Some help finding a laptop that matches what I want

By OrsenPike
in Hardware Hangout

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OrsenPike

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Hi all

I am looking to buy a cheap laptop that a couple of years ago would have fallen into the netbook range however with tablets having pretty much killed off the netbook market I am having some trouble finding something which ticks all the boxes for me. I am hoping someone here will know of something which suits my needs :)

My needs are pretty basic. I am looking for a 11" to 14" laptop with a Core i3 processor. 4GB of RAM (user upgradable to 8GB would be great). Any kind of HDD as long as it is a standard 2.5" drive that I can upgrade myself to an SSD. HDMI would be great but not a deal breaker. As would USB 3 ports. Minimum screen res of 1366x768 but higher would be great.

As for price under ?300 would be ideal. I would go upto ?350 for the right machine though.

I want this as a cheap (and therefore not the end of the world if it is stolen/breaks) travel machine for web browsing and document creation/editing.

I am really not a tablet guy sadly, I have tried a Nexus 7 and 10 and just don't like touch screens and really miss having a full blown OS such as Debian or Windows running on it. I would love the screen of the Nexus 10 in a laptop but sadly that isn't going to happen :( I have looked at some of the tablets with keyboard docks but using Android as my main OS isn't what I want. I would really like to run Debian on it or Windows 7/8 with Debian being preferred.

So anybody got any ideas? :)

Grand Master

spikey_richie

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Some nice (for the price) machines in here http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/search-keywords/315_3226_30328_xx_xx/i3+laptop/1_12/price-asc/xx-criteria.html?intcmp=cat-3-LaptopsCat-Corei3LaptopsFrom319-LP-Computing-210313

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OrsenPike

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The Asus VivoBook looks pretty much exactly what I want albeit a little over what I wanted to spend. I can't seem to find if the RAM and HDD are user replaceable though??

Edit: The HDD is replaceable but the RAM is soldered. As it comes with 4GB that isn't a huge concern. Now to check out how well Debian runs on the VivoBook :)

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