Mobile Computer Options? (Advice)

[wisnoskij]

Hello All,

My niece and nephews birthdays are coming up and the niece asked for a Chromebook. I ordered her a Lenovo Duet. They are also getting older, having more school, and we will need something for the nephew. I really do not want get him a Chromebook as well, and he already had a android tablet, which seems like pretty much the same thing.

The main concern is they are not always in the same household, so it is a great benefit if the option is portable. To be clear, I do not mean you should be able to use it in the car, but that it takes 5 minutes to pack away and setup. Price is also an issue. So I was wondering what anyone thought about a small PC either some form of beefier pie style thing or maybe just a custom built one that would just plug into a TV, keyboard and mouse. I should be able to save on the screen and formfactor, meaning a better more capable computer? OR are low end laptops really good for their price points even compared to PCs? I have also never tried to use a TV on a general purpose computer, and I imagine their must be dowsides?

Budget $300-400 CAD, maybe twice as much if I can call it a family computer that is not just a gift for him.*

*I wonder, if you can power two monitors, can you have two separate inputs and have two users use the computer at a time? Running two instances of Libra Office or chrome should not be that hard, and reading two keyboards concurrently should not introduce resource bottlenecks. But I have never seen this done.

Edited March 19, 2021 by wisnoskij

[TheRandomness]

- Thread moved to New Builds and Planning.

[Burgerbob]

A small form factor build with an AMD apu would definitely blow anything else at the price point out of the water from a performance standpoint. Plugging into a TV is super easy as long as you have hdmi out or a converter

[wisnoskij]

Thanks for putting this is teh correct location.

And thanks for your opinion Burger bob! Do you have any opinions on what form factor to go with? How small to go?

And we would probably be looking at integrated graphics, at least in the 300-400 range??? Or what do you think about that?

[wisnoskij]

@Burgerbob OK, lol, I thought you misspelled CPU or GPU because I googled and just got the Simpsons character. I see one old site recommending as much and as high speed ram as possible. And while this article is incredibly outdated, that makes a lot of sense as normally GPUs come with huge amounts of onboard ram. Any recommendations you could give in how much of the budget should be spent on one vs the other. 

Also, I am seeing a lot confusing stuff. Like everyone raves about AMD having beaten Intel in every metric. But looking at PCPartpicker and UserBenchmark the Intel stuff seems to beat them at stats, ratings, and price.

[Burgerbob]

2 hours ago, wisnoskij said:

@Burgerbob OK, lol, I thought you misspelled CPU or GPU because I googled and just got the Simpsons character. I see one old site recommending as much and as high speed ram as possible. And while this article is incredibly outdated, that makes a lot of sense as normally GPUs come with huge amounts of onboard ram. Any recommendations you could give in how much of the budget should be spent on one vs the other. 

Also, I am seeing a lot confusing stuff. Like everyone raves about AMD having beaten Intel in every metric. But looking at PCPartpicker and UserBenchmark the Intel stuff seems to beat them at stats, ratings, and price.

When it comes to integrated graphics AMD had intel beat by a mile. Unfortunately AMD processors have been hurt by silicon shortage far worse than intel bc intel has their own supply chain whereas AMD relies on TSMC to make their silicon. If you can find a 3200G or something a long those lines for retail that would be ideal. as for the formfactor t hat's really up to you and how small you want to go. Given that you don't have to deal with fitting a GPU in there you can really go as small as you want. And yes if you're using an APU like the 3200g having good ram is going to be hugely beneficial. In all honestly I might even suggest getting used ram if you can find a good deal that way. I'd go with 16gb at 3200mhz and from a reputable brand

[wisnoskij]

The 3200g is only compatible with 2933 mhz from what I can tell, is it expected that I would just buy 3200mhz or some other common cheap format and it would be simple to underclock?

Unfortunately, it looks like even the cheapest oldest products are having supply issues. the 3200g released 2 years ago at $99. But now costs $300 ($400 cad). Are you saying I have to go brick and mortar? Is that going to work now with all of these stores being online always?

I might have to go with an AMD Athlon 3000G or something at these prices.