to actually support workloads of any shape whatsoever.
- mobilio 6y agoIt's criminal to sell such "computer" because it's useless for any normal use other than running Notepad or browsing sites with Lynx (text mode browser). Only Linux distribution or some derivate can rescue such device from endless issues.
- fortran77 6y agoActually, the article stated that Linux didn't do much better, because of lack of cooling of the CPU among other issues.
- Joeri 6y agoI used to have a 0.2 ghz computer with 0.1 gb of ram that ran linux 2.2 very well, graphical desktop with full app complement and all the process isolation and multitasking of a modern OS. Modern software is incredibly bloated. It’s not really the kernel though, it’s everything else.
- speedgoose 6y agoThe usages are differents. You weren't doing much on your old computer compared to what people are doing today on their smartphone.
- csjr 6y agoI would love to have a cheap and ultra small laptop to carry with me while I’m on call but I need to go to the supermarket for eg. Wondering why they didn’t try a lightweight distro w/ Xfce.
- julianeon 6y agoAfter all these years, it seems like no one can beat the undefeated champion in this price range: a used ThinkPad with a Linux on it. Even today, for $140, I can find you laptop after laptop meeting that description that would crush this. Maybe in 10 years, we'll finally see new laptops winning at this. But it's been a long wait, and we'll have to wait longer, still.
- tuesday20 6y agoWhere do you buy? eBay? Is there some other reputable place to buy used ones for a first time buyer?
- kawsper 6y agoI've bought a x230 on eBay for my partner, I installed Fedora on it and that has been fine, printers are working and most of the workflow is in a browser nowadays. I've had to upgrade the keyboard once (2-3 keys fell off), but spare parts are available on eBay, and parts are very easily replaceable with an electronics screwdriver and a YouTube video, or by acquiring the Thinkpad service manual for more advanced procedures such as upgrading or replacing your screen (Which I've done to my Thinkpad X200 running Libreboot). We are also considering a battery upgrade, which is still available on eBay even for older models.
- owenversteeg 6y agoTLDR: much worse than the Pinebook Pro, unfortunately. It doesn't even have a fan, it's underclocked to 1.5 GHz max, 2GB ram on Windows 10. I'm shocked it even ran Windows. Article has some funny quotes, like "I didn't realize it was possible to get a PCMark performance score of zero" and "We in the PC business refer to this as 'load-bearing electrical tape'. "
- afterburner 6y ago> It doesn't even have a fan Nice for the reduced noise, and less moving parts to break down, though. And less dust buildup.
- zozbot234 6y agoThe article mentions that it doesn't even have _effective_ passive cooling, nothing beyond a thin copper heat-spreader. You can't possibly expect more than Raspberry Pi levels of performance from this device.
- cerberusss 6y agoI wonder if its purpose isn't simply to watch Youtube. It has a Full HD screen. It's 11-something inches, but still Full HD.
- afterburner 6y agoI mean, your phone has a Full HD screen (or better). They keep getting more and more common in laptops as manufacturing switches over.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- chrisseaton 6y agoWhat screens aren't 'Full HD' or more these days? It's a really old low resolution.
- cerberusss 6y agoWhenever I see Full HD, I think fist-sized pixels. However, it's an 11-inch screen and the article mentions: "The display on the EVOO is FHD 1080p, not the 1366x768 typical of many cheap laptops". So in this case, I think it's not all that bad.
- freehunter 6y agoFull HD is another word for 1080p. What about Full HD makes you think of fist-sized pixels?
- chrisseaton 6y agoOnly a thousand rows is pretty low these days - you can definitely see the big pixels on everything except a tiny screen.
- eyerony 6y ago
- xwdv 6y agoThis would be good for a burner laptop running a Linux OS in RAM.
- fortran77 6y agoWell, no, because according to the article it didn't do too good a job with Linux either. An old laptop is a good Linux burner laptop (like what I use for DEFCON -- except I usually run Windows 10 on them).
- smabie 6y agoI'm sure it would run, say, Arch Linux with a basic wm like tvwm or cwm just fine. I have a pentium 4 with 512mb of ram and everything works great. Even Firefox is reasonably snappy. The kernel, Xorg, and wm together shouldn't use more than 50-100mb.
- jellicle 6y agoI bought a cheap laptop (very similar) from Dell. It was worthless. Ars is correct that the disk space available is completely insufficient to run Windows, no upgrades can be performed, and also you cannot turn off Windows upgrades, and also a pending Windows upgrade completely disables the machine, and also you cannot add external storage and run either Windows or the upgrade process from said storage (Windows MUST download, expand, and install the upgrade from the C:, no exceptions). So: it's a paperweight as sold, completely unfit for any purpose at all, and any class action lawyer who wants to can probably make their rent for the year by taking on these laptops sold from multiple major sellers. "A scam" would be a nice way of describing them, selling something completely non-functional. They can run Linux, sort of. Not well. Acceptably for some purposes.
- dbolgheroni 6y agoIn Brazil, if you want to go beyond the 1366x768 screen resolution, you'll have to pay a lot more than those $140.
- to11mtm 6y agoBased on conversations with some colleagues from Brazil (working in the US under work visa) it is due to the taxes that Brazil has on imported electronics/computer goods. This has had some notable side-effects on Brazil's computing and gaming industries however, perhaps the most visible of which Tec Toys and their Genesis/Mega Drive 'port' of Duke Nukem 3D.
- Cactus2018 6y agoDo Walmart's tablets next https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/05/walmarts-99-android-tablet-actually-looks-pretty-good/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/05/walmarts-99-android-...
- bluedino 6y agoStill not a better deal than the Acer C720 from 7 years ago. That thing was a legend.
- gruez 6y ago>At first, I mistakenly assumed that the A4-9120 was just thermally throttling itself 24/7. [...] I found the real answer—the normally 2.5GHz chip is underclocked to an anemic 1.5GHz. The system BIOS confirms this clockrate but offers no room to adjust it Is this legal? I mean, it's technically true that there's a A4-9120 processor in there, and the clockrate isn't listed on the product page, but it's heavily misleading to the consumer what the actual performance is.
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago> Is this legal? US Legal System: I will make it legal!
- fortran77 6y agoThey really shouldn't sell a product that doesn't work.
- karavelov 6y agoSounds worse than explicit fake from Aliexpress.
- jokoon 6y agoThat seems nice if you install xfce on it... Honestly I don't understand why they're saying it's a bad laptop. If you remember Wirth's law, you can easily understand that as long as you can manage to use a set of lightweight software, $140 will still do a lot. Some people can live without a pickup truck and ride a city car. It's all about learning. I'm all for minimal, cheap hardware that can run lightweight software. I'm confused why some people seem to dislike cheap hardware. When climate change will hit and hardware price skyrocket, you will see software losing A LOT of weight.
- JeremyNT 6y agoIt's mostly bad because it ships with Windows Home, and there's almost nothing you can do with a windows home box with these specs. If you compare it to something like a raspberry pi (and consider that it has a much better CPU and a bunch of peripherals included), it seems a lot more useful. But even so, it's only useful to somebody with a specific use case in mind, and not the general audience who would buy a machine at Walmart and expect it to work.
- rjsw 6y agoI have an HP convertable laptop/tablet with similar specs. It runs Zoom fine which is the main reason that I bought it. Not being able to update Windows 10 because of the size of the eMMC drive is a benefit. I keep Windows Update disabled anyway, newer Windows 10 versions keep re-enabling for you and download updates over paid network connections.
- livre 6y agoI also own one with similar specs but a lesser known brand. Something that worked for me to be able to upgrade Windows 10 was this: 1. Compact.exe /CompactOS:always 2. Enable compressing the whole C drive (right click, properties) 3. Clean %TMP% and C:\Windows\Temp 4. Use the new control panel storage options to clean temporary files 5. Use the old tool to clean temporary files (the one in C drive properties) because the new panel does a half-assed job 6. Defragment the disk 7. Manually remove old downloaded updates (I can't remember the commands for this) After all those steps I had about 14 GiB free, enough to upgrade Windows. The problem with that cheap thing? Nothing after or before the 15XX editions of Windows 10 works well, Windows blocks the drivers (battery management, wireless, accelerometer, sound and a few others) due to "compatibility issues." Now I'm stuck with a version that doesn't work and unable to downgrade (windows.old is long gone). It doesn't help that Microsoft doesn't offer old .iso downloads.
- Animats 6y agoI have about half a dozen EeePC 1001PX subnotebooks. I get them on eBay for about $30, and use them for things Raspberry Pi enthusiasts use boards for. You get a keyboard, screen, disk, power supply, and case. I wipe the disk as soon as I get them and put XUbuntu on them. None have failed in 8 years. I had to replace the battery on one, which takes 15 seconds, and you can buy replacement batteries.
- zozbot234 6y agoWorth noting that some netbook/nettop class devices are 32-bit only, which might be a bit limiting these days. The EeePC 1001PX device you mention seems to come with a 64-bit capable CPU though, so you're probably OK there.
- wazoox 6y agoI found one forgotten on a shelf for years at the office. After wiping Windows XP and installing Debian, the failed battery for some reason decided that it was fine after all and healed itself into a working state. This is a perfectly usable free, ultra-small laptop :)
- agapon 6y agoYou don't get any GPIO though.
- ZoomZoomZoom 6y agoI'm lurking over currently sold low-spec laptops from Lenovo, Dell and HP, and I'm completely baffled these brands aren't even trying, even though the cheapest models end up ~2 times more expensive than those Chinese OEM machines. I just want a sub 2kg machine in [11-14)'' range with FHD, CPU at least on par with Ryzen 2200g (which is not quite the newest model) and slotted RAM for under $400. All I see is 15" models with poor TFT displays and RAM sizes that would be a downgrade from my 10 year old Acer!
- musicale 6y agoI'm kind of surprised that Linux wouldn't work well on it - the EVOO has better specs than an early 2000s PC, not to mention Unix workstations from the 1990s that people did all kinds of engineering, scientific, and programming work on. > ultra-modern kernel, and lightweight Wayland display manager That might not be good. How about a stripped-down kernel (Linux or BSD) and old-school X11 with twm (flwm if you must.) > The laptop frequently took as long as 12 seconds just to launch Firefox Ah well, that's the problem isn't it - the modern web and all of its baggage. I think we need something lighter than Firefox that still works OK with Youtube. Maybe NetSurf?
- zozbot234 6y ago> Ah well, that's the problem isn't it - the modern web and all of its baggage. Pretty much. You're absolutely fine on this class of machines and even quite a bit lower - unless you expect to browse a website that requires substantial JavaScript.
- qes 6y ago> The laptop frequently took as long as 12 seconds just to LAUNCH Firefox Apparently, that needs emphasis.
- user5994461 6y agoIt's criminal to sell laptops with only 2 GB of memory. It's just enough to boot up and swap to death permanently. I can't figure out why Microsoft doesn't enforce minimal requirements for OEM vendors to ship Windows. It's hurting their reputation and their userbase. Customers try shitty laptops like that and blame windows for being horribly slow and broken.
- tmzt 6y agoBecause for a while they put a maximum on it instead. At the time, netbooks were growing organically and could be had with 2 or 4 gigabytes un some cases, with Linux for less that the Windows version. Microsoft countered this with cheaper versions of Windows that were limited to lower specs, such as 2 gb. This was the so-called "starter edition" of XP and similar licensing programs for Vista. The policies might have changed with Windows 10 (not sure), but the legacy remains.
- Giorgi 6y agohmm, I thought article would be about "Motile" which is Wallmart's private label (Tongfeng) and is pretty amazing for the price point, only issue I have noticed so far is rubber pads being damages because of the stupid glue they used. Other than that - It's a good one.
- sdinsn 6y agoSeems strange that they didn't include a fan... I bought a $300 ASUS laptop a while ago, and it runs surprisingly well. In my opinion, the best 'budget' price range is 300 - 400, less than that will be too bad
- NikolaNovak 6y agoIn my experience this part is simply untrue: "With only 2GiB of RAM, the EVOO won't be able to run anything without hammering virtual memory (swapping data from RAM to disk and back again). Beyond that, a 32GB SSD simply is not enough room for Windows itself, let alone any applications. The first time the EVOO tries to upgrade to a new build of Windows 10 (for example, Windows 10 build 2004, which just released last month), it will fail due to lack of space." I have NO idea how... But my little media pc with 2gb and 32gb has not only worked great last few years, but literally last night went through windows 10 upgrade.. And has 16gb free space this morning (Did have to do disk cleanup to get there - but it was literally a single check box). On my other Computers,windows takes 70 plus gb after a while. All articles indicate DO NOT delete winxs and other huge directories.. Yet this windows does something differently and has been ticking GREAT with those specs for years.
- mycall 6y agoI've used PatchCleaner [1] for many years to make room. Sometimes I need to copy missing install package files back to Windows to complete an uninstall or upgrade, but that is small price to pay. [1] https://www.homedev.com.au/free/patchcleaner https://www.homedev.com.au/free/patchcleaner