Need a new gadget!!

H4CKS0RZZ

H4CKS0RZZ

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Joined
Nov 25, 2011
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156
Location
Poole, Dorset, United Kingdom
Hi All,

Im looking to make an investment and I need a bit of advice...... I have £250ish to spend I do have some ideas in mind but am still not 100%.

Some of the products I have had in mind are:

  • Chromebook Series 3
  • PS Vita
  • Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 with a keyboard dock

The reason I have these products in mind is because I need a device which I can work, play and consume media on the go. All of these devices are fairly inexpensive and I wouldn't feel worried to take out with me. All of these products have their positives and negatives but I'm not sure what to get! Can anybody help? Or suggest me anyother
 
  • Chromebook Series 3 - essentially its the Chrome web browser that can use a few Google services offline, useless without an internet connection which you might not have when out and about.
  • PS Vita - will be the best device of the three for pure gaming, has stupid restrictions from Sony though about copying content to it and uses propitiatory memory cards which are expensive.
  • Galaxy Tab 2 - Ill be amazed if you honestly use the keyboard dock, i have the ASUS Transformer Prime and find the keyboard dock is useless for actually using as a keyboard. Android just isn't designed to take advantage of one. Sure you could type an email faster or a very basic text document but that's it.

From what you say "I need a device which I can work, play and consume media on the go" i would be looking at a small laptop such as the Lenovo Ideapad S206 which is £250.

  • 12 inch screen, so fairly small / light so its easy to transport however still nice enough to use as a laptop without it feeling too small
  • Runs Windows - so you can run most apps you would on your PC, including Microsoft Office.
  • Plenty of indie games and even older games run great on a low powered device like that
  • 320gb of space to store music, video and other content.
  • HDMI out so you can connect to a TV to play movies with ease, also supports USB 3
  • Nothing to stop you experimenting and installing Chrome OS on it, or even Ubuntu / your fav Linux distro.

Nexus 7 32gb - At £200 thats well in your budget. If i was going to get a 7" Android tablet i would get that as you get the latest updates from Google, has good support from the Android development community and with the Tegra 3 chip set it will play all the high end Android games fine.
 
Thanks for the reply!

I think the Vita has to be out of the decision because after really thinking about it I need to do work as I will use it at school. All of the places I would use it will have wifi and if not I always carry round a MiFi with me in my bag anyways so web is not an issue.

The Lenovo could be an option but my dad owns a Windows 7 netbook and he constantly complains about the speed of the device being unbearably slow! Although his runs on an Intel Atom processor I can assume the AMD would be about the same speed.

The Chromebook seems to be my best option so far at the moment because its fast, slim and light, cheap, tied to google and will play the odd few games. I think I will be able to get used to working in the cloud so the chromebook seems the best option for me:) do you think what I just said sounds about right aha?
 
What a coinsidence. I just got my ps vita when this appeared. Got mine because i need portable gaming on the go, and i already have an android smartphone. If you are really into gaming and need something powerfull with you, i would suggest Ps vita. If you need something where you can always be online and want a few decent games, i would buy a tablet, preferably Nexus 7 since it is 210 pound on amazon at the moment. I don't think that chromebook is the best idea, since it isn't widely used and i don't think there are many good applications for it, except google chrome ofcourse. There is also kindle fire hd if you need a tablet.
 
If you have enough money then get Acer aspire e1 from amazon or some similar laptop, but not chromebook please. Chromebooks are for people who just need internet on the go.
 
To see if you could manage with a with a Chromebook go to Google Docs in Google Chrome. You really will be limited, however if all you want to do is browse the net and very basic editing then it might just do.

Someone at work has one and he loves it because he hates computers, he has something he doesn't need to worry about updates / antivirus and the Chromebook loads up in about 10 seconds. Most of all he feels its secure as nothing much else can run on it. From what you have said i get the feeling you will want a bit more than that, but only you can decide that.

Do you have another laptop or anything?
 
I already own an extremely powerful (i7+8GB ram+GTX680) laptop so the chromebook is just a device which i can basically use to check emails, watch youtube videos, play the odd light games and write articles on. Basically i want the chromebook as a tablet with a keyboard (my iPad is no good for work because of the lack of keyboard). so do you think it would be a good choice for this use?
 
With the Chromebook your limited to web apps / games, e.g. chrome.angrybirds.com, its not really a tablet with a keyboard. Its more like a laptop with only a web browser, however by default it would be a lot harder to infect with something nasty, so like a tablet in some ways as its targeted far less by malicious software and boots up very fast.

In all honestly you can probably just about do what you want with it, however personally i think in the long run it will be far too limiting. If you want a device you can just power on and use for extremely basic internet tasks then it will do perfectly, which is what your saying.

Say you went for the Lenovo Ideapad S206 you can install Chrome OS on that if you really wanted (see: Download Cr OS Linux - Chrome Plated OS) or even Linux or Windows, you can easily do a lot more at a later date with it if you ever wanted so would be a perfect second computer for "tinkering" without messing your main one up.

Me personally i wouldn't buy it, however as you have a powerful laptop anyway and dont appear to want much from it then a Chromebook might just be for you. You have my opinion and Dmitrij Godzjura's opinion, its really now what you want as you would do different tasks with it than i would.
 
InsaneNutter said:
With the Chromebook your limited to web apps / games, e.g. chrome.angrybirds.com, its not really a tablet with a keyboard. Its more like a laptop with only a web browser, however by default it would be a lot harder to infect with something nasty, so like a tablet in some ways as its targeted far less by malicious software and boots up very fast.

In all honestly you can probably just about do what you want with it, however personally i think in the long run it will be far too limiting. If you want a device you can just power on and use for extremely basic internet tasks then it will do perfectly, which is what your saying.

Say you went for the Lenovo Ideapad S206 you can install Chrome OS on that if you really wanted (see: Download Cr OS Linux - Chrome Plated OS) or even Linux or Windows, you can easily do a lot more at a later date with it if you ever wanted so would be a perfect second computer for "tinkering" without messing your main one up.

Me personally i wouldn't buy it, however as you have a powerful laptop anyway and dont appear to want much from it then a Chromebook might just be for you. You have my opinion and Dmitrij Godzjura's opinion, its really now what you want as you would do different tasks with it than i would.
Click to expand...

Hmmmmmm.... Thanks for putting it all into perspective, it now seems that a netbook would be a good option. If I was to get the Lenovo what OS would I run? My father owns an Acer Aspire One and albeit a good 18 months old it was slow from the word go, I mostly assume that Win 7 was too taxing for the little Atom processor inside (I know the Lenovo has an AMD Brazos dual core). I have used Linux before but I have never been able to stick it out and have switched back to windows.

Also the Chromebook would still be an option as of all the features it possesses that I have mentioned previously.

Thanks
 
It comes with Windows 7, so i would just do a clean install of that so all the rubbish that comes pre installed is erased. Thats usually what slows computers down more than anything. Dont expect it to be the fastest device in the world, however my single core 1.6ghz Atom Netbook was more than capable of doing what you wanted. You could also take advantage of the £25 Windows 8 upgrade offer if you wished, Windows 8 is very snappy even on low end devices.
 
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