PSA: Samsung 12.1" Chromebook, £106

https://www.morgancomputers.co.uk/product_detail/15965/Samsung-12-1-Dual-Core-3G-Wi-Fi-Chromebook-2GB-RAM-16GB-SSD-3-5-Days-Delivery/

Morgan computers flyer just hit the inbox. Grade A refurb (I’ve had 3x refurbs from Morgan computers and all have been perfect). This one even has a 3G SIM slot in it which may be of interest, although I usually tether with 3G/4G phone. £106 delivered (£83 ex VAT)

Mine’s ordered an on it’s way.
I have 2x samsung series 3, that have been outstanding and taken hideous abuse. This is a sniff bigger.

I approve of this message.

Seeing as MrsSB has now abandoned the iPad and uses [frustratingly] much presfers to use MY chromebook – I shall probably be snapping up one of these 🙂
Well done Stoner.

PS these are £200 (Brand new though) on Amazon.

OT what is that phone you use/recomend as I need a new one

Ta

Jiayu S3 Advanced.

As it happens Ive just placed an order for 2x of those too, from Gearbest (China) for Mrs S and my Bro. £108 each delivered, with risk of additional £30-40 for Duty if it gets intercepted.

http://www.gearbest.com/cell-phones/pp_272248.html

Unfortunately they dont have any in stock at the EU warehouse.

There are however other phones at the EU warehouse (Which then dont run the risk of additional duty costs) if you want something delivered faster and with less risks. They have a sale on at the moment for some lower spec android 4.4 handsets which are v good VFM

e.g. http://www.gearbest.com/cell-phones-c_11293/c6_16gb/?odr=low2high&odr_value=1&page_size=36&display=g&24h_ship=f&is_clearance=n&wid=3

these are all in EU, with free shipping.

ta how big can you make the text messages go as i sometimes struggle with the small writing

Ive just switched “Large text” on in the accessibility menu, and all the text has gone Fisher Price sized. You wont have any problems unless you are Mr Magoo 🙂

Much appreciated sir.

Intel Atom and 2GB? Does Chrome work well on that low a spec? I’m curious, but it doesn’t seem such good value when you can get an i3 with 4GB and Windows for not much more.

chromeOS is pretty much a base linux kernel.

It works fine on lower spec. 1Gb of RAM is a drag, but two is plenty now theyve sorted out the RAM leaks in chromebrowser.

lower spec = low heat, low power. Ive never had a problem with it.

Anything running windows needs RAM & cpu cycles to carry the massive OS overhead.

And not to mention, you dont have to hang around for 30mins of updates every week either 🙂

aracer – let me lend you a chromebook and try it for yourself.

Hmmmm. I won’t be able to put printer drivers onto this would I?

My parents are currently without a laptop and any replacement would need to be able to hook up to their non-wireless printer.

Is there any Android solution for plumbing an ‘old’ printer up to on of these Chromebooks??

no.

Chromebooks can not serve printing. They use the google servers as print servers if you have a google print ready printer, OR you can use another computer with a Windows or iOS running to act as a print server connected to the printer. But you cant directly connect an old dumb printer to a chromebook.

I changed my printer to a google print ready canon for £30 on ebay.

It means I can print to it, from any of my devices from anywhere.

Cheers Stoner. That’s what I thought.

Probably easier to stick to another laptop as they are already relatively familiar with how to use one.
Giving them another ‘new fangled device’ might make them explode….

I thought the Hudl 2 would be simple enough, but every phone conversation with them ends with ‘ooooh, just got a quick question about XYZ on the tablet….’

Interesting – though I reckon most of the reason I need more RAM on my Windows machine is Chrome eating it (I’m a bit of a tab monster – current count is 17, though that’s probably low for me! – but it clearly still leaks as it works fine for a while). Though I’m also successfully using W7 with only 512MB on a very carefully tuned system. Would be interested to try one sometime, though to be honest I do need a Windows machine for some of the things I regularly use.

my bro has a W10 VM for me on his server that I can get to through Chrome Remote for any weird Windoze stuff I might (very rarely) need to do. I really cant remember the last time I had to use it in anger though.
anyway, PM me, and if you are coming past the Kingdom of W any time soon, drop in and pick up one as a loaner.

These are also being sold at exactly the same price by IJT[/url]

IJT and Morgan Computers are one and the same.

i think i bought my 486 dx50 from morgan!

IJT and Morgan Computers are one and the same.

Really? IJT are in Jersey (just a registered office I guess) and Morgan aren’t – does that matter?

Really?

yes. Zomerzet sister companies.

Stoner, as ever, you are the voice of reason. We should all buy you a pint sometime. I’m amazed at your IT knowledge.

thanks?

I got the Morgan flyer in my inbox too. Tempted to buy my daughter one. I’m a big fan of my chromebook (Toshiba).

Hi Stoner, sorry to jump into your post with a slightly ot question.

Do you think a Chromebook would be a suitable alternative to a laptop for a 12 year old to do homework on, she does not need to print out as all work is saved on a usb stick and she is using google docs anyway?

How safe are they?

Stoner Jr has one of my older chromebooks. You can create a supervised user and review what sites they visit and manage them by whitelist or blacklists. The only annoyances is that supervised users are blocked from installing extensions and can not be permitted to install approved ones. however it won’t limit access to Google docs/drive

I have also set the default browser to the kids safe Rex search engine.

YouTube is blocked and I put shortcuts to interesting and appropriate stuff in his bookmarks bar.

I review what sites he visits regularly and if I don’t like one I just add to the blacklist.

It’s not foolproof and I have put the computer where I can easily see what he’s doing. He also knows that if he comes across a site that he doesn’t understand or freaks him out, he’s not in trouble, just has to tell me.

Mine’s arrived, so I’m in from work and an unpack.

Let’s start with the negatives.
Bit slow from Morgan Computers there – 7 days since the order was placed.

This unit has the US (English) keyboard. It does say so in the listing, but do be aware that it means that the key layout is very slightly different:
1) 3 has a # on it not a £
2) 2 has a @ on it not a ” and
3) there’s no € on the 3

however,
you can set the keyboard to UK and Shift+2 gives “, Shift+3 gives £, RightAlt+4 gives € (as opposed to Alt Gr+3) and Shift+’ gives @ anyway.

Or leave the OS setting in US, and hunt’n’pick for those few weird ones.

The enter key is one row deep, not two so a little more precision required when mashing the keys for carriage returns.

Have a good rummage in the box, as you’ll need to find the UK 3pin lead to replace the weird 2-pin that’s in the OEM package.

Now, a major booboo was on launching, I got the “Chrome OS is missing or damaged” error screen. That’s a new one on me.
However, the recovery process is painless, but does require another computer running Chrome Browser and a USB stick to create the recovery media. This is a stage either missing from the factory refurb process (poss overlooked and accidental) or was done as a matter of course and not informed of. It’s really a simple process to recover the OS so dont freak out if yours comes without the OS installed, but it’s naughty of Morgan computers to let these go out like that. However, as I say, maybe mine was a mistake. It didnt faze me though. I’d be interested to see if others have the same event.
(go here if you need to do the recovery and follow instructions https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/1080595?hl=en-GB&source=genius-rts )

So on to the good.

Wow, perfect condition. It really is box fresh. Obviously had a quick wipe over with a cleaner probably as a matter of course, but not a single scratch, speck of dust or mark suggesting previous use.

2x USB ports, one open, the other with a dust guard and micro HDMI output. An SD slot at the front, and of course the SIM slot. Looks like a fullsize. An IMEI sticker on the bottom, next to which I see a s/n sticker with a Jun-2011 manufacturing date on it, so a reminder again that these are relatively old stock.

However, the OS updated straight away to a stable channel 47 version which is a Jan-2016 release.

Once the OS had sync’d all my stuff, it’s unexpectedly slick. It certainly seems to tick over better than my HP11, and no noticeable difference when compared to my 2013 Series 3 Samsung.

Oddly though, it produces a very low Octane benchmark score (a javascript benchmark suite) when compared to my other chromebooks/box. I have no idea why, as it really runs very slickly indeed – and I dont think it’s just a confirmation bias by me.

http://chromium.github.io/octane/

Asus 4GB Celeron 1.4Ghz Chromebox: 13,526
My sooperdooper chrome desktop, with extra RAM

Samsung Series 3 2Gb 1.7Ghz Chrombook: 6,043

HP11 2Gb 1.7Ghz Chromebook: 7,360

Samsung Series 5 2Gb 1.66Ghz Chromebook: 3,850 😯
The new one

I havent tried any heavy lifting on it yet, like watching HD, but since it’s not really what I use it for, I doubt I’ll ever find out what the low benchmark means day-to-day.

In summary, a few niggles from the supplier side, and the keyboard will take all of 5mins getting used, but I’m happy that this is destined to have an abusive relationship with me/my rucksack/the kitchen over hopefully at least the 3yrs that it’s £120 predecessor has suffered. At a very reasonable 11 pence per day of computing, and falling.