How bad is a NEW $47 laptop... used MacBook killer or eWaste?
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- čas přidán 16. 05. 2023
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I make loads of videos about cheap MacBooks and deals on buying used Macs, but when I saw this open box new laptop for just $47, I knew I had to find out more! This ultra cheap laptop could be a good value or a pile of waste waiting to happen, depending on your perspective!
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Why are you swearing? That’s disrespectful!!!
But will it run Mac OS X?
It seems like it’s a 3rd Gen celron inside due the name of the processor and the numbers
The fact that that $50 Windows Celeron computer got a similar cinebench score to my 2020 i3 Macbook Air is honestly pretty surprising and disappointing at the same time
I bought a used Celeron n3060 laptop from 2016 and I rly regret it. I wanna sell it again to get my money back but honestly it’s hard to not just take it and throw it on the ground. And least she can play Lego games and GTA SA lol
@@mustasheolll2020celeron laptops nowadays are not that bad, but, you can get better things if you spend just a bit more, i got a windows surface laptop go (10th gen i5) for 250 brand new, the only bad thing is it has only 4gb of ram
@@mennymanuel28 4gb? RIP 😣
@@mennymanuel28always try to get a laptops that have 2 ram slots is the best
@@mennymanuel28 New Celerons can have 4 cores, 4 threads
I have found that most of the hardware you find like this is suited for "single task" type operations. I have a friend that uses a similar model as a base to monitor his IP cams around his property. I have heard another person talk about using one as a monitor for his boost settings in his car. For these, they are a much better fit than even a free macbook. It really boils down to the right tool for the job.
This model is pretty popular in the HAM community for portable setups because you can run it directly off a 12v power source. I wouldn't want one as a daily driver but for certain missions it's a good fit at a reasonable price.
This laptop would be a great way to run your home server
I think for 50 Money that’s a very good deal. It’s about the same price as a Raspberry Pi, but has probably a bit more performance, a SSD, keyboard, mouse, display and speakers already included? That’s cheap as hell! Perfect for little home projects and if you installed some form of Linux on it it would also be faster than running on windows.
Yes but where to get it
I paid 60 money for my used windows laptop. Such a steal since it performs surprisingly smooth, again, for only 60 money!
not to mention that for better or worse it's x86. so you could put an x86 linux distro on it and run basically anything that linux can run. not so on the Pi which is ARM, which in the Windows-Linux space hasn't really taken off yet.
Yep. 4GB of RAM is a lot with Linux. My only concern is that he machine almost killl itself by running a benchmark.
Yeah for 50 money that would be a good word processor machine, or email machine
Maybe even a chat top while gaming.
This is exactly why I’ve turned my whole family onto buying computers from our local e-waste recycler instead of a big box store like Best Buy. My grandma will go there and get a “new” computer that’s a year or two old for a good deal, and she’ll turn in her old devices, and the people working are always willing to help her with any software or hardware issues. And if she has issues they’ll normally give her a better computer than the one she bought. I love that its a chance to support local & cut down on e-waste.
my family now exclusively buys dell latitude E-series off lease laptops from 3+ generations ago for next to nothing with everythign they could ever need....its lovely and theyre rock fucking solid
@@OsX86H3AvY i got one of those when i was learning to program on windows and it got me through college for $100, no regrets!
Excellent advice! When you remove the desire for the newest or most trendy machine, you'll get infinitely more bang for your buck
Ever since I got a decommissioned Old DELL which was in a Business setting. It had an Old 3rd gen I5 and I Never had issues. My GF gave me a LOCKED lenovo that someone BIOS unlocked on EBAy. Eitherway I only got 4gb more ram and a 7th GEN CPU if I WERE to look for a similar laptop with gateway.... it would have cost $350+ and Soldered crap vs upgradeability...
But at this point my next laptop is a framework XD
We don't have such an option in my area but I buy HP off lease SFF desktop computers off of Amazon or eBay, they may be five or six years old but they still run circles around a new computer selling for a similar price. If I get 4-5 years out of them I am happy. I know how to reinstall OSes, install Linux, replace RAM and HDDs, etc. but most of the time if I am doing that it is for an upgrade and not to repair something.
I have one of these for my ham radio use. The wifi radio on mine is hot unreliable garbage but I can run it directly from my 12v lithium iron phosphate radio batteries.
To add ot this, the 12v charging is the primary reason a lot of us amateur radio operators bought these things, we don't need an inverter, we can cut the cord and crimp on some powerpole connectors and hook it right up to our batteries. You can't do that with most laptops.
Also, sure we could buy a more expensive device, but with the frequent Macbook mention... sadly most amateur radio software just doesn't have any sort of Mac options.
@@RyanMercer I have zero experience with ham radio myself and I use a Mac, but I'm curious if you don't mind; what are some of the most commonly used/preferred software packages for amateur radio and what are they responsible for in particular?
I always see someone talking about ham radio with these computers. Maybe it's just the same person on multiple outlets 😂
@@JBrinx18 HRCC did a video on them last July which got everyone interested in them.
As a ham, radio operator, I got interested in this laptop through Ham Radio crash course, CZcams channel I haven’t found one other than Micro Center but they’re out of stock to deliver it to pick up on when the closest one to me is two hours away so if there’s anyone that has an Amazon link, let me know
2:23 that transition to a sponsor is cleaner than LTT
Yeah I know, can't figure out why no one is talking about that.
Great sponsor 😭 hah
LTT is so nonchalant about sponsors that I skip through that part as soon as I sense it
I work a PT weekend job as a vendor in a Best Buy store (I don't work for Best Buy). I see stuff come through there for recycling all the time that is perfectly serviceable. I've spoken to customers who are not technically savvy that just buy a new laptop every 2 years because "my computer gets slow." Some of them can't believe that I am using a 2015 Macbook Pro as my primary machine and that I also have a laptop from 2013 that I use regularly.
I got sick to my stomach last weekend... Someone brought in an LG C1 OLED to recycle. It was a 48", and nothing was wrong with it. They were moving and didn't want to take it with them. Of course, once they paid that recycle fee (yes paid $40) it was Best Buy property. If I had known what he was brining in I would have bought it off of him!
The thing that's impressive about these newer low power computers is the video decoders in the iGPU. It played 4k video just fine!
4K is overkill, I don't have any 4K monitors or televisions in my house. Even using the 32 inch TV that I use as a computer monitor I usually play video at 360 or 480p. Theoretically I have the bandwidth to play 4K no problem but it is so much overkill that I don't see the wisdom in wasting bandwidth to play at that resolution.
@@mharris50474K is now what I would consider industry standard. Phones have recorded it since 2016 and our living room tv from around 2017 is 4k. Plus every modern smartphones screen is beyond 1080p at this point.
Sweet, now I don't have to buy the MacBook Pro M3 Max Ultra. Thanks Luke!
😂😂😂
The trick to getting a laptop like this to run smooth is either to install a lightweight Linux build like AntiX, or Tiny10 (a stripped-down version of Windows 10)...for educational and demonstration purposes of course. 😎
Very interesting it has the older windows logo on the keys, you’d expect a machine that’s most likely only a few years old to have the newer logo as it’s been around for almost a decade.
must be using old printing machines that are still using the old logo or something
I got one of these sometime last year and the thing that makes it worth it to me is the out-of-the-box LTE connectivity! And if you export the current install's drivers to USB, format and install a debloated copy of Windows, and reinstall the drivers... it's actually a capable computer for basic tasks!
Hi Luke. I have to agree that e-waste companies are overwhelmed with decommissioned business laptops and computers. All perfectly working fine with some work, they can easily be turned around to help the low to low-middle income families.
I've been trying to do just that for years but the e-waste companies ends up trying to price gouge people like me.
As for this hunk of plastic e-waste, maybe this can be used for alternative operating system deployment. Like Ubuntu, Linux Mint or even Android. I've also been exploring this type of alternative OS for older systems.
i’m surprised it came with Windows tbh. $47 for a screen, motherboard, cpu, ram etc etc AND windows? how the hell did that company manage that
I can't find it anywhere lower than $110. I would pay $47 for this as my son really really really wants a laptop. I would be okay with getting him something cheap like this.
Open box?
@@randallsmith2521 Used working chromebooks are dirt cheap.
Aliexpress
@@leonidas14775 screw chromebooks, yeah they're cheap but they're cheap for a reason, I'd rather spend $20-30 more to not have chromeos, it is so extremely limited.
Really good point about the recycling. So many good computers going to the landfill because they’re not worth selling and people not wanting used stuff.
There's no distinction to be made between that and ANY modern macbook. Remember how the 64gb of flash storage is soldered on the board and can't be upgraded or replaced ? Yes just as the NAND flash chips are soldered to macbook logic boards. Any modern will apple device be e-waste as well once the storage hits its maximum write cycles. A few weeks ago the NVME SSD in my laptop suddenly died and refused to boot. It was a simple matter of replacing it and my laptop is back in working order. If I had a macbook it would have magically transformed into a paper weight...
It looks like that was designed to be a chromebook that they installed windows on. With chromeOS Flex it would be soooo much better.
In most countries around the world a Windows device would be more useful.
@@apo.7898Windows runs terribly on less powerful hardware compared to ChromeOS and most other Linux based operating systems
I would of liked hearing more about battery life on that, since the battery takes all the space.
Its where the value lies in machines like this for me. i have a chromebook i got for a whopping $32 shipped to my house with a battery that lasts almost 9 hours on a charge, and if the battery was new it would last over 12 hours
I have one very similar to this, the battery life is arround 14 hours, I play a very old game from 2006 called Silkroad Online, it runs smooth and I get 8 hours of battery life.
I just got $40 for a Dell E6420 that wasn’t turning on. Overheating but just the laptop bag and mouse I included cost me $50’so was a good deal. Thing was like 13 years old when I sold finally and got an m1 MacBook Air. I love it.
That reminds me on my M1-Air that I bought like 2 years ago, and which broke down after about a year. Now sitting on a shelf collecting dust, because a repair (flickering screen) would cost almost as much as buying a new one. So, it's also just e-waste, but way more expensive e-waste.
I have a $150 N4020 4GB chromebook. More or less the same piece of “e-waste”. I’ve used it for 2.5 years. I take it when I travel. I still have 4 more years of ChromeOS support. I also run Linux Mint XFCE on it. It gets the job done for a cheap travel laptop that I don’t mind breaking, losing, or getting stolen.
For $50 an N3350 running lightweight Linux is usable for many simple things. Yeah my phone is more powerful but sometimes it’s nice to have a bigger screen and a keyboard and mouse. Even with a slower device, having proper inputs makes it more productive.
I love how every so often, one sponsor goes hard for every creator in the space. Looks like casekoo is having theirs with Apple creators as of late
I fully agree. Exactly who or what regs in the UK stop us getting our hands on these rejected replace Macs? We should start a campaign to get this sorted out ! Who's with me ? - with Luke really, but he is in the US, I'm in the UK.
There are two version of this laptop. This is the second version. The first version is LTE ready, in which you can swap the LTE card with SSD, which I did for my little sister. You can still find the m.2 tracing on the motherboard in version. Both of them are priced exactly same, which does not make sense lol.
What is the name and model of this laptop?
@@alexandrecouture2462 Evolve III maestro
@@shayanshahriar7882 Thank you!
You do have a nice video..i will be needing the laptop, since your gifting it out. My currently got broken.. so getting this will go along way for me
That Celeron is a discontinued 2016 CPU btw. It was like the most popular low-end CPU for quite a while
I got a cheap little Coda netbook for £90. Came with windows 10 which struggled and took ages to run probably because of all the bloatware fitted. In the end I installed Lubuntu and it runs quite well in basic tasks such as web browsing and emails which is what I want it for - to take on holiday or away to events
I remember those tiny netbooks with barely enough CPU/RAM to run Windows.... crazy
@@floydlooney6837 I considered buying one of those netbooks but my computer guy at the time talked me out of it because they were pieces of shit with only esoteric use cases making them worth dealing with. My mother showed up one day in 2011 with an eMachines E525 with the Celeron 900 CPU that she bought on clearance from Wally World. She used it lightly and when she died I inherited it. I still have it today, I had to replace the RAM and put an SSD in it and I installed Xubuntu on it, it takes a few minutes to boot but for videos and web surfing it actually works OK. I prefer my newer laptop but this one works fine as a jukebox, watching a movie or basic web use.
Thing is the Google has ChromeOS Flex - that is what I would run on it.
Watching this video you have hands down the slickest embedded ad I have EVER seen! +1 to you Sir!
The reason I can think of to consider for this is probably just low power draw and use, but that's it overall.
They're pretty cute though, somewhat reminded about netbooks. My curiosity has me wonder sometimes how a take on a tiny modern Athlon GE laptop would fare as a very, very low power unit if such existed.
We hams loved these when they were discovered because you can input 12v and they not only charge but run, so we can hook them directly up to our 12v radio batteries in the field.
I have the same problem, I buy and sell a lot of hardware as hobby, but some people tells me they do prefer to get a cheap plastic NEW laptop instead for example an old Gaming monster such as Alienware or Asus ROG, at the same price (I am from Mexico and live in Mexico) those kind of laptops here cost like $300 USD or so, so I put mine in those prices
El problema es que por lo menos el mercado de segunda mano en países de latinoamerica tienden a ser feo porque te venden laptops super jodidas a precio de seminuevo...
@@kevinsantos2894 si, en mi caso veo muchos así, evidentemente hay cosas malas y cosas buenas, pero por ejemplo una persona que no tiene mucho dinero ir a comprar una laptop de $300 USD de estas desechables en lugar de una workstarion Dell/HP o bien una laptop de gama alta de años atras (funcional todo) prefieren ir por esas fanless sin potencia por ser nuevas
Honestly seeing it stream a full fat 4k video without a hitch, it’s not half bad. Power consumption should be waayy lower than an old 2009 MacBook Pro, with no fan noise and/or excessive heat. I’m not saying it’s a great buy but I can see the slightest bit of appeal it has.
Agree - avoid e-waste. Buy an old MacBook. For $100 you’ll get something 4X as good and it’ll last 14X Longer. I still have a 2008 Unibody 15” MacBook Pro and a 2011 11” MacBook Air that both work perfectly for web browsing and video watching! I’ve kept them all these years just for nostalgia or in case I want to loan them or gift them. I did put an SSD into the 2008 and have replaced the battery (it has the easy open latch on bottom). My current machines are 2015 15” MacBook Pro with 2TB SSD split 50/50 MacOS and Win10 via Bootcamp and a 13” M1 MacBook Pro that I bought over a year ago mint used for $900 with 500GB drive.
Hey I have a 13” 2015 MacBook Pro, what type of ssd did you install on your system could you tell me ur specs and if you had any problems? I am thinking about doing the storage upgrade
@@bobbob-gi1yp OWC AURA PRO x2 2TB. Works perfectly for MacOS AND BOOTCAMP Win10 except mine is several years old and firmware won’t upgrade for latest MacOS upgrade. Contact OWC as I think their newest versions do have the firmware upgrade. OWC are a class act and in my experience better than nvME adapters.
Would you be interested in selling the 2015 dual boot
@@keithconner6495 no but thanks for the compliment. I work as a diagnostic radiologist (MD) and having a machine that’ll do what a Mac can do so well and also connect to the windows stuff I can’t escape for healthcare is invaluable to me. Why I built it this way and the 2015 was the best of the pre Apple Silicone Macs. M1, M2, etc. as you know won’t do BootCamp and for medical imaging (PACS and RIS and specialized MG and MRI viewers) parallels is unworkable.
@@Mvendrel sweet that’s cool, is there any annoying pop ups about the ssd being installed for macOS? I’m updated to the lasted version hopefully it will transfer perfectly to the other hard drive
The mainboard, and inside layout and specifications is likely similar to Axioo Mybook laptops in Indonesia. And they sell it for minimum price of US$ 133 here in Indonesia, and made quite high number of buyers here. But then lots of trouble afterwards. It's amazing how it continue sold up until now here, with minimum price of almost 300% of US$47.
10:03
That sound is normal for a fanless laptop. It’s coil whine, and you normally don’t hear it because of fans.
Great video. I did pick this up last year that I wanted to highlight and try and upgrade on my other channel. I basically use this for as a backup PC to burn widows and Linux drives.
That exact same keyboard was on my awful 2011 netbook - times haven’t changed clearly
Hey Luke I have a question I just bought my first Mac 😀 it’s a 2016 retina 12 inch only issue is the battery is service recommended I payed 169 did I get a good deal? Would love a response from you and I do not know much about this model what should I look out for?
your point about recycling centers is absolutely on point. too much stuff scrapped.
From what I found certain models had cellular card area that you can remove and that can take a ssd card to expand storage. Not a Sata or nvme drive.
13:04 Luke is speaking just like Lotso the bear from Toy Story😂😂😂
if anyone wants a similar, but capable machine, the ASUS VivoBook L203MA is solid. ive used one for 2+ years for writing code on the fly while traveling in visual studio. not fast but totally useable. battery life is insane, 12+ hours. super light. $180.
The point about so many usable laptops in recycling centers is powerful. Those should be free to access for anyone!
UR right we have to consider Ewaste and how we can correct and recycle and make a resale market that has well service refurbished machine to use for the sale to people whom don't have the skill or time to do it but want to be a buyer....
I just recently snagged a dell latitude 7490 used for $56 & it just had a bad stick of ram & the seller just didn't care to fix so i slapped 16gb of ram & a 500gb m.2 that i had laying around with a fresh linux install & this thing is crazy value with a 8th gen core i7 so if you look around enough you can find a crazy deal.
You ruined a perfectly good computer with Linux? Why????? ;-)
It would be a decent linux machine considering how lightweight some linux distros can be
Basically, if you can upgrade the logic board, toss out the crappy emmc card that runs slow as molasses and replace it with a solid state drive with a decent amount of storage, the Celeron 3450:is more than capable of running basic tasks well. Its the inferior hardware that’s saddled it that’s given it a bad reputation. I’m sure if Luke can find reasonably priced upgrade parts, he’ll find out its going to do all that he wants to do on it.
@@NormanF62 Maybe it can run windows 10 potato edition
This has a quadcore celeron chip, quite good really.
My mum bought (for £150!!) an asus laptop with a dual core celeron processor in 2019. It's a lovely machine but almost all tasks make it 100% CPU usage. Web browsing is possible but a struggle. Its such a shame as the rest of the laptop is quite nice.. perhaps the quadcore intel version would be better.
have you tried putting a linux distro on it just to see if it performs better?
I would imagine that most people who buy that don't even know what Cinebench is...
I bought a cheap Windows 11 laptop simply out of curiosity. It's not terribly efficient but I would surmise that some people can't afford a $1000+ MacBook, so this is their next best thing. They're probably not computer literate and don't understand the finer points of how processors work, they just want something that they can use for email and web browsing. It's a shame that this laptop isn't storage and RAM upgradable because I always found upgrading computers fun and if it makes it faster, all the better. You can also argue that Apple slows down their Macs with every OS upgrade, so you only get six years of use.
When testing CZcams playback, enable Stats for Nerds! It'll show you if there are any dropped frames
I still have a 2009 mb - don’t use it but when i get it out to see if it still works I am always surprised how well it still works. Definately a better buy
I have the 17" 2009 Macbook Pro and it works really well, if you wanted you could upgrade the RAM to 8GB and put an SSD in it, it will run quite well especially if you use Open Core Legacy Patcher to install Monterey on it and you can dual boot Windows 10 on it but it needs a little help with Tuxera to create the NFTS partition for microsoft to function but once installed Windows 10 will function at a much faster pace than some of these native Windows 10 laptops
Hi Luke, I’m currently shopping for Intel macs because M ones do not support my workflow fully. In your opinion, at $1300, is an i9 MBP 16 2019 with 64gb Ram or an i7 imac 2020 32gb Ram a better value for money?
Thanks!
the HAM radio community have embraced this laptop for digital portable operations with the help of channels like Ham Radio Crash Course because its cheap. light, charges off 12v (just like ham radio gear) and has USB output for radio control and external sound card options.
Where can I get one? Would absolutely get one if pointed in the right direction.
I have a similar little dell laptop I got a couple of years ago for $57 open box. It’s a good value if you only want it to do one thing, but it’s absolutely useless as a daily driver. The idea of calling these machines “education notebooks” is honestly kinda scummy because some parent who doesn’t know better is gonna think this is a good deal on a genuine laptop.
If you are of extreme limited means but needed a computer for basic Google Docs work, email and web browsing, this sounds like a great option. Or if you needed something for your kid (knowing they’re going to trash it). Would I personally buy one? No. But then again, I’m not the target market.
I think it's too weak for internet usage, I'd install window XP on it and use it for retro gaming or something.
Interesting video. Thanks for posting. If I had to guess I would say that this and similar machines are manufactured to be Chromebooks. With such a superlight OS they can actually run quite fast. However, the makers know that not everyone likes Chrome and they realise that it will just about stand a Windows version to increase market share. So they load it with Windows at which point it becomes only borderline useable.
It looks like there’s solder pads right above where the IO board cable goes, so maybe there’s models of these that might have a m.2 slot
Could a 14 year old Macbook play 720p CZcams video? Those cheap window machines are the Netbooks of the 2020's. They are fine for light users.
You just need to slap a nice light Linux distro on this thing and it should become much more usable(for web browsing etc).
that ad transition was smooth, Luke. Real smooth 😆
I have a notebook with similar specs, I use it mostly for checking game guides if I'm playing with a console. :D
The big problem with that device is basically its EMMC storage. That Celeron N3450 is capable of surfing the web, loading and playing CZcams videos, using Office suites without any issues. I have a mini PC with the Celeron N3160 which is almost the same as the one in the video, but my device has a Sandisk Ultra II 480GB Sata 3 storage unit, and its performance is completely diferent to EMMC.
Luke these mini laptops come with the M2 header soldered or unsoldered most of the later N4020 CPU versions of this logic board have the m.2 sata header on where the interconnect ribbon cable goes the board is generic either made by an Chinese OEM ( poss even ECS uniwill or similar) , also known as ezbook , geo computers , RM etc , etc .
Regarding the m.2 slot, the comment you had on screen at 4:30 says that only "LTE Capable" models have the M.2 slot.
go in to bios and disable power limit C states and crank the power up. it doubled the benchmarks for me on mine and turned it in to a pretty usable little windows 10 machine.
For $50 you could get some used Lenovo ThinkPad, Dell Latitude or HP Pro/EliteBook
I think the hissing comes from the speaker wires picking up signals from some of the traces in this laptop
There are two versions of the laptop. One with LTE enabled, other not. Both were available at Microcenter at the same time The LTE enabled one had the LTE card on the M.2 slot that you could swap with an SSD. The non-LTE version (which you got) still have the connectors on the motherboard, but you need to solder the m.2 slot yourself lol. It is pretty straighforward if you know soldering.
Lol try using that Core 2 Duo Macbook today, see if it’s any better.
The most smooth ad transition ever 😂❤🎉
Ahoy, I have 2 Evolve III Maestro Laptops. The first is the 11A N3450 4c Apollo Lake like yours. Mine is a V.1 which came with the LTE card you can remove to add an M.2 MSATA drive. The V.2 and later don't have that slot soldered on the board so no SSD space. I also have the Maestro 11G which has a Celeron N4120 4c Gemini Lake SOC which is faster with a better GPU and can run Win11. I use both like Chromebooks as a basic Internet Cruiser and media machine. The battery life is 8+ hours so perfect for sitting on my porch wasting time on CZcams vids. My total cost for both was $175, cheaper than most Chromebooks. Cheers, daveyb
About 6 months ago i decided to buy a 10" tablet for media consumption in the kitchen, i was tired of using my phone for it, in the budget of 100€. After searching for a while, none of the options were appealing because they were either some noname brands, but i found a Teclast F15S for 110€, open box. The specs are very similar, but it has a decent IPS 1080p panel, a Celeron J3455, 6GB of RAM and has slot for a SATA3 M.2. Sure, its slow, but can play 4K on CZcams and movies no problem.
Imo there is still some demand for these low power and cheap laptops, for sure i wouldn't spend over 150€ for a media consumption device in a kitchen.
It’s a disposable laptop. Perfect for kids if it lasts a month.
Damn, smooth transition with the phone cases 🔥
i think you plugged in the screen cable wrong because after you put the craptop back together the screen looks too blue
the m.2 slot was only on certain models. As a ham radio operator convert to linux and works even better.
The HAM radio people like them for their mobile radio setups because they are cheap to replace if they are lost or damaged, so basically because they are e-waste. Though I honestly think the bigger e-waste problem is all the T2 and newer Macs that schools and corporations are retiring that are absolutely useless due to them being account locked.
If it was $5 more and they actually populated the M.2 slot it would be interesting. I wonder if those PCIe lanes are actually connected and it just needs the port soldering on...
I doubt the M.2 slot would have PCIe lanes, most likely it would be SATA / USB only.
@@Pasi123 mSATA would be a marked improvement over eMMC storage.
@@mos6581com Anything is an improvement from eMMC.
M.2 SATA SSD would definitely be a huge upgrade
I bought a little Dell with similar specs for my son a bunch of years ago and it became effectively unusable with Windows. I wiped it and installed linux (used Zorin as it's relatively lightweight) and it's not a speed demon but is fairly usable for web browsing, word processing (using LibreOffice), and other simple tasks. I'll often travel with this because it's very small and quite rigid, and if anything happened to it I wouldn't care. There are also free versions of Chome OS that may be more accessible than linux for some users.
I'm late to the party but I think that with a custom win11 rom like lite11 or something else available would make this machine more usable, granted still for simple task. Nevertheless with an m2 expantion slot wich in usually found in this kind of laptop, sadly not in your case, upgrading to a tiny ssd would make this laptop even more usable and snappier.
I have a Sony Vaio which is a similar Celeron machine. I installed the x86 Debian Linux distribution from Raspberry Pi on it. It is fast. It has the standard Raspberry Pi desktop and so the exercises in a teach yourself Python on the Raspberry Pi book work on it. Note that the x86 Debian Linux distribution from Raspberry Pi also works on cheap Intel Macs.
chucking the box is so cool
i would put more money into its longjavity than chrome books or maybe even newer macs. The bottom end of the spectrum is pretty much required the same compute power for years now and it probably continue to be that way. you can install a linux distro on it and it will be a beast (i have a Hp laptop with Pentium from 2015 (Board only) or so and it is running Ubuntu server with a Tv optimised GUI and it is great as a TV box with no smart TV/TV box Bs) for these tasks unlike Apple and google this unnamed brand don't lock down software or have weird software locks for hardware. this laptop is a better raspberry pi with the GPIO swapped for a laptop shell and many people are fine with that.
I like low cost laptops likes these for emulating old systems like C65, Apple IIgs and etc. Install Linux on them and have them open up the desired emulator on boot. Then can paint symbols on keys and etc for each system. If ambitious will sand and paint exterior to make it resemble vintage system……
I got a mid 2010 13” with a working battery and perfect condition original hard drive for 40 bucks
Why not take the copper shield off and look under it aince you went so far? I would love to know if they cheap doubt on anything else or what that CPU looks like maybe there’s a port underneath the copper
Luke definitely dropped his phone intentionally 😊
Also at 6:10 you broke a clip 😂
At that price it would open up opportunities for people with limited cash. $50 for a few years of use isn't that bad. It would do social media fine.
Well, to be fair, you'd have a heckuva nice scientific graphing calculator!
The question is for how long... Do an endurance benchmark test
That was the cleanest fucking segue into a sponsor I'd ever seen. +Respect
I would open it up, remove the logic board, make schematics, 3D print a case, and use it as an SBC
I got one for ham radio over a year ago. its useable for our uses.... but its pretty much ewaste unless you have some kinda low power always on or often on use case.
@9:54 its obviously thermo throttling. Honestly, this computer was never meant to be used as intensively as you are trying to use it. That Cinebench test is a stress test for most computers, let alone one for $50. The fact that it even ran that 3d scene creation at all is wonder. A stress test of this kind will take CPU temps to their max, it may even test the thermal paste or the Mosfats regulating the maximum power draw. None of this should be a surprise for an experienced product reviewer.
As for the CPU, its a 4-core, 4-thread CPU from 2016 - Celeron N3450 which can boost to 2.2 ghz with HD500 spec Graphics. eg better than the old Macs you compared it to on ebay. The key reason for this CPU is its extremely low TDW at 6w. It basically uses negligible power. By comparison, most laptops are 45- 65w.
In other words not only is it cheap it also saves on energy. E = Eco. This would be perfect for someone on solar. Btw should you have run the tests before taking it apart?
U could swap out the cores . And other parts that fit into the slot 👍
Just a heads up….that’s an off brand replacement Dell battery from what I think is a Latitude e5450.
Man that was a smooth transition into that sponsor!