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I Tried to Buy My Next Laptop for Only $100

Hardware Haven

167,847 views

UGREEN Nexode Display Charger Series (AMZ US, Up to 28%): https://amzn.to/4g6tqsv
UGREEN Nexode Pro 160W Retractable Charger (DTC, Up to 20%): https://shop.us.ugreen.com/frE13g
UGREEN Nexode Pro 160W Retractable Charger (AMZ, Up to 20%): https://amzn.to/4wpFRW9

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► Checkout items I used (includes affiliate links from which I may receive compensation):
🛍️ Lenovo L13 Yoga Gen2: https://ebay.us/Xxx1lA
🛍️ Fanxiang 128GB SSD: https://amzn.to/4ciuJmU
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Music (in order):
"Hardware Haven Theme" -Me (Hardware Haven Theme Music)
"CRENSHAW VIBES" - GARRISON (SoundCloud: garrison-brown)
"Fender Bender" - @badsnacks
"If You Want To" - Me
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Timestamps:
0:00 I need a cheap laptop
0:50 What I bought
2:15 Charging with a 160W from UGREEN (sponsor)
3:13 Why am I buying this?
4:01 First Impressions
5:49 Cleanup and Adding storage
6:35 This isn't a normal laptop review
7:10 Running into some issues
8:25 Why this was pretty much perfect
10:36 The display, media, and light gaming
11:42 Keyboard and Trackpad
12:42 Ports ports ports
14:38 Other laptop things
15:12 Things I didn't like
17:46 This is still just a $161 laptop
19:55 Trying to be positive

20 Comments

@jkowins 1 month ago

Excellent video about buying a good laptop for $100. It was easily the best $125 you could have spent. Such an incredible deal for only $165.

@Hardware-Hoarder 1 month ago

I tried to watch a Hardware Haven video for $0

Complete and utter success

@vlada909 1 month ago

Damn 11th gen 2 in 1 for $100? That's pretty good. Wish I could find deals like that where I live lol

@bartz0rt928 1 month ago

The soldered RAM might actually be a blessing in disguise these days. A lot of second hand machines come without it installed, and the costs have quadrupled over the past two years.

@mt1104uk 1 month ago

Just be aware of computrace activated devices. I recently got a used laptop off ebay, reinstalled windows fresh just to be sure it was clean of any data. A few months later after a windows update I got presented with a corporate block saying the device had been locked. Turns out the device was either stolen or not correctly un-enrolled from their corporate systems. Luckily I was able to get the device unlocked by the original owner but I suspect that is a rare thing to happen.

If you put linux on it, it's less of an issue as computrace cant install itself onto linux file systems. Not yet anyway.

@TheQuickSilver101 1 month ago

Thanks for showing people that a decently usable laptop can be had for not a ton of money

@Linkhunter 1 month ago (edited)

I scored a Thinkpad L490 for $140 from a thrift store, the previous owner upgraded the ram from 8 to 16 GB pretty nice. I'm not sure what I should use the smart card slot for haha

@emilstaack8 1 month ago

bro this has literally been my setup for years as a student!

@ghosttheoremproductions5469 1 month ago

The Lenovos with 4th gen+ Ryzen APUs with 6c6t can be found at some solid prices and are surprisingly capable and have USB-C charging

@cheeseisgreat24 1 month ago

The trick isn’t using HH videos as a guide of what exactly to buy, it’s to use it as a guide to the mindset you need to have. There absolutely are excellent deals out there to be had, you just have to know enough about yourself and your own needs and a teensy bit of knowledge about what might constitute “good enough” hardware for those needs for you to be able to find a deal out there that works for you.

@86abaile 1 month ago

As usual I always check prices after one of these videos. As usual a bit more expensive in the UK, but about what you'd expect for the markup. An X13 gen 2 with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD is about £170 (give or take £20). The 16GB models (with storage) go for about £200.
This video convinced me it was time to upgrade my now ancient T410i and I like the idea of a 2 in 1 laptop. I bought a X13 yoga gen4 I7 16GB with 265GB SSD for £260.

@michaelgleason4791 1 month ago

I had no idea that Linux supported tablet mode. That's awesome.

@MyEconomics101 1 month ago

0:12 shows his two arms he still got. we don't know about his two legs.

@MrArrakis9 1 month ago (edited)

To be fair having the ram soldered to the board prevents these gougers from shucking the ram and selling complete nothingburger pc's with half of the required components missing. Could you imagine if there was a complete shortage on wifi chips too? Knock on wood boys.

@paubal1212 1 month ago

I don't use the trackpoint usually, but when I'm using gloves, OMG, it's awesome to use

@cdoty 1 month ago

I picked up a HP laptop with the same processor for $145.
The laptop had the screen removed, which is what initially sold me on it. I can carry around a USB-C or HDMI screen for a portable solution or pull out a keyboard and mouse and connect to a larger display without the laptop screen getting in the way.
I paired it with a micro Anker 65w power supply and a USB-C to HP power adapter, making it even more compact.

@JakeSDN 1 month ago

Geek discovers the geek laptop brand.

@ThatWaZEasy 1 month ago

Thinkpads reign supreme

@להבצור 1 month ago

16:40 I think the reason you didn't feel a slow down when hitting swap is because fedora uses zram by default, which instead of swapping to disk keeps the data compressed in ram