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General => On Topic => Topic started by: Jerry on April 29, 2018, 03:25:25 AM

Title: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: Jerry on April 29, 2018, 03:25:25 AM
I've been in touch with a number of laptop manufacturers and asked for sample units to pair with Linux Lite 4.x

The following specs are likely to be selected based on value and features:

    CPU: Apollo Lake N3450 Quad Core 2.20 GHz
    OS: Linux Lite 4.x
    Screen: 13.3" 1920*1080 TN
    Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 500
    RAM:​ 4GB DDR
    Storage: 64GB or 128GB
    Camera: front 2MP
    Battery: 9500mAh (8 to 10 Hours!)
    Network: Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n
    Connection: Bluetooth 4.0
    USB 3.0

As you can see you get full HD, 8 -10 battery hours (TBC), comes in Gold and Black, although I am thinking people will want just black?
These are all the spec details I have for now. More will follow, especially regarding I/O.

(https://i.imgur.com/zfDCkWW.png)

(https://i.imgur.com/KtGiyFA.png)

My main question is, what would be a fair, 'good value for you' price for this? The answers to this will determine whether or not this is a viable pursuit.

Thank you :)
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: TMG1961 on April 29, 2018, 03:59:37 AM
When i buy a laptop from a country outside of the EU i have to pay 21% VAT, the 21% come on top of the total price, so including shipment and insurance of the shipment. For it too be interesting to buy it should not be more then 300 euro including shipping/insurance for shipping. I also prefer a 15.6"laptop, but thats personal.
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: Ottawagrant on April 29, 2018, 08:42:27 AM
A similar spec laptop in Canada with Windows 10 is around CA$279.00 - $399.00. A Chromebook (similar specs) is about the same price.
I just wanted to mention that new laptops are WiFi only. New computers do not have Ethernet ports, or VGA ports, they connect by HDMI only.
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: bluzeo on April 29, 2018, 09:06:48 PM
I say 599$ if you can had AMD to it  but Intel I need to see it fully.

God not dead. He roaring like an lion.

Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: Jerry on April 29, 2018, 11:35:42 PM
Thank you all for your answers to date :)
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: m654321 on April 30, 2018, 05:25:37 AM
Before asking what is a reasonable price, you need to state what the unique selling points of such a laptop are. The USPs will help determine the price.  For example (copied and pasted & v. slightly mofdified from eugen-b on a similar discussion on the Manjaro forum at
https://forum.manjaro.org/t/manjaro-spitfire-laptop-some-questions/43205/17 (https://forum.manjaro.org/t/manjaro-spitfire-laptop-some-questions/43205/17)):
A great idea Jerry  8)
Cheers
Mike
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: Jerry on April 30, 2018, 05:45:22 AM
At 999, the Manjaro laptop price is off the charts. Ours will be mid-spec for less than half that retail. they must be making 100's in profit from each one. Not good.
Anyhoo, still looking for prices here for the LL one. Suggestions?
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: Searchernow on April 30, 2018, 09:21:55 AM
pricing:

I can't put a figure on it, but around 300 Euros could be good for a home use laptop.

Unless I'm being naive, the ethos of foss can carry through to hardware too, with reasonable mark-ups to pay staff. Many of the citizens of Richistan are actively destroying this world, then voting themselves 55Bn dollar bonuses (Musk). So good on LL crew for a donation-based OS and reasonably-priced laptops, and keeping greed out of it.

I presume they'll be sold locally, so here in Europe we'll pay vat anyway.

Gold can look tacky pretty quickly, stick with black or some dark colours, whatever the suppliers can do.
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: WytWun on April 30, 2018, 09:27:05 AM
Just a couple of observations from local pricing (from Officeworks (http://www.officeworks.com.au) in Australia):
Both with Windows 10 Home of course.  The killer difference for both of these compared to what Jerry has found is the AC class WiFi, which is becoming useful as the 2.4GHz spectrum becomes very congested in heavily populated areas.  Unfortunately neither can be upgraded beyond 4GB RAM as far as I can determine  :(.

At AU$500 the Acer is potentially quite attractive to me personally (except that I already have my laptop needs covered for the moment with an older Acer 13.3" N2840 machine, which has a real SSD and 8GB of RAM to compensate for the anaemic CPU  :( though LL makes the most of it's performance).

My main LL machine is a J3455 equipped Intel NUC which has more than adequate performance for the lightweight desktop duties it performs; the N3450 seems to have performance within 10% of the J3455 in most assessments I've found so quite useful performance for the money.  Not a gaming machine or heavy video editing platform though...

2 spec items I think it would be useful to have clarified:

Quote from: Searchernow on April 30, 2018, 09:21:55 AM
Gold can look tacky pretty quickly, stick with black or some dark colours.
+1
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: TheDead on April 30, 2018, 09:37:40 AM
@Jerry and @Ottawagrant
I found what seems the same laptop pictures by Jerry in Canada, at about 379$CAD (64G), but this one has 6GB RAM instead of 4.
From the specs tho, the hard drive is EMMC. From the forum threads, it seems this could mean having to use UEFI. (?).
I don't have this kind of laptop at hand, but if I come accross one at work, I'll try the LL4.0b on it.

Cheers!
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: m654321 on April 30, 2018, 12:09:41 PM
Quote from: Jerry on April 30, 2018, 05:45:22 AM
At 999, the Manjaro laptop price is off the charts. Ours will be mid-spec for less than half that retail. they must be making 100's in profit from each one. Not good.

Agreed - way too high. The 13.3" Clevo laptop, that they seem to use, you can buy for less than half that price (with win10 of course)!

Quote
Anyhoo, still looking for prices here for the LL one. Suggestions?
13.3" screen: around £300-350 as it's a celeron chip (not hyperthreaded so can't run VMs)
17" screen: around £400-500 (if ever became available - my preference).

I just looked up the spec for the celeron CPU - RAM looks expandable to 8GB ...
See  https://ark.intel.com/products/95596/Intel-Celeron-Processor-N3450-2M-Cache-up-to-2_2-GHz (https://ark.intel.com/products/95596/Intel-Celeron-Processor-N3450-2M-Cache-up-to-2_2-GHz)

Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: pompeyrodney on April 30, 2018, 01:41:44 PM
Hi Jerry
This sounds a good spec to me but I would personally like the ram to be expandable beyond 4gig. The larger 15.6" inch screen would be my preference and of IPS quality. With so many cloud storage services available I think the 128gb SSD would be sufficient. I will see what price I can find for similar spec.

Sent from my MotoG3 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: trinidad on April 30, 2018, 02:04:18 PM
Next size up screen and $500 price would sell here in US. Cheapest Ubuntu OEM Dell around $1600. Zareason around $1000. System 76 14in is around $600. AMD would be a plus too. Don't need big drive. 80g SSD plenty enough. Regardless of what you do $500 is the consumer market. Higher not so much.

And the gold is cool.

TC
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: TheDead on April 30, 2018, 02:16:18 PM
@Jerry
I checked and $CAD are also equal to $AUD
If you can can get the 6GB at 444$AUD/$CAD that would be great I think. (444 for Linux Lite 4)
Thats about 344$USD. ;)
(I would prefer 442 like, 42... because you know, it's the number 42 ;) , but I understant if you prefer the 444$ argument).

@m654321
Its not HyperThreaded no, the I5-6500 is not either, which I found weird.
But, its Multi-Threaded 4 core, 4 threads.
People seemed to have been able to run Virtual Machine on them, but have information and is far between.
Guess @Jerry will have to test this.

Note : I like gold. But if you can have Diamond White(/Pearly), Linux Lite Yellow, Galaxy Gray and Void Black, you will be worshipped by the Gods.

I would personnaly get Galaxy Gray, I like my stuff classy looking. ;)


Cheers!
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: newtusmaximus on April 30, 2018, 02:32:03 PM
See below.  Unfortunate duplicated message instead of amendment. :(
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: Vera on April 30, 2018, 02:33:43 PM
I'd been looking at laptops recently, so was a little familiar with pricing, specs etc. Without looking at any of the other answers, I felt that $300 - $400 US was a fair and attractive price for those specs with LL 4.x pre-installed. 

I like your idea of offering it in 2 different HD sizes, since I felt the 64G option was a little small (I mean it was too small for people to want to buy it, but that's just IMHO). Yes I know that external hard drives are an option, but still, 64G is small if people are planning on storing some pics or videos on the machine. So, was glad to hear it's got a 128G option.

However, if the price offered was high (like if it was $500+), I'd wonder if that would put off some users who would then consider buying a used PC laptop instead and putting LL on it themselves. It would put me off, but then again the users who would buy a LL laptop would be the ones who would value the additional convenience of having everything there and being good to go without the hassle of installation. So you might still get some users at $500+. Basically, the higher the price, the more users I'd predict would instead go to the used-PC market and self-installation. Offering a LL-branded laptop for purchase would at least be a good option that users can consider. I personally though would feel $300 - $400 US is fair; but above $500 it might scare me off a little. Again, that's just me, everyone has different opinions.

Shipping costs and the charger wall outlet compatibility is something you'd also need to consider when creating a LL-branded laptop.
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: newtusmaximus on April 30, 2018, 02:44:05 PM
UK = prices inclusive of tax delivered.
https://www.ebuyer.com/store/Computer/cat/Laptops (https://www.ebuyer.com/store/Computer/cat/Laptops)

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/ct/laptops-and-netbooks/laptops (https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/ct/laptops-and-netbooks/laptops)

http://www.argos.co.uk/browse/technology/laptops-and-pcs/c:29953/ (http://www.argos.co.uk/browse/technology/laptops-and-pcs/c:29953/)

Refurbished, even more choices. eg.
 
https://www.gigarefurb.co.uk/refurbished-laptops (https://www.gigarefurb.co.uk/refurbished-laptops)

http://www.tier1online.com/refurbished-laptops/?sort=bestselling (http://www.tier1online.com/refurbished-laptops/?sort=bestselling)

http://www.blackbarncomputers.com/refurbished-laptops/ (http://www.blackbarncomputers.com/refurbished-laptops/)

Sorry to be a kill Joy, but for the hassle / shipping/taxes/warranties  where is the return.  Margins in the industry are slim even for major players.
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: newtusmaximus on April 30, 2018, 03:54:29 PM
Not to be a total killjoy.  How about a LL tablet (possibly with keyboard option).  AFAIK no competition ?    Biggest screen that was economically possible.  Work closely with the manufacturer to get around driver issues. LINX possibly?  LINX apparently have been struggling to get their tablets working on W10 - see returns/refurbishments caused by customers complaining of slow response times etc.   Just a thought. 
http://www.exertis.com/news/linx-next-gen.php
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: Searchernow on April 30, 2018, 05:06:32 PM
Quote from: newtusmaximus on April 30, 2018, 03:54:29 PM
Not to be a total killjoy.  How about a LL tablet (possibly with keyboard option).  AFAIK no competition ?    Biggest screen that was economically possible.  Work closely with the manufacturer to get around driver issues. LINX possibly?  LINX apparently have been struggling to get their tablets working on W10 - see returns/refurbishments caused by customers complaining of slow response times etc.   Just a thought. 
http://www.exertis.com/news/linx-next-gen.php

I'd really like a LL tablet, (finances allowing).

Competition? - This company  https://www.bq.com/en/accessories/products/2 (https://www.bq.com/en/accessories/products/2) do tablets running android now, but they did offer Ubuntu, see this article from 2016  https://www.zdnet.com/pictures/best-ios-windows-android-and-linux-tablets-of-2016/7/ (https://www.zdnet.com/pictures/best-ios-windows-android-and-linux-tablets-of-2016/7/)

I don't know why they stopped.
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: Jerry on April 30, 2018, 10:14:58 PM
We won't be doing any tablet or ARM devices, sorry. Thanks for all the responses, I'm getting a clearer picture now of what is expected :)
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: m654321 on May 01, 2018, 12:30:29 PM
Apollo Lake N3450 Quad Core 2.20 GHz

This is a Celeron CPU.
Will it come with UEFI technology installed on its motherboard, or will it be the traditional BIOS-only setup (if that's at all possible on hardware these days)?
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: Jerry on May 01, 2018, 10:30:13 PM
Laptop will undoubtedly be UEFI. One of the first things I'll be doing when I get an order is disabling that.
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: Searchernow on May 08, 2018, 08:23:43 AM
A thing to check for will be how it behaves with external monitors.

I am using a 14inch laptop, great for portability, but at home it's connected to a 21inch monitor.
This setup is now working a lot better (so far!) since I disabled the built-in display and just use the external. Good to know the particular machine's quirks!
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: m654321 on May 14, 2018, 09:53:33 AM

@Jerry
So, do you think you'll go ahead with the LL branded laptop project?
If the answer's yes, what timescale (very approx.) have you got in mind till they
become available?

I for one will be buying one, if/when they become available  8) 

PS. One of the Manjaro team told me that the reason their laptops are so pricey
(£999 for a 13.3" screen i7 laptop) was because they would be made to order on a per customer
basis, i.e. no bulk buying. They do a quirky thing of engraving the Manjaro logo on the
laptop lid, which no doubt inflates costs.

Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: TheDead on May 14, 2018, 11:07:08 AM
Maybe they engraves the logos on the screen itself in the first batch and have to get back their losses...
Trolololo! ;)

Just kidding, Manjaro is my favorite Arch... yet. @bitsnpcs mentionned a Linux Lite Arch x64 idea in another thread... ;)
Maybe Jerry will get to that in LL version 7 if Arch stays at the top, get more userfriendly, lower ressources, someone casts a hoodoo spell... We never know! hehe
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: m654321 on May 14, 2018, 11:12:42 AM
Quote from: TheDead on May 14, 2018, 11:07:08 AM
@bitsnpcs mentionned a Linux Lite Arch x64 idea in another thread... ;)

''Arch" in the context discussed = architecture, not Arch Linux.
There was some confusion, but Jerry clarified. Have to say I
was a bit confused too at the time.
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: TheDead on May 14, 2018, 11:42:50 AM
@m654321
I know hence my ;) and my "Trololo!"
... and if I remember correctly, Jerry has a special place for Arch in his heart.

Whatever the core, lets hope LL can help get Linux higher than the 2-3% Desktop market shares. Go team Go!
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: Jerry on May 14, 2018, 12:12:32 PM
It's still a work in progress. Part of the idea of this thread was to gauge interest in the idea. Will certainly update you all on any developments.

Sent from my Mi Max using Tapatalk

Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: JesusLinux on May 29, 2018, 12:25:15 PM
I think the point of using LL is because it's light on resources and good for old hardware.
When people buy something new they want it to be as powerful as it can be for that price range and those machines come with Win.

An idea that would be good for the environment would be to sell refurbish laptop with LL installed a new battery, in a way everything working out of the box.

They could be sold as refurbish/branded LL laptops at cheap prices for people with low budgets.
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: m654321 on February 21, 2019, 06:28:32 AM
Could we have USB-C and Thunderbolt-3 ports on any LL branded laptop that may be in the pipeline ?
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: BarryVG on February 21, 2019, 01:14:21 PM
I'm on my third system using LL starting at V2.2.  I find it a fantastic OS and I like it comes with the basic apps.  I can install anything I wish to my desire.  The current system is a Dell Precision 4500 laptop with I7, 16gb ram and a 1TB drive.  I did install VirtualBox and I love I can assign as many processors and as much hard drive space for the hosted OS.  Current VB setup has 22 different OS's loaded.  As I'm a help desk tech and often asked about what other Linux OS look like, I can show them in real time.  It works for me and I'm enjoying LL much.  Looking forward to 4.4.
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: Jerry on February 21, 2019, 05:48:16 PM
I'd like to include as many ports as possible, but they have to play nice with the kernel.
Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: bluzeo on April 06, 2019, 03:13:44 PM
Been looking for s replacement got mine. Almost buying a Chromebook or a surface.   Hope this comes out soon

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: Linux Lite Branded Laptop
Post by: Artim on April 06, 2019, 06:35:39 PM
Such a cool idea!  Make the RAM expandable, since while it's more than sufficient now on 4.4, I would expect to keep the machine for several years.  $4-600 USD is what I think I would expect to pay.