Please help!

I’m looking for something cheap I take away with me and do word processing, Excel etc. with. So far I’ve come up with two candidates, both of which seem very simlar spec.

One’s a ‘notebook’ pc-thing and the other is a ‘tablet’ with a keyboard. I’m tempted to go for the tablet version, just so I can enjoy all that wazzo gyro-screen-interactiveness.

But am aware they are probably both gubbins.

Any advice?

Candidate #1

Android 4.0, 512mb ram 1.5 GHz

Candidate #2

Android 4.0 512mb ram 1.5 GHz

no android unit will run excel.

If you mean, “make purty tables in a spreadsheet program”, then no problem, google apps will do fine.

Im afraid anything that cheap is going to be a real pain to use.

Morgan computers currently have some bargin NOS notebooks/laptops going for not a lot. But spec isnt amazing. and theyre not netbooks. However they will run fairly slickly on the XP that’s on them.

Id also seriously consider looking at a Chromebook.
Its a slick little netbook made by samsung sold by google with chromium running on it (basically just a chrome webroswer). Fast to boot, easy to use, seemless with your googleworld. I m running one of my acer aspire one netbooks on chromium and it’s pretty nice to use. Mainly becuase my life is in google.

BUT i still need excel (real excel) on one of my netbooks so that has xp on.

chromebooks are about £230.

or for a W7 netbook, there’s an HP mini at morgan computers for the same price.

Thanks – that’s really helpful!

…and confirms some of my doubts too 🙂

If you are on a budget and want something small, have you thought about a 2nd hand notebook like a Thinkpad X60. They are pretty small and light, robust and will do fine with Windows XP or Ubuntu, though putting a small SSD in them will make them even nicer to use.

One should set you back £100 on EBay.

though putting a small SSD in them will make them even nicer to use.

If you go this route, make sure the COA number on the sticker on the bottom of the s/h laptop is readable and the laptop comes with recovery disks. Without the former you’re f***** and will need to buy (£70ish) a new OEM OS licence, without the latter you may just need to buy some disks from the manufacture or a third party (£20ish)

There’s some NOS reconditioned w warranties thinkpads 14.1″ on morgan computers for between £110 and £190.

If you are thinking of a notebook, i’m looking to sell a Sony Vaio PCG-21313M, 1.66GHz Atom processor, 250GB disk and 1GB RAM. Runs Win7 Starter, so will do all the usual Office stuff (has Office Starter-a no frills basic Word/Excel package). Upgradeable to 2GB, and SSD (see Crucial website).Pearlised white finish, in great condition.
let me know if interested.
Baz