Lightweight work laptop

[Ninja Potatoe]

Laptop I'll be carrying around with me very often so needs to be light. Can't go lower than 14 inches. Good battery life is a must. Bonus points for backlit keyboard, good (aluminium) feel/build quality and possibility to install linux without any conflicts. Some light gaming here and there but mostly web browsing, watching videos, etc. Budget is 500$ CAD.

 

I've been looking at some chromebooks (Toshiba Chromebook 2 and Acer Chromebook 14) but my main problem is the RAM and storage and uncertainty as to if I can upgrade them or not.

[MrDrWho13]

6 minutes ago, Ninja Potatoe said:

Laptop I'll be carrying around with me very often so needs to be light. Can't go lower than 14 inches. Good battery life is a must. Bonus points for backlit keyboard, good (aluminium) feel/build quality and possibility to install linux without any conflicts. Some light gaming here and there but mostly web browsing, watching videos, etc. Budget is 500$ CAD.

 

I've been looking at some chromebooks (Toshiba Chromebook 2 and Acer Chromebook 14) but my main problem is the RAM and storage and uncertainty as to if I can upgrade them or not.

You can't do any light gaming on a chromebook. Only web browsing.

You could install a linux distro but it's still not powerful. However, battery life on a chromebook is much better than most windows laptops.

[Ninja Potatoe]

50 minutes ago, MrDrWho13 said:

You can't do any light gaming on a chromebook. Only web browsing.

You could install a linux distro but it's still not powerful. However, battery life on a chromebook is much better than most windows laptops.

Don't chromebooks have access to the google play store now? That would be enough for me. Is the battery life as good on a chromebook if I install linux as it is in chromeos? Of course, I would prefer a windows machine for compatibility and programs, are there any choices in that category?

[MrDrWho13]

55 minutes ago, Ninja Potatoe said:

Don't chromebooks have access to the google play store now? That would be enough for me. Is the battery life as good on a chromebook if I install linux as it is in chromeos? Of course, I would prefer a windows machine for compatibility and programs, are there any choices in that category?

Sorry I'm no expert on Windows laptops, so I can't really help there.  

As far as I know, the whole play store thing is only in alpha and not public yet. I don't know about battery life for chromebooks running linux.