
We bought Walmart’s $140 laptop so you wouldn’t have to - keyi
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/06/we-bought-walmarts-140-laptop-so-you-wouldnt-have-to/
======
julianeon
After 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
Where do you buy? eBay? Is there some other reputable place to buy used ones
for a first time buyer?

~~~
1MachineElf
In my case - and I've purchased 10 of these over the years - it's exclusively
eBay. I check the description and photos carefully to see if there are any
issues or defects. Only one time did I receive a laptop that was basically a
dud - an X61 from many years ago.

I've also bought a couple old 32-bit models from e-waste recyclers who were
open to me just grabbing them from out of a pile of to-be-disposed-of
equipment.

Not sure where you're located, but if there is a MicroCenter nearby, the I
recommend them as well. Sometimes they stock these in refurbished condition,
and from my inspections of the laptops, they're in good shape. Only buy if you
can look at first-hand at the store.

Sites like NewEgg, TigerDirect, and Amazon also have these, but the reviews
generally don't seem favorable. One major difference is that with eBay, you
can view multiple pictures of the exact laptop you will be buying. With those
other sites, it's just a stock photo, and it seems like there's less quality
control over what's grabbed from their warehouses.

Also it's worth mentioning that refurbished Dell Latitude and HP EliteBook
laptops are comparable. There seems to be less demand for these than Lenovo
ThinkPads, so often you can get better specs for the same price. In my
experience, the Dell Latitude laptops have maintained greater backwards-
compatibility with older docking stations. If you're into embedded development
or ever want to connect to a headless server directly, then only Dell will
give you that docking station with a serial port. The drawbacks is the
TrackPoint on a ThinkPad is always guaranteed to be there, while it's an
optional feature with Latitude and EliteBook, and even when it is there, it
isn't as good as what IBM/Lenovo has engineered. Another drawback is
refurbished Latitude laptops often have dedicated GPUs, which is great for
Windows, but often a pain for Linux.

~~~
LargoLasskhyfv
Fully agree to alternatives like Lattitudes and EliteBooks. While the
"ecosystems" aren't as large as those of ThinkPads, i.e. no Wikis and such,
the hardware manuals are available and of the same quality/usefulness.

I think there is a certain inertness in perception of available choices,
quality-wise. While ThinkPads _were_ great for a time, that Nimbus should have
faded by now, but it mostly didn't, although it makes no sense.

The really good ones are so old by now, that they are almost useless, except
for terminal use.

The newer ones are only _so, so_ , and the really good ones make no sense
economically imo.

Then there are the mentioned alternatives. But it depends on geographic
availability, time, i.e. when a large batch of refurbs enters the market, and
so on. It has something of looking for flotsam on the beach :-)

Anyways, if you know hardware/what to do, then you can get great value with
better options for periphery like docking stations, displays
(ratio/resolution), simply more bang for the buck with about the same build
quality as the ThinkPads of yore once had.

Prime expamples are small adaptors from the µSata for the 1.8" HDD to
something more modern, for under 10USD a piece. Oh, and compressed air for
really cleaning, new thermal grease or pads.

If you do this more often you can save insane amounts of money by getting a
small compressor instead buying canned air.

Just saying...

------
Animats
I 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.

~~~
wazoox
I 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 :)

------
jellicle
I 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.

------
lordnacho
Does 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
Maybe 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.

~~~
catalogia
They 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.

~~~
majewsky
Or rather Wayland/Sway to get a modern i3 experience without the dead weight
of X11.

~~~
catalogia
My experience with that is that it runs hotter. X11 may be full of cobwebs but
it doesn't run hot, at least in my experience.

------
musicale
I'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
> 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
> The laptop frequently took as long as 12 seconds just to LAUNCH Firefox

Apparently, that needs emphasis.

------
ZoomZoomZoom
I'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!

------
csjr
I 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.

~~~
bigums
Pinebook Pro. I use it for this exact purpose. Small, portable, cheap, and
relatively durable. I keep it in the truck while I’m on call in case I need to
jump in and fix things on the go.

~~~
csjr
Going to check it, thanks for the recommendation!

------
NikolaNovak
In 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
I'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)

------
cerberusss
I 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.

~~~
chrisseaton
What screens aren't 'Full HD' or more these days? It's a really old low
resolution.

~~~
cerberusss
Whenever 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
Full HD is another word for 1080p. What about Full HD makes you think of fist-
sized pixels?

~~~
chrisseaton
Only a thousand rows is pretty low these days - you can definitely see the big
pixels on everything except a tiny screen.

~~~
eyerony
A thousand rows wasn't impressive in 2000. I think people've forgotten (or
weren't around for, so don't realize) how big a step back we took on picture
quality and pixel density for monitors, for many years, with the switch to
LCD.

~~~
chrisseaton
Right - I swear I remember running CRTs at 2000+ rows in the early 2000s. Now
people seem impressed with 1000, even on fairly expensive full-sized laptops?

~~~
zozbot234
You weren't running those CRT's on _laptops_ though. The laptops of the time
had low res displays with very narrow viewing angles.

~~~
chrisseaton
When I look on Amazon for desktop monitors, I also see products proudly
boasting that they're 'Full HD'. And what's more we seem to have stopped at
Full HD - weren't most LCD monitors Full HD like ten years ago? What's going
on?

~~~
freehunter
If you're not seeing 4k and 5k monitors, you're not looking hard enough.
They're plentiful and pretty cheap these days.

~~~
chrisseaton
> If you're not seeing 4k and 5k monitors, you're not looking hard enough.

I didn't say I wasn't seeing them, though did I?

I'm saying I still see monitors with this ancient low FHD resolution. When you
search for hard drives you don't see 2005-era capacities as your first result.
Why do we still see 2005-era resolutions as our first result for LCDs? And
some of them cost hundreds of dollars - the same price as in 2005.

------
gruez
>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
> Is this legal?

US Legal System: I will make it legal!

------
user5994461
It'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
Because 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.

------
dbolgheroni
In Brazil, if you want to go beyond the 1366x768 screen resolution, you'll
have to pay a lot more than those $140.

~~~
to11mtm
Based 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.

------
Giorgi
hmm, 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.

------
Cactus2018
Do Walmart's tablets next
[https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/05/walmarts-99-android-...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/05/walmarts-99-android-
tablet-actually-looks-pretty-good/)

------
sdinsn
Seems 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

------
bluedino
Still not a better deal than the Acer C720 from 7 years ago. That thing was a
legend.

------
fortran77
They really shouldn't sell a product that doesn't work.

------
karavelov
Sounds worse than explicit fake from Aliexpress.

------
owenversteeg
TLDR: 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
> 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
The 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.

------
xwdv
This would be good for a burner laptop running a Linux OS in RAM.

~~~
fortran77
Well, 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
I'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.

------
Theodores
640k 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
They 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.

~~~
Joeri
I 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
The usages are differents. You weren't doing much on your old computer
compared to what people are doing today on their smartphone.

~~~
Dylan16807
I spend most of my smartphone use reading text, maybe with a few images, or
listening to mp3s with the screen off. You can fit those uses just fine into a
hundred megabytes of ram and a slow processor.

------
jokoon
That 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
It'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
I 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
I 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.

