Looking for a thin, lightweight laptop that has decent resolution screen (1600x900 or better), 13-14" screen, and doesn't cost a ton. I'd prefer something like a Chromebook but one that you can freely install a different OS on (I know most Chromebooks make it hard to impossible to install a full distro on).

So I haven't been able to find anything that doesn't cost a ton that meets those basic requirements. As far as CPU, doesn't need to be anything impressive. An AMD APU or even a Celeron would be sufficient as long as it was Ultrabook slim, light, and wasn't expensive.

What is a "ton"?

$350 or less new preferably, reason I want a chromebook, but I can't find any that have decent monitors, or they have a decent monitor, but require jumping through hoops to install a full distribution on them.

Chromebooks are no harder to install a full distro on than any other device. You do have to understand UEFI and gpt partition tables, though. That's coming to everything, though, not just chromebooks. Don't believe everything you read about chromebooks, though, especially on Windows-centric sites - or even Linux-centric sites. I would recommend a model with an Intel CPU, though, because not all Linux distros provide ARM support. There are several Intel models available. I have an Acer C720 with a Haswell CPU, and it's a great value for the money. You may want to upgrade the SSD, because one of the main reasons chromebooks are so cheap is that they have very small SSD drives installed. You probably also want to get a model with 4GB RAM. Other than that, they're just laptops, with UEFI enabled by default. But it's not at all difficult to install Linux on them. I had Debian on mine, but I ended up reinstalling ChromeOS, and running Debian in a crouton chroot, because ChromeOS works well, and does most of what I need, and does it much faster than pure Linux. From completely off, I'm working within 10 seconds, including entering my password. From suspend, it's instant except for entering my password, and I could do away with that if I wanted. But if you must have only Linux, it's not that hard to do it.

I've had good luck with Dells, but under $350 might be tough for a new laptop with reasonable specs. Dells do tend to come with Broadcom wireless, so you might have to take a couple of extra steps to get the wireless working, but every Dell I've owned has been a workhorse. As my old auto mechanic would have said, not one of them owes me a dime.

If you don't mind used and aren't going to be doing stuff like editing video, you might find a reconditioned computer an option. A good secondhand shop, if you have one in your area, can be a godsend. (I was fortunate to have an excellent one where I used to live. During the years I patronized them, I got three computers and one repair from them. I wouldn't let anyone else other than the manufacturer repair one of my computers.)

My girlfriend has had very good luck with reconditioned stuff from TigerDirect.com, so much so that it is her first place to go when she needs something computer. She's gotten laptops, printers, and a netbook from them and they have all worked nicely.

I prefer Dell. You can find bellow $350 .

I think I may have found one. $300, 14" 1920x1080 thin and light, just trying to find out from the seller what the chip is. They are available with Atom D2500 and N2600, I'm hoping it's the N2600 as I'd have no issues using an N2600 w/ 4 GB ram in order to have a thin and light that I could carry with me, and keep my 8470 (hyperthreaded quad-core 8 GB ram) to use at home.

Should be here the end of the week.

Intel Celeron N2807 (1.58 GHz dual-core, no hyperthreading but does support 64-bit, max burst speed of 2.16 GHz)
2 GB DDR3 (upgradeable to 4 GB which I'll do)
320 GB drive
14" 1920x1080 LCD
$289

Interesting. What make, type and where did you find it?

jlinkels

Found it on both ebay and craigslist (cheaper on ebay though).

It's a chinese company, not a major (in the west) manufacturer. I figure it's worth the try since at least SOME company put a cheap laptop with a decent resolution. I'm so tired of only finding low priced pc's with 1366x768 resolution. The second laptop I EVER bought 20 YEARS ago had a higher resolution than that (1280x1024)!!!

Thanks for answering my question.

I am totally with you concerning resolution. This what I wrote in frustration 3 years ago: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...its-all-912820

I am now carrying around a 17" monster which I only bought because of the resolution. It weighs a ton and it costs a ton.

Recently I discovered many laptops at DELL can be customized for a high display resolution. They cost about a ton and a half.

jlinkels

For $289 you want high resolution? Good luck with that. You can get decent resolution on a chromebook at or near that price, but the other specs won't be high-end. High-resolution screens are among the most expensive parts of a laptop, and if you pay for cheap, you get cheap.

That's just the thing, I don't care about the other specs. I want high resolution, and that's the only high performance feature I want. This is the ideal trade-off IMO. A perfectly reasonable, super cheap processor that still supports 64-bit, enough ram to do what I need, enough hard drive to do what I need, in a thin light body with almost all the cost being in the high resolution screen. Why no other company offers something like this baffles me.

This is offered on several chromebook models, even with 1080p IPS screens. But not all, you can get all sorts of combinations, depending on your preferences and budget.

What search key do I have to enter in eBay to see your notebook? I entered "laptop chinese celeron n2807 1920 1080" but that didn't yield any results.

jlinkels