Cheap Win 10 laptop

[Tom_M1]

For anyone near a Microcenter store here is about the cheapest Windows laptop. $59.99:

Evolve III Maestro 11.6" Laptop Computer

It comes with Windows 10 Pro Education installed.

Quote from Microsoft:

"Windows 10 Pro Education builds on the commercial version of Windows 10 Pro and provides important management controls needed in schools. Windows 10 Pro Education is effectively a variant of Windows Pro that provides education-specific default settings, including the removal of Cortana*. These default settings disable tips, tricks and suggestions & Microsoft Store suggestions".

I've had one for three weeks and have had no issues.

[Gdetrailer]

Glad it is working for you.

Just warning folks up ahead that it does have limitations.

You got lucky on your old one with only 32GB of space, Win8 took a lot less space to install originally, 12GB-16GB, typically using Win10 upgrade path requires at a min of 20GB of free space..

A lot of folks have had issues with Win10 updates failing to install on the devices with only 32GB unless they add an external USB flash drive during the update because of the lack of free space.

Bare metal install of Win10 takes about 20GB-24GB, generally you need at least 20GB of free space for major updates (IE "Refresh") since those are handled like an upgrade and all existing system files are replaced with the update. The old files are compressed and held in a temporary folder in case the operation goes sideways during the update.

In the case of your new device, 64GB should be OK for a while but keep in mind, every App or software you install plus any files you save will eventually encroach on the minimum free space required for updates to install properly.

As far as W10 32bit goes on 2GB of memory, that is fine, 32bit by MS's rules is not able to see, use, address more than 3.2GB.

Win10 64Bit, while it can run on as low as 1GB of Ram, it is painfully slow and it makes more use of your HD Page file than it should. I have run Win10 64bit on 3GB of RAM, 3GB was a vast improvement over 2GB of RAM. Minimum I would recommend for Win10 64bit is 8 GB of RAM, that gives the OS some breathing space without needing to constantly read/write to the Page file. Win10 performance improves nicely once you give it more than the absolute minimum specs.

Absolute minimum HD size I would recommend for Win10 (32 bit and 64 bit) is 250GB, gives you lots of space for Apps and programs plus data.

As long as you are willing to accept the risks and don't mind that it isn't going to set the world on fire, then by all means roll with it, at $60 it is inexpensive.

But for those who see only the low cost, they do need to know that you are not getting a whole lot speed and storage wise for that money.. For another $200 one can get a new real laptop with a much larger screen, faster processor, more memory and more drive space and be a bit more future proof.

[Tom_M1]

So far this notebook has been working great for me. It activated fine and did an update with no issues. I installed Microsoft Word and Excel 2007. Also Microsoft Streets & Trips and VLC media player. It plays videos just fine. I was lucky enough to get the last LTE version. This version comes with a cell phone modem installed which would allow you to insert a SIM card and connect directly to the internet. You can remove the modem and plug in a M.2 SATA SSD. You can purchase a 256GB drive for about $20.

I have a 10" tablet running Win 10 home 32bit with 2GB of memory and 32GB of storage. I have this mounted in a cup holder on my console. It's my navigation and media player device. I run Streets & Trips for navigation and play my music and audio books on it. I've had it for several years. It had Windows 8 when purchased and upgraded to Win 10 with no problems.

[Gdetrailer]

Tom_M wrote:
For anyone near a Microcenter store here is about the cheapest Windows laptop. $59.99:

Evolve III Maestro 11.6" Laptop Computer

It comes with Windows 10 Pro Education installed.

Quote from Microsoft:

"Windows 10 Pro Education builds on the commercial version of Windows 10 Pro and provides important management controls needed in schools. Windows 10 Pro Education is effectively a variant of Windows Pro that provides education-specific default settings, including the removal of Cortana*. These default settings disable tips, tricks and suggestions & Microsoft Store suggestions".

I've had one for three weeks and have had no issues.

Full specs..
Evolve III Maestro 11.6" Laptop Computer - Dark Grey Intel Celeron N3450 1.1GHz Processor; 4GB LPDDR4-2133 RAM; 64GB ROM Data Storage; Intel HD Graphics 500

Basically just barely minimum specs to run Win10.

The Celeron processor used goes way back to the "Apollo Lake" builds and is in the same "family" of Intel processors as a Pentium4 (P4) and "Atom" processors. The only saving grace with this version is the 4 processor cores but consider that as a very small amount of grace.

The HD500 Graphics won't win any beauty or speed contests and 4GB of Ram is right on the razor edge of not enough memory for a 64Bit OS.

The small screen is a notch bigger than a Tablet and smaller than a "Surface".

64GB of drive space will become a problem quickly as you typically need 20GB of space for Win updates while they are being installed.

Be aware, Win10 pro education is only available through Enterprise or Volume licensing and is meant for Schools to buy and setup for classroom use.. Not intended for retail sale and public use.. It is not full OS so there will be some features, tools and some customizations that may or may not be available.

At $60 it is cheap enough to take a chance, however given that the OS may have Enterprise or Volume licensing keys it may or may not stay activated without phoning home periodically to the proper activation server which is typically deployed on the Enterprise of Volume license server network of the school it was intended for..

Toss the dice and take your chances..

[Tom_M1]

enblethen wrote:
I would guess that it is not upgradeable to Win 11!

You are correct. I tried Win 11 on my other laptop and didn't care for it, so I reverted back to Win 10.

[enblethen]

I would guess that it is not upgradeable to Win 11!

[2112]

I've been happy using a Kindle Fire HD for years. This would be a step up.

[BobsYourUncle]

And to think I just shelled out 1300 bucks for a 14.6 inch tablet.
And another 150 for something to cover it with....

[Thunder_Mountai]

With these specs. you are getting what you are paying for: 1.1GHz Processor; 4GB LPDDR4-2133 RAM; 64GB ROM Data Storage. Might be good enough for web browsing and email but not much else. Very slow processor, minimal ram and too little room for data storage much less any additional programs. Can't think of why I would want it .

[2112]

That's 64G of flash RAM. 4G of ROM, and I'm sure WIN 10 eats up most of that

I think the intent is to use the micro SD for storage like we use to do with floppies. Anyone remember booting DOS, Fortran or WordStar from floppy because there was no such thing as a HD? Or Leisure Suit Larry?

For $60 plus the price of a few SDs I could live with that. I could see this as a specific purpose machine for DYI projects

[wa8yxm]

64GB ROM Data Storage

Not much memory these days

[Lwiddis]

Surprising!