Need an inexpensive Windows 10 laptop?

[papaof2]

Education version with 11.6" screen (small, but most kids have better eyes than I have)
4GB RAM, 64GB M.2 SSD (small SSD by current standards, but can be replaced)
Intel Celeron N3350 (2.4GHz) (Not a racehorse by any means but OK if you're not doing serious graphics, or desktop publishing or large number-crunching)
Win 10 Pro, 64 bit (hardware does not support upgrade to Win 11 - possibly why it's so cheap?)
Ports include: (2) USB 3.1, HDMI, Headphone Jack

But it's only $79.99 plus tax and shipping (free shipping with Prime)

If it weren't for the small display, it would be a good replacement for the laptop that's monitoring the solar power system - and it probably idles (screen off) at less than 10 watts. But I'm old and that display needs to be at least 15.6" for me to be able to see 90% of the data in a readable font size ;-)

If you have a kid in need of a Win laptop, it's the same price as the Black Friday Chromebook at Walmart, and it's less than a new license for Win 10.

sellout.woot.com/offers/dell-latitude-3180-11-6-windows-10-laptop-4?ref=w_cnt_wp_0_1

Last day Nov 27 unless sold out sooner.

I'm tempted but I spent those dollars on solar upgrades yesterday - I'll have to think about this one a little longer...

[papaof2]

I'll know more about the Win 10 computer on Thursday. I ordered one in the wee hours of Sunday norning and UPS is telling me they'll be doing Wednesday afternoon/evening delivery (this one is coming from Tampa).

I'll have to work with some of the features such as TPM (Trusted Platform Module, a secure chip for storing passwords and the like) to see if I want to use those things, figure out how much writing/reading I can do using an 11.6" screen - but I can increase the font size in Word to something readable ;-) and how much of my "writing toolkit" software will fit on the 64GB M.2 SSD. The motherboard will support a 128GB M.2 SSD and those start at $12.99 (and go up to about $180) so I'll guess the fastest ones have prices with three digits before the decimal :-(

It does have multiple USB 3.x ports and a MicroSD slot, so there are other options for "storage" and I see no major problem with writing while using some references on a thumb drive. If the keyboard is too small or the touch pad is not to my liking (I have some strong opinions about both), I do have a wireless keyboard and mouse that I like - something used with the Raspberry Pi, a hand-sized Linux computer I've also been learning about - and yes, I usually have several projects going at any given time...

I did a word count of the dozen-plus "not ready for prime time" stories yesterday. They range from 500 words to more than 50,000 words (that's a novel that needs a good wrap-up and neither muse has been helpful). Collectively, there's something over 150,000 words of potential future reading waiting for me to have enough inspiration to finish it. There are even two chapters of a Jack Wilson tale with a working title of "Not a War, This Time?" Again, I'm running out of inspiration long before I run out of time to write - no more three days in a row of 2000 or more words each day :-(

I checked my writing log for the first three days of "I Hate Being Old" (Yes, I even track that. ;-)
9182 words 14 Dec
5833 words 15 Dec
3662 words 16 Dec

Rare to have that much inspiration, but those are the days that get a story finished quickly ;-)

[papaof2]

The small Win 10 'education' laptop arrived yesterday and I spent several hours getting all the software I wanted installed, including Softmaker Office. If you buy Softmaker Office when it's on sale, it's a good deal because the license is for 5 PCs for home use so the per-PC price is very reasonable. I prefer Word 2003 because the screen is less cluttered but this laptop does not have an optical drive. I copied the Office 2003 CD to a .iso file on a thumb drive and I might try installing it tomorrow - there's WinCDEmu that allows Windows to "mount" a .iso file and use it as though reading a CD (within limits).

I've gotten one error message from the TPM (Trusted Platform Module) and the laptop can't create a "Hello" login (PIN instead of a password at microsoft.com) after MANY tries. I'll give that a day and try it again.

The keyboard is decent for a small 'chiclet' keyboard as the keytops are a good size and well-spaced for the size of the device. The display is good, the graphics are reasonably fast considering the CPU is a Celeron chip, which is the Yugo of Intel CPUs ;-) Decent audio for a small package.

The Yugo has been the butt of many jokes and a Volvo dealer in Atlanta was once *giving* a Yugo to anyone who bought a Volvo. I think that might have been a White Elephant gift ;-)

The biggest positive for me is the laptop's battery life. Based on the use I gave it yesterday, the battery would last maybe 8 hours of writing and web researching. There's also the weight factor - maybe just under 4lbs.

The biggest negative is the button-less touchpad - the "Alt + tap right side of pad" for a right click doesn't work for me so I have a Logitech M185 wireless mouse on order - less than $10 delivered from eBay.

[papaof2]

Still dabbling with the laptop. Not happy with Softmaker Office - too many hours using Word - so Softmaker out today and Office 2003 in. Now if I can just remember how I got the macros I wrote into the toolbar...

It can run the solar monitor software so I now have a long-running battery-powered device for working on the solar controllers ;-)

Still working on getting VB6 Pro installed - it's not supported on anything newer than XP but others have found work-arounds so I have some analysis to do. Not so much for future big coding projects but for maintenance of existing utility programs - maybe tomorrow...