I need something I can travel with and I haz no cash money. I'm looking to buy by this summer (may ish) so I have time to get some cash money. I need the cheapest laptop I can get that will be super sturdy and play counter strike. I will probably just end up putting ubuntu on it and adding some extra ram my self so those specs arn't important. Any good recommendations ?
*edit:
I can probably save a max of 500 but 300 or below would be best.
asus transformer t100 ; around 300$ but may be lower.
Not a big fan of tablets, is it really that good?
yea, its good; and its transformer ~ it has keyboard but you can take it off.
I would say you should get something like the Lenovo G50-80 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834318466
It has Intel 5500 graphics, which should provide 60 fps on CS GO, especially considering the lower resolution (which I realize may be a dealbreaker).
It's a bit expensive, but i think my main gripe is the fact that its a leveno without a trackpoint
Some of HP and Lenovos APU systems arn't bad for the price, Linux support is okay if you can deal with a few minor things and give it the time necessary to get your setup perfect.
I've got myself a Lenovo x140e just after Xmas its got a quad core A4-5000 APU running the show and while I do like it I'd be slightly hesitant to recommend it, Windows runs just fine and I've had Mint running on it for a few months as a dual boot but it was never quite as good as Windows, could never seem to get everything perfect and the touchpad isn't nice but it does have a trackpoint and three separate mouse buttons so I rarely use the touchpad, I usually turn it off. The saving grace of the laptop is its small size, durable build quality, two dimm slots, and quite reasonable CPU and GPU performance for a very low price. Performance is somewhere between an ultra mobile i3 and Pentium for roughly the price of a Celeron laptop so it wasn't a bad buy for about 300 euro (100 of that was shipping costs, go import charges!) I only wish there was a higher spec version as the CPU performance kinda crap. Battery life is phenomenal, I have gotten close to 6 hours watching HD movies before I had to plug it in.
I got it because of its price to performance ratio, battery life and the fact I can add more ram and a badly needed SSD quickly (mechanical drive is fine but I hate noise) without breaking the bank, its at the end of its production run so you might even find it on a fire sale or maybe at a nice price refurbished. There is two versions one with an A4-5000 and another with a slower dual core E1-2500.
Gaming is a bit weak, older games and lower spec games (such as most indie titles) run just fine but there's no getting around the fact this isn't a gaming machine. Sniper Elite 3 at native resolution and low settings averaged 20fps with its benchmarking tool however if you're willing to go as low as 800x600 you'll average higher than 30fps. Not bad for what it is. I'll be trying out the Linux version of Bioshock Infinite later and if youre interested I'll update you.
Honestly I think the most taxing game I play is csgo, other than that I only play indie games which most laps should be able to run fine. I checked out the lenovo x140e and it looks awesome, but expensive so I'll keep it in mind. Also I can't seem to find the system 76 lemur, I didn't know they made super cheap builds.
It doesn't do a bad job with CSGO at native resolution as long as you drop a few of the settings to low, with that said the screen size is a little too small imo to play competitive fps games and I'd rather play something with a joypad than a FPS on this but I guess if I had too I could get used to it.
Have a look around for other APU laptops, plenty of budget priced 15 inch laptops out there with an A4 and even A6 inside them with similar battery performance, just make sure you get a quad core as AMDs single threaded performance is awful but anything that takes advantage of all 4 cores preforms really well and I believe Linux does a far better job scaling its work loads to additional cores than Windows currently does.
Were can you even buy this now?
It releases in April on their website.
2nd the transformer t100 idea. That way you can charge it via any usb port (tv's etc). CS plays ok enough but you'll want to use a mouse as the touchpad is a turd to use. They're quite tough but the buttons on the side and top of the screen aren't very durable.
Running ubuntu on em is possible and I tried it on my t100 to test ubuntu's touch screen abilities - that worked well but I had issues with other things so I nerfed it and went back to 8.1. That was a while back so support would no doubt be better by now.
Also worth considering say a 2nd hand i5/7 (1st or 2nd gen) 12" lenovo with a ssd. Built like a brick shithouse - perfect for travel etc. Very upgradable as well. - X201, X220 etc. ebay is well worth a look.
Best of luck matey.