For anyone looking for a very inexpensive laptop to experiment with...

I just received a little ASUS $149 laptop ordered from Amazon. Pretty amazing little machine, especially for the money. It's aimed at students, wonder if that is why it is so inexpensive. Just look for BR1100C series (non-touch screen) or BR1100F series (touch screen with 360 degree hinge). For that price, this is what you get:

3 lb, 11.6" touch screen laptop.
Intel Celeron N4500 CPU
4GB RAM
Screen is an 11.6" touch screen IPS display at 1366 x 768 resolution
USB Ports: Has one USB 2 port, one USB 3.2 Gen 1 USB-A port, and one USB 3.2 Gen 2 USB-C port
Full size HDMI port
Gigabit Ethernet port
WiFi 5 or 6 depending upon the model
64GB or 128GB eMMC storage
Open M.2 slot for an NVMe Gen 3 SSD drive <-- This was a big selling point for me
Includes a stylus that docks in a "garage" built-into the unit
Precision touchpad
Works in laptop, tent, and tablet modes.
Keyboard is NOT backlit
Two cameras
TPM 2.0 (firmware TPM)
Claimed 10 hour battery life
Designed for easy servicing (I can attest that this thing is really easy to open)
Made extra rugged with rubber bumper all around, spill resistant keyboard, extra tough ports and hinge
Ships with Windows 10 Pro (not Home). Fully supports Windows 11.

I slapped a 1TB NVMe in mine and, while it's not a fast machine, it does work very well for basic tasks

A few notes about installation / setup:

Machine ships with Win 10 but I wanted 11 on it. When doing a clean install, the touchpad does not work during installation. If you backup your drivers prior to starting installation, you can install the "I2C" driver during installation which will allow the touchpad to work during setup.

After setup, when you install all drivers, either manually or by restoring backed up drivers, be aware that it may take a very long time to install all drivers. The problem is the DTS APO driver. For some reason this driver seems to take a minimum of 30 minutes to install. I worked around this by slipstreaming all the drivers into a Windows image so that when I do a clean install all the drivers are already preloaded.

If you plan to install an NVMe card, be aware that that there is no screw to hold it down inside the unit. Make sure that any NVMe you purchase comes with screws or order them separately. Be aware that there are two different common size screws in use for NVMe drives.

Thanks for the post.

I find it surprising that a machine like that can take an M.2 NVME drive. Cool.

bobkn said:

Thanks for the post.

I find it surprising that a machine like that can take an M.2 NVME drive. Cool.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that was an unusual feature in a machine that cheap.

I got a cheap 11" one [unadvertised special at Wal*Mart] same price but the RAM and SSD are soldered on, can't be changed. Has only 32GB drive and couldn't get the last 3 Version Upgrades of Win10, is now quite happy with Linux Mint and still a bit over 10GB free space.

I have been thinking about getting a reasonable priced tablet PC. Basically, I just want something easy to carry around for Web browsing and maybe game playing. No system intensive games. I occasionally buy the $10.00 hidden object games from Wally World. I use my desktop when I want to play games on Steam.