Looking for a device that has a 10-12 inch screen with a keyboard for light on the go use. I am open to windows, linux, android or chrome os devices. I am doing a short course and need something for browsing the internet and general word processing. Budget $200-300 would prefer Android or Linux
New tablet with keyboard for word processing, internet browsing, video and light gaming.
frondono on 05/03/2016 - 16:00
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Interesting, looks pretty cool just had a look on the hp site.
I had the stream 13. Honestly I found it very sluggish. I loved my old netbook back in the day but my stream really struggled to keep up.
For what you need chrome OS sounds like it might be the least painful to use.
What kind of games? Touchscreen based games are more abundant on Android, but word processing woudl be better on Windows.
Just silly games from the appstore e.g jetpack joyride, flappy bird, plant's vs zombies just for mindless entertainment to kill the time.
In your budget, I think the best option would be to go for a Chinese tablet (the one that has both Android and Windows) and a cheap bluetooth keyboard from Target (which was around $10~20?)
Something like this, for example. https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/231881
That said, I personally think it's better to grab a tablet from Australian retailers though, local support and all.
YMMV, but I've found that tablets with independent BT keyboards are generally quite terrible for typing. It can be a pain to get them to stand up properly on a desk, worse if you have a tiny desk like in a lecture theatre (if that's what "short course" implies).
Would be a good idea to go in-store and try them out.
@elusive: I have one of those bluetooth ones with a standalone stand (MS one), sometimes they are better than having a type cover. You can position the keyboard slightly to the side so that you utilise the entire table more.
Though I guess as you said, YMMV.
You could try an ASUS netbook for $309:
http://cplonline.com.au/asus-x205ta-fd0061ts-z3735f-2gb-32g-…
It's a little underpowered — only 2GB of RAM and the processor is also slow. But sufficient enough to run office and multitask a web browser at once. that's all it can do though, any more and the memory limitation becomes painfully obvious.
But you get Office 365 subscription with it, which is nice.
A friend really likes his HP Stream 11 for that kind of thing. Seems to be fairly standard x86 so you could probably install Linux (apparently Ubuntu works).
It's not convertible/touch but if your intention is to have something with a keyboard then it should work pretty well.