Best inexpensive laptop for general bullshit

[RusM]

I sirched! I actually need to break down and buy a laptop as I finally got myself into a situation where I can't do everything on my phone. Need a new laptop or windows tablet laptop to do basic emails, spreadsheets and mark up PDFs. Anything better than the others in the <$500 range? Or just pick one that seems decent?

 

[crispins]

Will a chromebook work for your needs?

I bought one earlier this year, super happy with it.

It works way better than the Windows Laptop I have.

I bought the Acer brand

 

[Lil'John]

I went into Office Max and bought the cheapest laptop I could find. It does fine with HP Tuner and similar. I wouldn't do huge spreadsheets with lots of transforms/computations.

 

[quarters_ninja]

buy a cheap laptop, then add $30 of ram and a $50 SSD (solid-state harddrive). I did this for my wife and I, we are into each for less than $400 and it does all the basic stuff well and is surprisingly fast. You also do not need to be a super nerd to do the upgrades.

 

[kf4zht]

Android tablet/iPad. None of that needs a pc and the software will be cheaper in the long run on a tablet.

Email is easy, ever device has a client. Excel works fine as long as you aren't doing stupid complicated vlookups and scripts. Pdf is easier, xodo is free, bluebeam is cheap on iPad. Get a Bluetooth keyboard for typing.
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[Arps]

We bought both the kids surface book pros for Christmas.. They are pretty bad ass. I'm thinking I am going to buy myself one. With the keyboard case and junk they were just over 500

 

[dnsfailure]

chromebook