
Ask HN: Is there a Market for low-spec laptops with long battery life? - bananicorn
I could imagine there would be a market for that (maybe there&#x27;s even already supply, but I don&#x27;t know of any machines marketed as such)
Maybe chromebooks, but they&#x27;re quite restricted machines out of the box.
I&#x27;m asking because I&#x27;m surprised how long my &quot;new&quot; used laptop (a Fujitsu lifebook) lasts me - with moderately heavy usage it&#x27;s around 8 hours.
And I could even add a second battery, damn.
But does anyone know of new, comparable laptops?
I won&#x27;t buy one in the foreseeable future, but I&#x27;d be interested if there&#x27;s anything viable in case this one ever breaks.
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zulln
You can install Linux on many Chromebooks, something to keep in mind. I was
looking for an extra computer a while back and it actually seemed to be the
best option.

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marktangotango
I've been using a dechromed chromebook (xubuntu) as my main dev machine for
two years now. I've been very pleased with it. It's light, boots in seconds,
fits under my car seat, and the processor is Intel so I can compile whatever.

My main use case is "car coding" side projects; On a good day I can get an
hour in before work and an hour in over lunched. I launched one mvp this way,
working on a second.

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dchuk
Which machine are you using?

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marktangotango
Acer c720, I installed a 120gb m2 ssd. It's an older machine but works really
well still. I'm on xubuntu 14.04, when I upgrade, I'll most likely go to
galliumos:

[https://wiki.galliumos.org/Hardware_Compatibility](https://wiki.galliumos.org/Hardware_Compatibility)

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The_DaveG
So I'll kick this off by saying yes. I have a gaming desktop I built, a 2016
MBP spec'ed out I use for work (video editing), and down the line
tablets/phone. My wife needs something for work processing, Skype, and the
internet. I got her a $400-$500 Dell Inspiron laptop a few years ago (I think
it's Pentium 4 lol) You can swap batteries, they're solid machines. Basically
just a little more than a Chromebook and a little less than a 2in1, which will
be her next one as she loves the touch screen.

Love to hear what everyone else is using/thinking as well.

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bananicorn
It didn't even come to my mind that people who are not developers could want
anything other than a tablet or a phone nowadays do you think the longer
battery life would be worth the bigger form-factor for people? (I kinda get
mixed signals from people whenever I ask, so I'm not sure at all)

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The_DaveG
Yeah, I only hang out with developers, engineers, and designers, most of whom
game so it's all pretty much top of the line.

I think it would because everyone wants the options to run all day not plugged
in, even if they don't.

As a business guy, I've got to think that the big companies wouldn't make
these if they weren't big sellers? Also while and iPad or surface can do what
we need, most other people wouldn't feel the difference. I think it might be
more of a psychological reason that they think they need a laptop? Haven't
really done any market research, so just a guess. Wonder if anyone else who
reads this has a spouse/SO that does something non-technical...

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DanBC
There are plenty of machines like the Asus X205ta.

Small, low specs, 10 hour battery life.

Some of them use weird chipsets or have low ram or 64 bit processers and 32
bit uefi, so installing linux isn't always as simple as it normally is.

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bananicorn
For me personally that's a bit of a bummer, but as long as installing linux
isn't impossible and there's no malicious firmware blobs which could possibly
brick the thing, it's not a complete no-go. I also prefer to test my software
on the actual low-end hardware instead of VMs.

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kreeWall
I know that this is something that would be very useful to college students
and most people's parents. My mother has a chromebook because she just needed
something light with a good battery life for word processing and surfing the
internet (read: facebook). The chromebook comes with its own series of issues
which she has to work around, so it would be nice if it was not a chromebook,
but just a normal laptop.

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zulln
Care to elaborate these issues?

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kreeWall
I apologize for the delayed response: The chromebook confuses my mother
because she doesn't really understand how google drive works. She needs to
download documents and then send people document links if they want to edit
stuff, and that really confuses her because its not what she's used to. My
mother is generally pretty tech savvy, but the switch from the microsoft suite
to google drive has been confusing for her.

There are certain websites she goes to for school that don't work in google
chrome - only firefox. She doesn't have the option to switch to firefox, so
this creates other issues for her.

sometimes she needs to make powerpoint presentations and move them to another
computer to present. She therefore, needs to send a PDF version. This creates
more confusion.

Though there are many benefits to the chromebook (all of your files are online
so they can be accessed from anywhere; long battery life; its super light),
there are still some user issues for older/less-tech-savvy users.

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zabana
I have a question of my own: Given the options posted below. What would you
recommend as the best low spec laptop to install linux on and why ? Cheers

