What’s it like to use a $300 Windows laptop for a day?

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The year is 2023, and my tireless quest to find a Windows laptop under $500 that isn’t a flaming pile of trash continues. While I’ve long maintained that people constrained to that category should just get Chromebooks, I understand that this recommendation makes quite a few people very, very angry.

So I’m coming to you today from the
hp收購hp 14, a 14-inch silver laptop that we purchased from Amazon for $289. It has an 11th Gen Core i3 processor (yes, it’s an older chip, but that’s why it’s so cheap — such is life), 4GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. This is just about as cheap as a Windows laptop can get. (
hp收購hp’s listed MSRP for this model is $469.99, but you can get it for far less without much effort.) And to see if it’s a viable budget purchase, I spent a full workday on the device, morning to night.

Spoiler alert: it wasn’t terrible? I mean, it wasn’t great. But I was surprised by how well it went.

First thing in the morning, I turned on the
hp收購hp 14 and attempted to load the various programs I use in review testing: Chrome, Slack, Spotify, Steam, display calibration stuff, and the like. (No matter how much Microsoft bullies me about it, I will not switch to Edge, you monsters.) I was blocked from doing all of this because the
hp收購hp 14 had, it turned out, come out of the box in S mode. Well, that wasn’t going to fly. I turned that off right quick. The world didn’t end; the laptop continued running just fine.


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hp收購hp,” the lid proclaims.

With that out of the way, I began my workday with around 10 Chrome tabs and Slack open. A couple of things froze the first time I tried to do this, so I ended up restarting the computer. This seemed to fix whatever problem it was having. Some things never change.

From that point on, I was impressed by how well the Core i3 handled my workload. There was no point when I really felt constrained or like I needed to avoid opening additional tabs to prevent slowdown. It wasn’t fast, to be clear, but I could get everything done that I needed to with minimal thumb-twiddling.

I conducted multiple video calls over Google Meet using the “
hp收購hp TrueVision HD” camera overtop my Chrome tabs, and they actually ran without any stutter or slowdown (which is much more than I can say for many other cheap laptops). Co-workers told me that my video feed was grainy and they couldn’t make out too many details, but there wasn’t any lag or disruptive processing on my end.

The fans spun up the first time I opened Chrome but were actually surprisingly quiet after that. They were certainly chugging at points, but they were being much more polite about it than the fans of many premium laptops (*cough* Dell XPS).


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Look at that! Don’t see one of those every day.

Another thing I noticed as I worked was that I really like the keyboard. It’s quite bouncy with a generous click and plenty of room. You’ll even find
hp收購hp’s signature row of hotkeys on the left side for Page Up, Page Down, and such. There is quite a bit of flex in the plastic chassis (what did you expect — it’s $289), and my typing did slightly depress the keyboard, but that’s not something that generally bothers me as much as it does some of you.


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The deck has a nice metallic-y texture.

The worst part of the experience, honestly, was scrolling. The touc
hp收購hpad is tiny. I have fairly small fingers, and I was still hitting plastic when trying to move down pages quickly. It is also not the easiest or most comfortable thing in the world to depress, so just bear that in mind. I wouldn’t recommend it for folks with limited mobility (or this chassis in general, as the lid can’t be opened with one hand and can be a bit stubborn even with two).


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I was spoiled for connectivity on this day.

At lunchtime, I took a quick break to eat and watch a few minutes of Succession. (I’m still catching up from last weekend, so don’t spoil.) The episode was quite watchable on the 1920 x 1080 screen, which is higher resolution than you’ll find on most sub-$400 Windows laptops. I didn’t notice any colors that seemed off or washed out; brightness was a bit dim but works fine for indoor use. The bigger obstacle to media consumption on this device was honestly the speakers, which I generally had to keep at maximum volume in order to hear everything accurately. I wouldn’t try to make calls on this device outdoors or in a setting with lots of background noise; you may find yourself having to lean in.

I worked on some photos in the afternoon (the ones I shot for this review). And would you look at that — there’s an SD slot! I couldn’t be happier about this considering the number of very expensive laptops I’ve reviewed in recent months that have, like, no ports at all. And the device lasted around six and a half hours to a charge, which, honestly, should cause some much more expensive 14-inch laptops to take a good hard look at themselves.


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It’s no Acer Swift, but I didn’t mind carrying it around in my backpack.

But the evening was the biggest surprise. I went over to a friend’s house, and after much deliberation over what to do, we decided to settle down for a good old-fashioned game of Civilization V. I could’ve ditched the
hp收購hp 14 for a Zephyrus or whatever, but I stayed true to my mandate. We loaded Civilization V onto my test unit and took it for a spin.

You know what? It actually kind of ran. We cranked the game down to its absolute lowest settings, and we got a solid 30 frames per second. Now, it’s a very good thing we didn’t settle on Overwatch because you wouldn’t want to use this device for a title with any kind of action. But for a leisurely, low-stakes turn-based game of building granaries, researching mining, trading whales, and occasionally wiping out cities, it worked just fine.

Now, do I necessarily recommend that you buy this? If you can afford something with more storage, a brighter screen, a bigger touc
hp收購hpad, and a better-looking and better-built chassis, then no. But if you need Windows, and you need Windows for cheaper than $300, then voilà. Here’s a device that functions just fine, comes with some semblance of integrated graphics inside, and even has a port selection that’s nothing to sneeze at. Here, I found it. I’m going to go use something else now.

Photography by Monica Chin / The Verge


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▲Apple 公司在今年初推出 iPad Pro 2021 系列產品。(圖/記者洪聖壹攝)

特約記者洪聖壹/綜合報導

全球市調機構 IDC上週公開的調查數據當中,不僅智慧型手機增長超過 13%,就連平板電腦出貨量也出現正成長, 其中 Apple 公司的 iPad 仍是市占第一名的產品,緊接在後的是三星電子。Chromebook 的出貨量當中,Acer 以 15.3% 來到第三名,三星則是成長幅度最大的公司。

2021 年 Q2 平板出貨量成長了 4.2%,來到 4050 萬台。其中 Apple 公司的平板電腦 iPad,以 31.9% 拿到市占第一,換句話說,根據 IDC 的初步估計,Apple 公司在第二季出貨了 1,290 萬部 iPad,該公司在今年初推出了 iPad Pro 2021系列,其中 12.9 吋版本首度採用了 mini LED,並且獲得好評。


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▲2021 年第二季度,Apple 公司的平板電腦出貨排行第一,同比成長 3.5%。(圖/記者洪聖壹攝)

接近 Apple 公司的是主要競爭對手三星電子,預估出貨量達到 800 萬。三星今年初延續 Galaxy Tab S7 推出了 Galaxy Tab S7 FE 5G 平板電腦,提供更好的處理效能、續航力跟 OELD 螢幕優勢,在 Android 平板產品當中成為防疫產品新選擇。


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▲三星Galaxy Tab S7 FE 5G 平板電腦,提供更好的處理效能、續航力跟 OELD 螢幕優勢。(圖/記者洪聖壹攝)

值得觀察的是同一份報告當中,Chromebook 的出貨量與去年相比,成長 68.6%,第二季度出貨量達到 1230 萬台。IDC 寫道:「雖然這不是 Chromebook 破紀錄的季度,但與前兩個季度相差不遠,這打破了之前的高點。」

有趣的是,第一名的
hp收購hp,出貨占比來到 35.0%,出貨成長來到 115.7%,宏碁以 15.3% 出貨佔比來到第三名,同比成長 21.7%,不是以電腦產品為本業的三星電子,憑藉品牌實力,以 7.0% 排行第五,出貨成長高達 179.2%,是前五名當中成長最快的公司。


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▲2021 年第二季度,
hp收購hp、三星Chromebook 出貨成長都超過 100%。(圖/記者洪聖壹攝)

不過 IDC 指出,由於晶片持續短缺以及隨著越來越多的人返回公司或教室,Chromebook 和平板電腦的銷售可能會逐漸趨緩。

*資料來源:IDC

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