|
Post by Admin on Apr 16, 2023 13:41:59 GMT 10
~ @ ~ I was casually looking at the OZ Bargain web site one night last week, and there was a good deal on Lenovo M710Q Tiny PC with i5-7400T + 256 GB SSD going for only $120 on eBay. It was late at night , so I decided to add it to my eBay Watch list , intending to buy in the morning. However, the next day it was gone. This has shown me that really good bargains can come up from time to time, but one has to be looking for them and be quick to act. My personal preference has always been for HP and Dell computers, and sure enough within a couple of days another good deal appeared on OZ Bargain: - HP EliteDesk 800 G3 DM 35W Micro-format computer with i5-6500T 2.5 Ghz CPU + 8 GB RAM + 256 G SSD for $139 . This machine ticks just about every box on my check-list , (built-in Wifi, provision for additional M2 ssd, low power micro-format , VGA port as well as Display port), and the real bonus is a USB type C port on the front panel. The built-in Wifi has a small external aerial-nub which is much better than the cumbersome screw-on rod which comes with the Lenovo MFF. (The only thing I missed out was the i5-7400 CPU , but then it's no use to expect a win on every point while looking for bargains !). The machine came 5 days after the order was placed. It is small, compact, contained in a solid well-made case and worked just fine out of the box.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Apr 20, 2023 14:12:17 GMT 10
~ @ ~ This HP-800-G3 came with a Samsung 250 GB SSD (which has clocked 34,000 hours of operation) . It has Windows 10 (21H2 version) installed that works fine, but no longer presents much appeal to me. These days I derive a lot more fun and surprises from the almost endless stream of different Linux distros which can be freely obtained from the internet. The Samsung SSD was quickly replaced by a Crucial MX500 SSD (250 GB) which already had a few versions of Linux OS pre-installed (taken from my xtreme-680 SHAW computer). My favourite Linux OS's are Peppermint-Debian 11 and Zorin-16.2 (Lite) , as shown below:
- This is the latest version of Peppermint, released Nov 2022 (based on Debian bullseyes) . It's fast, looks great and works very well.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Apr 20, 2023 14:42:13 GMT 10
~ @ ~ Below is a screenshot of the Zorin 16.2 (Lite) OS, which is based on UBUNTU 20.04 LTS . It has quite a different feel which is perhaps not as sophisticated as Peppermint-11, but still very appealing and pleasing, pretty nice to use.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Apr 27, 2023 16:56:11 GMT 10
!! @ !! The HP-800-G3 has room for a M.2 NVMe SSD disk, so I've decided to order one from eBay ( a brand-new KIOXIA 256 GB for $26) . Installation was a little tedious and fiddly involving the removal of the 2.5" disk caddie which sits on top of the M.2 spot. The Kioxia SSD came with no screw to secure it to the motherboard, so I had to search through all my boxes of spare parts for something suitable. Fortunately I had previously bought a PCI-e addapter card for mSATA+NVMe SSD's which includes extra screws of the correct type. So everything works out fine for me in the end. Windows 10 PRO (version 22H2) was downloaded using the Media-Creation tool, and a USB stick was made to install Win 10 on the new M.2 disk . Below is a screenshot of the Hardware-Info app running in Windows 10 :
|
|