Hunting for a new 2-in-1 for my daughter's birthday in about 10 days...

digitalwanderer

digitalwanderer

wandering
Legend
She's had a dell 3000 for a few years that she loved/hated. She loved the battery life and convenience, but the touchpad input went bad and a key fell off and her keyboard was wonky...so she doesn't want another dell but she does love the 2-in-1 design and touchscreen, so I've been hunting.

This is about the best I've come up with so far for my price range, I was trying to keep it around $300. (So probably around $400. :p ) It's a Lenova Flex 4 2-in-1 Flagship High Performance 14 inch HD Touchscreen Laptop PC | Intel Pentium 4405U Dual-Core | 2.10 GHz | 4GB DDR4 | 500GB HDD | Bluetooth | WIFI | Windows 10 (Black). I'm not sure if the CPU is up to snuff, she's just planning to use this for school/browsing/drawing on.

She'd really love a 2-in-1 with a pressure sensitive pen, but the Touch is waaay out of my price range for this. I'm looking at this as a laptop to get her through the next year and a half of high school, not for the rest of her life.

Any input/advice would be greatly appreciated, I'm pretty clueless when it comes to mobile CPUs and what can do what. She's not planning on doing anything heavy duty, but i don't want it to be laggy either.

Oh, and are these all the same laptops as the one I posted above? Amazon confuses the fuck out of me at times, and is there a better place to shop for laptop deals?

Thanks in advance, y'all always steer me right and get my head on straight and I dearly appreciate it. :)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M30SA1R/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MTMLD48/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MXDPZA0/

These are all the same laptop, aren't they? Or am I missing something?
 
Seriously, how am I supposed to even tell the difference between these three?

r1gXfdk.jpg
 
The Asus 300 Chi is getting a little old, but the Broadwell Core M should still perform a bit better than the Pentium (which has half the cache).
Biggest difference should be the display which is of a much higher quality (1080p IPS), it has a panel for pen input and the tablet is detachable from the keyboard which is kind of a big deal if you're willing to use it as a tablet.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00T7XR888/ref=psdc_13896609011_t2_B01GCXLSN6

Cons: keyboard connects through bluetooth I think.


And if you're willing to give $30 more then there's the Spectre X2 which is the best of the bunch, with a 3:2 1920*1280 screen and better build quality in general:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GFDHK4E/ref=psdc_13896609011_t3_B01GCXLSN6
(Refurbished: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01H5W5A96 )


Most of all, I would run away from anything with only a HDD for storage. For larger laptops, there's nothing wrong with having a secondary HDD drive for some less time-sensitive files like pictures and videos, but you definitely don't want a HDD for your boot partition in 2016. SSD for main drive and then a nice SD card for slower stuff should suffice in a 2-in-1.
 
I would personally still prefer a refurbished Spectre X2 over a new T300 Chi, though.

But I only know the Spectre X2 from reviews, so I'm not aware of any possible long-term problems it may have (who has, though?).
Regardless, the included backlit keyboard, quad-speaker sound system from Bang&Olufsen, RealSense camera and unibody aluminum design scream high-end. Which makes sense because those series were originally designed to compete the Surface Pro line.
 
ToTTenTranz said:
The Asus 300 Chi is getting a little old, but the Broadwell Core M should still perform a bit better than the Pentium (which has half the cache).
Biggest difference should be the display which is of a much higher quality (1080p IPS), it has a panel for pen input and the tablet is detachable from the keyboard which is kind of a big deal if you're willing to use it as a tablet.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00T7XR888/ref=psdc_13896609011_t2_B01GCXLSN6

Cons: keyboard connects through bluetooth I think.


And if you're willing to give $30 more then there's the Spectre X2 which is the best of the bunch, with a 3:2 1920*1280 screen and better build quality in general:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GFDHK4E/ref=psdc_13896609011_t3_B01GCXLSN6
(Refurbished: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01H5W5A96 )


Most of all, I would run away from anything with only a HDD for storage. For larger laptops, there's nothing wrong with having a secondary HDD drive for some less time-sensitive files like pictures and videos, but you definitely don't want a HDD for your boot partition in 2016. SSD for main drive and then a nice SD card for slower stuff should suffice in a 2-in-1.
Click to expand...
Thanks, that's exactly the info I was looking for. Her current 2-in-1 has an SSD I threw in to it so I was planning on just pulling that and tossing it in whatever we got her, that's why I wasn't too concerned about the HDD.

I love the Spectre, looks like just what the daughter ordered! One thing I noticed about both those is they're compatible with some form of pressure sensitive stylus, which is actually one of the big wishlist items my daughter had for her 2-in-1 but we both figured we couldn't afford...but it looks like both of those can use one and she loves drawing so it seems like a no brainer!

Follow up question, if I get the Spectre what pressure sensitive stylus would y'all recommend for it for drawing? Or are none of them very good? (BTW- I don't mind going over budget for such a superior machine, it's kind of why I posted up here so I don't make a horrible mistake...my sincerest thanks again. :) )
 
Probably this HP one made for the Spectre X2 for $59, eh? <oops>

So that would give her a kick ass little 2-in-1 that she could use to sketch on like a viewable bamboo pad or something for around $500? That sounds like a dream gift, what's wrong with it?

And should I worry that the Spectre processor is .9Ghz? That seems a bit, well not fast to me...
 
Davros said:
The correct answer is:
2 in 1, all I had when I was your age was a wooden hoop.....
Click to expand...
Actually I'm pretty sure I got a VIC-20 for my 17th birthday tbh, or my 16th. I might be old, but I was always following the edge of computing. I still remember playing pong when I was 10 and thinking, "This is going to change the world!". :)
 
The HP stylus might be the only one that's compatible, but I'm not sure.
The m9 CPU is 900MHz base clock, but it's usually clocking much higher, like 1.5-2GHz. For lightweight software like browsers, office and drawing apps it's great.
I would know as I'm typing on a m3 Surface Pro right now :)
 
ToTTenTranz said:
The HP stylus might be the only one that's compatible, but I'm not sure.
The m9 CPU is 900MHz base clock, but it's usually clocking much higher, like 1.5-2GHz. For lightweight software like browsers, office and drawing apps it's great.
I would know as I'm typing on a m3 Surface Pro right now :)
Click to expand...

thats like my sony vaio tap 11 i5 :D
but max only 1.5 GHz, 1.7 Ghz turbo.

used for

- developing video games, web, apps
- making 2D animation
- editing video
- editing photo
- mapping

basically, everything. Its my main work computer.
 
And my daughter doesn't like either the Spectre nor the Chi, the ports sort of suck.

She wants some regular USB ports, and a real ethernet port would be fantastic but she still wants a stylus with it...

<sigh>
 
The lack of a keyboard would be the first thing that springs to mind, but I'm forwarding all suggestions to her and she's watching this thread so who knows? Thanks for the input. :)
 
refurbished SP3 is the way to go.

also consider looking at education/student discount for SP3. Microsoft usually have delicious deals for developed countries.
 
The Surface Pro 3 is a 2.5 year-old tablet using a >3 year-old CPU architecture. I wouldn't choose a SP3 over the Spectre, even less a refurbished one.
Carrying a 64GB SSD is really pushing it, too. Little else than the OS can be put in there.


digitalwanderer said:
And my daughter doesn't like either the Spectre nor the Chi, the ports sort of suck.

She wants some regular USB ports, and a real ethernet port would be fantastic but she still wants a stylus with it...

<sigh>
Click to expand...

The Spectre seems to bundle a USB-C to USB-A adapter.

As for ethernet port, unless she goes with a "fake 2-in-1" which is one of those regular laptops with screens rotating 360º then she's definitely out of luck.
Again, you won't have any problems finding a cheap and small USB - Ethernet adapter.


If USB-A ports are very important (or e.g. HDMI output), there's always the old Envy X2:

https://www.amazon.com/HP-Convertible-Touchscreen-Certified-Refurbished/dp/B01823KKQK/
This thing is gigantic for tablet use, though.
(also, it bundles Windows 8.1 and the free upgrade to Windows 10 is now gone)

The Switch Alpha 12 is also a possibility, but it's yet another step up regarding the price.
https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Switch-Alpha-12-SA5-271-39N9/dp/B01NBGMZL0/
 
So now I'm looking at this Lenovo Flex 4 14", i3 6100U, 14" 1920x1080 IPS with multitouch, 4GB, a gigabyte lan, backlit keyboard.

The 500GB HDD I can swap out for her SSD. It's $449, which ain't too bad. She's given up on the stylus/pen option in favor of IPS & 1920x1080, and my wife is trying to keep the price down so she can go to Florida next week..so I've got to find one to keep them both happy. <sigh>
 
digitalwanderer said:
So now I'm looking at this Lenovo Flex 4 14", i3 6100U, 14" 1920x1080 IPS with multitouch, 4GB, a gigabyte lan, backlit keyboard.

The 500GB HDD I can swap out for her SSD. It's $449, which ain't too bad. She's given up on the stylus/pen option in favor of IPS & 1920x1080, and my wife is trying to keep the price down so she can go to Florida next week..so I've got to find one to keep them both happy. <sigh>
Click to expand...
You have extra gpu right?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

digitalwanderer
New monitor for my wife
Replies
11
Views
1K
Davros
D
digitalwanderer
Looking for better than stock replacement fans for a PNY GeForce RTX 2060 Super 8GB XLR8
Replies
2
Views
623
digitalwanderer
digitalwanderer
Z
Does being messed about by women or people in general, turn you bitter?
Replies
16
Views
1K
Zombietoid
Z
digitalwanderer
Vacation suggestions for the US for Feb 4-10
2
Replies
24
Views
2K
nutball
N
digitalwanderer
Anyone knowledgeable on car tires?
2
Replies
21
Views
2K
Silent_Buddha
S
Back
Top