I installed GalliumOS on an old, no longer supported Chromebook, and it works fantastically! I would honestly recommend it, it wasn't very difficult, and all told took me about 20 minutes (although that was after trying out different linux distros that did not work as well, but Gallium worked first try).
@@typingcat I have arch on one 4GB Ram Samsung Chromebook 3 after removing the write protect screw, and another of the same model/specs running manjaro. They work great and were ~$40
I bought a later generation chromebook that came in the original box and honestly looked brand new. It wasn't a convertible but a decent screen, snappy web browsing and perfect to play movies off an external drive. I gave one to my 81 year old father with a external drive full of over 500 movies. Totally worth it.
that's almost entirely untrue now. Most of them can be modded and you only have to enter dev mode, open crosh (chrome terminal) and run 2 script commands. wow big hard
Thanks for mentioning to first unplug the battery. As someone who has experienced a lithium battery fire firsthand, I can positively say that it's not so much the fire that is dangerous, but the HUGE volumes of ultra toxic smoke that are released. If you are indoors when this happens with a large battery, and you do not quickly move it outside (which is not easy to do with an object that is on fire) you can pass out from the toxins, and you're gonna have a bad time either way. It's good to be readiness 😂
I had my $100 Chromebook as a travel laptop for 4 years. I don't run programs on it, I use it to remote my PC at home. Low-end Chromebook from 2018 on itself take like 20-30sec to load 2000+ rows Google Sheets. TH-cam/Twitch works well in 30fps, mine has a framedrops streaming 60fps videos
Going through the process of installing linux on your chromebook is worth it in my opinion, I did it for a Samsung Chromebook 3 that I have. It's definitely a task given that I had to remove the write protection screw and find a linux distro that actually worked with my hardware (The now discontinued GalliumOS was the only one that worked for me), but being able to use a more full featured operating system that is much better than the bare bones ChromeOS made the process all worth it.
I have the same chromebook installed bodhi linux it but there are minor issues like the first time you plug in charger it will not charge or show if its charging idk there's no indication but i plugged it out and put it back in it starts to charge the second one the micro sd card slot doesn t detect any sd card and the multimedia keys aren't mapped but you can manually do so and finally the hdmi doesn't give video output but sound out works
I have two of those, one running manjaro and one running arch. It takes some doing to setup the keyboard hotkeys (brightness) but after everything works fine. I specifically search Samsung Chromebook 3's out. Cant beat $40 for 4GB of ram and linux for specific projects.
Try installing ChromeOS Flex on it. My Chromebook was no longer supported with updates, less than 2 years after I bought it. But ChromeOS Flex installed successfully on it, and got updates. Yet, its 12 -hour battery life, made it more valuable as a music performance machine, so I re-wrote its firmware with a version that works with Linux, and made it into a Linux machine, which works fine, and I continue to make good use of it.
Unfortunately no Play Store with Flex. Music Performance Machine - hmmm - what is that? I bought one for streaming with an external DAC a few more dollars an HP will update until 2029.
@@JohnGlen502 Recently, the latency (delay from hitting a key and hearing a note) is so bad on ChromeOS Flex, that I'm considering withdrawing KeyMusician Keyboard support for ChromeOS. Unfortunately, I no longer have a Chromebook to test on, and given how quickly they withdrew support for the one I had, I don't plan to get one - even for test purposes.
I'm watching this on a Chromebook that I spent less than $20 on used. It's in great condition and I use it to remote into my office setup back at home because my gaming laptop has bad battery life and work computer is connected to my router so I can do remote work anywhere I feel like. Finesse. Good job on the video.
Lately I've been noticing many 2 in 1 laptops, Chromebooks or otherwise, have been suddenly going for low prices in the used market. I recently refurbed a Dell 5290 for about $130, and with a full LInux install, it's super performant, minus the stylus not pairing right. I mostly use it as an advanced Chromebook with higher flexibility.
Its cuz nobody wants that linux trash. I used to work at a computer recycle plant and the chromebooks went for dirt cheap because nobody wanted them. At one point we even started installing Windows on some, but decided it wasnt worth the time in the long run with all the devices we got daily.
@@silvy7394Why would you ever put Windows on a Chromebook? Yeah, maybe it's more marketable but you're basically just turning something that's cheap into something that's still cheap but worse to use.
@@pptemplar5840 I mean you either have a linux OS thats useless, or Windows which is vastly more capable. 2GB of RAM and todays dual cores are more than enough to run 10 smoothly.
Honestly, the real value in these devices is similar to both the Raspberry Pi or the One Laptop Per Child Project. In developing nations, something so simple to us, with a good Linux install, can be the difference between reading and illiteracy. I work with a non-profit that does just that, providing one machine as a server, and many cheaper machines as clients to allow access to educational resources that would otherwise be unobtainable, in an area that lacks the very prospect of reliable internet connectivity.
@@electricwalden8964 The current build is working on Debian, with Kolibri and Kiwix serving web applications, as well as HTTP folder access to extra files. Older builds used Gallium, but with a lack of support, it's best practices to switch, in case these machines do make it to the internet in the future.
I also have ThinkPad 11e Chromebook, but the 3rd gen. I have installed Windows 10 on it and it works surprisingly well, although 16 GB it’s not a lot of disk space and without SD card it’s almost impossible to use it on a daily basis
I have a Chromebook from my brother's middle school still laying around. It's from when he was in 8th grade, and because we went into COVID at that time, we never returned the Chromebook to the school. I'm thinking of doing some simple touch ups to it and giving it to my grandmother, who currently uses an over complicated windows 11 laptop that best buy recommended to her (all she does is browse Facebook and play basic mobile games like slot machines).
I never messed with them before, but it seems there are a metric buttload of old chromebooks out there. Once they get to their last update, I guess schools or whoever are just selling them off in bulk. I bought a couple Dell chromebooks for around 40-50 each including the shipping. They are still quite usable.
I scored a refurbed HP chromebook for 50 bucks from woot, removed the internal write protect screw and installed galliumOS. System runs so much smoother and has consistent updates. Makes a perfect burner laptop!
GalliumOS is no longer being developed/supported. I would recommend looking for another solution that includes up-to-date security and bug fixes, unless you are keeping GalliumOS updated yourself. If you are, then more power to you. I tried that myself, but couldn't hack it :-)
I'd definitely love a vid with Gallium instalation. Google is really incredible with their lack of support for older hardware. If at least they didn't lock it down the way they do. This way, old chromebooks often become chromebricks.
Yeah it's weird, while most Linux distro could run and update itself just fine until at least 10 years, Chrome OS only has average support time of 5 years
There are multiple reasons to drop official support after a time, the most common being inability to obtain an ongoing stream of parts. Individual chips simply become harder and harder to get unless an ongoing supply has been arranged and stored ahead of time. With the newer chromebooks, this is being done, and with the older chromebooks, the information to move them to linux is, at least for the intel-based machines, is available and utilized by many. For the ARM-based machines, once they have reached end-of-life, (EOL) they are mostly useful for clients, but guest mode leaves that available, especially in non-internet environments, where security is built on the air gap from the outside world.
So basically, we should be fine with engineered obsolescence? Or making it unfixable on purpose? I've seen plenty of windows computers made over 10 years ago that work perfectly fine, fixed some too. There wasn't that much of a problem to find a replacement part. While Windows 11 doesn't officially support older computers, installing it isn't that hard - you'll still get security updates regularly, and we're not happy with that solution. Installing Linux on it is a breeze, maybe you'll have to disable secure boot if you want a smaller distro at most. An expensive pixel chromebook will, on the other hand, get 5 years of updates in total. After that, hope you'll have a way to install Linux. Even that isn't for everyone. Not every Intel based model can be unlocked. If it can, it's not a simple process. As for arm based models, what do you do with a device that has pretty much nothing but a browser, yet can't go online? Use it as a paper weight?
@@youzernejm Stopping support does not mean they are completely obsolete, just that they are no longer updated by Google. Any of those not upgradable still have a browser, and can be used as client machines in offline networks. I fix these things all the time, sadly, there is a point where this is unreasonable, such as when whole machines are still available for $20-25 in bulk.
@@RealJonDoe we are talking edge cases now, where you would have to run in house offline web server with software set up just for your usage. That's something most businesses would prefer a bit less hacky route. Any sbc computer could do a more efficient job. If you need a bit more power, there are great embedded solutions. Making a whole network with no Internet access and a web server just for these machines though, it's just too much of a hack job for most business cases. As for that $20-25 price tag, would they really be that cheap if they had security and chrome updates? Even if Americans wouldn't pay more, there are always poor markets like mine. They would end up getting dumped here. Our prices are significantly higher for old used tech - as long as it actually works. As far as average person is concerned, these don't.
It's a Lenovo Yoga 11e. These models were made both as Windows and Chromebooks. The Windows version has a 2.5 inch hard drive caddy and SODIMM module support. The Chromebook version has soldered RAM and no support for 2.5 inch Drive, It lacks SATA cable and connector on the motherboard. At my work we had about 7000 of the Windows editions and 500 chromebooks editions, so I know everything about the 2 models. Because I've repaired hundreds of them They were used for school students. We replaced them 4 years ago
If this laptop was offline by default with only online connections for syncing remote files, it's really damn good for $25. Hence, only reason why it's worthwhile to try a custom Linux OS, because as long as the display and keyboard drivers work, you'd only get the same limited features as-is with the outdated Chrome OS, possibly more, but very rarely a brick.
In middle school we were given a later model version of these 11e Chromebooks that had USB-C charging instead of the Lenovo proprietary charging port. I keep forgetting how thick they are especially compared to more modern devices like my Latitude 5490.
There's not much point in buying an old chromebook unless you're going to bios-mod it and install another operating system. Most of that process is automated by scripts you can find online. So if you can follow guides for removing a write protect screw, holding key combinations at startup, and typing commands in a terminal, its doable
for basic use is useful, specially for such low price, I already have a pretty powerful game desktop at home, so a cheap portable one is useful for uni works and study
I miss my old Chromebook. I use to have an Acer one I paid $120 for it brand new. But ended up letting it go after I got a message saying there are no longer going to be updates for that model by certain date. So sometimes I question shelf life of them and only use I had was for basics stuff.
ChromeOS Flex is what you install when support ends. You won't even notice the difference from ChromeOS as it is pretty much identical. You will need to open up your Chromebook and remove a security screw or something similar in order to root your device. Still using my 2014 Toshiba Chromebook and it handles the latest release like a champ. Updates are very frequent.
I would throw a variant of linux on it...otherwise you open yourself up for issues with hacks and whatnot Might even been a cyanogenmod firmware for it out there
I'm not surprised theyre that cheap. I've seen cheap $80-120 laptops at electronic stores.. In alot of cases, these chrome laptops are on par with modern android tablets.
For $25 you can get a much more modern 2nd hand chromebook than that atm. They just don't hold value the moment they hit the 2nd hand market, and they are a totally different beast these days in terms of storage, support and specs. You can't do loads of gaming on them, but you can do proper office work on them and retro game emulation. My last one was an ideapad 5 14ITL6 at $20, which is still currently available to buy new. I'm assuming resellers are flooded with them and getting them sold on quickly is more profitable than hanging onto them for ages to get a better price
Yeah, a lot of school chromebooks get periodically replaced so it's a steady supply of obsolete machines. Probably great for any projects you'd use a Raspberry Pi for were form factor isn't a concern. Sadly it's pretty much only a US thing so for everywhere else in the world the shipping cost ruins the deal.
I had that computer but the windows version, I used to like it a lot, so I bought one that looked just like it, the yoga 11e that I remembered, but I got the exact model wrong and got the 11e 3rd gen, which has a skylake based pentium processor, vulkan support and everything, and it used an m.2 sata drive, it's waaaaay better than the original in this video, no joke, I like it even more, looks the same as the one I remember and is way more powerful than the one I had
Is a $25 Chromebook Worth It? Hell yes. It's fine at least for writers and simplistic worksheets as well as simple graphics. Besides, you can always toss out the "chrome" and install a decent and more useful Linux.
Please try installing Chrome Flex. I have tried it on several machines and was impressed. But I am leary about whether Google will allow it to be installed on old Chromebooks. I have not been able to find out if they will allow it and the answer to that question will greatly influence my future decisions about whether or not to buy another Chromebook. The one I have now, I like, but don't like the policy that in another year that machine will be sidelined due to no op sys updates and no access to more apps and updates. Thank you in advance for investigating that issue.
I did it on a Toshiba CB30 I was gifted. The trickiest thing was rooting the device by scraping off a foil connector inside. After that, just follow the nearest guide for your Chromebook as to how to install ChromeOS Flex. Google doesn't support it and there is a chance that some hardware on your device will not be work. Sound stopped working for mine but it's no biggie as a small USB sound dongle works just fine when needed.
Had you done further research, you'd find out that the plate that looked like a 2.5" bay in fact IS a 2.5" bay albeit with no SATA cable. The Yoga 11e is the Chromebook version of the Thinkpad 11e laptop that came before it, which ran windows (poorly). The internals are almost all the same, except with the full laptop version, there is a 2.5" bay, a RAM slot, and the keyboard has the standard windows layout instead of the Chromebook layout which lacks a Windows key (hence the large CTRL and ALT keys). Linux works OK on this device, but I haven't been able to find any distro of Linux or drivers that's able to detect the fan, so it will run hot on Linux.
... before you by any Chromebook ... always check "Auto Update policy" most last 5 to 8 years,, if its out of its policy it will not be receiving os or security updates and since you can buy refurbished in policy machines with a few years still avilable its not worth getting out of policy machines....
5:56 im 99% that this is just the lenovo yoga 11e, lenovo just turned it into a Chromebook, would explain this empty drive bay, they probably just removed the ports. Same design. All the ports and buttons are in the same place. The keyboards the only real difference + a windows logo on the screen. And its also a 2 in 1. I haven't looked at the specs but those are probably the same as well. The yoga came out in 2012-2014 i believe (going off the windows 8 sticker) idk if 8.1 had its own stickers.
That held up pretty good compared to an old Windows laptop (from 2016, for $400- Atom x8350, 4GB of RAM, 128 GB of EMC storage, 1080p touchscreen) I have. Up until recently I used it to print documents as I forgot the printer password. That being said it is totally unusable as of today. The computer takes 10 minutes to boot up, due to flash storage rot and the machine barely works. Last time I turned it on I literally wanted to throw it against the wall. I need to hack the printer on my newer laptop/gaming PC.
Things a beast compared to the Acer my Mom gave me after she got a new one. 1GB of ram with Vista, Linux saved that thing. Ya get what you pay for, throw something like puppylinux on there and it is gonna be a good time. Also awesome FreeDOS machine I bet.
I have this exact laptop except it's not a Chromebook. It's a Windows machine and it also has the ethernet port unblocked. It also has a a SSD and non-soldered ram that is actually removable.
For 40$ in mid-March I got a Lenovo Chromebook 300E gen 1 MTK. It has much more modern ports, and still getting updates. I would say for chromebook, the bottom-of-the-barrel approach might not be the best.
I have one, and it's nice with ChromeOS, however, the mediatek arm processor is generally unsupported by the linux distros (the celeron on his thinkpad will boot almost any linux version), so it's pretty locked down as far as future use goes.
@@johnpinion8033 I would agree the part that the future of ARM Chromebook might be limited. Just a thought that the bottom of the barrel Chromebook, passed the AUE date is not the best value
Back when Chromebooks were still catching on, I remember looking around and finding work arounds to FORCE install newer versions of ChromeOS onto systems that didn't exactly support them, and it wasn't too much work. I'm curious if that's still something that's possible to do so that you COULD use Chrome to do more, and you could get access to the Play Store. Especially now that Android has become usable on Windows(With some stuff you can do to access the Play Store) and things like the Google Play Games beta ALSO exist on Windows. I of course don't expect Windows to be doable, But I do wonder if there's any chance of turning something like this into an older Windows system, like XP or something like that.
I have the same size ones of mine Adele and I got it for free through the county program but I love my little chrome book and I've also had them before in the past
Never buy a used school book chromebook. Bought a 11.6 Lenovo off ebay dirt cheap. It can't update, its almost a 11.6 inch paper weight. Spend more money and get one that you can use.
i bought one of these iap top 28.99 it's meade by lenovo and called n42 touch it works great i have on probaim with it but i do have to get use to the touchscreen and not haveing a cd player on it when my laptop came it was nice and clean like new but i did notic that they wrap the computer in carbon fiber to hide the school that came from i don;t how old it is but it still working for me i do avriged computing.
I don’t know meant, an iPad or android tablet might be a better performer (minus keyboard/mouse) for the simple tasks that chromebooks are designed to do.
I have an Acer c710 that has a slower processor and only had 2gb ram and 16gb SSD. I upgraded ram to 16gb and SSD to 240. I am currently running Chrome os flex but have been able to run win 10 and Ubuntu with no problem at all even with an Intel 1007u CPU.
On the note of the Thinkpad logo, there is an IT store in the city near that makes ~10% of its income by selling badges removed from laptops and PCs. Yeah, they don't make much money.
I bought a 500e off mercari for $50 and use it daily as a Google docs only machine. Its battery life is wild thanks to its kind of crappy yet low power screen. Honestly ill miss it when it finally dies. Its been a workhorse.
You really have to question the value of a (possibly/probably) stolen junker with so much damage that can't do more than the most basic tasks. Especially in the ultra-low price laptop/portable category, there are much better deals around. As one example, I recently got a ThinkPad L380 for less than £100, including the original power adapter/charger. It's in great condition with a few superficial scratches and tiny cracks around the keyboard. It's got a 13.3" 1080p IPS matt(e) display, an i5-8250U, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB NVMe drive (Samsung PM961), and a 45Wh battery. Sure, it's about 4-5 times the price of the Chromebook featured in this video, but it's also a significantly better value proposition, at least for me.
The likelihood of it being stolen is low. Stolen chromebooks are locked from signing in, just like any locked to a company or district, whereas decommissioned chromebooks are able to log into personal accounts, as we see here.
@@RealJonDoe If actually known to be stolen, yes. However, consider the case where the company contracted to destroy the hardware issues the appropriate certification but they somehow make their way onto eBay anyway. edit: originally wrote "decommission", meant "destroy".
@@amp888 I can't say that I would find a problem with that. The urge to completely destroy old hardware is an environmental disaster. What societal good comes from shredding a usable keyboard or LCD, much less a chromebook that has destroyed it's encryption keys to whatever data it formerly contained?
@@RealJonDoe Well, now we're shifting to another topic. We started with something being potentially illegal, and now we're moving to morality and/or ecology. I totally agree that a device with any utility to another party would be better off being re-sold and re-used than destroyed. The reality is that some organisations are either forced to (by regulatory standards) or choose to destroy equipment though, and if they do contract a third-party company to do so, then obviously I believe that should actually happen. There's so much waste in IT generally, and I've seen examples of literally tens of thousands of pounds/dollars worth of enterprise storage enclosures with SED drives being destroyed to meet a legal certification requirement where they could be reset and re-sold to the public without any practical chance of the original data being recovered. That's absolutely, 100%, a real problem, and we're in total agreement there.
tbh if windows 7 was still kept securely updated by microsoft and steam most laptops from the early 2010s would be a pretty cheap and viable choice, also they look a bit better
The one I have on my Ebay Watchlist is a Acer C733-C37P it is $32 with free shipping and includes charger. It has 32gb of storage also which is much better than most that only have 16.
Cool video! I think to me this might be useful to play music from an usb stick while I tinker and renovate my old country side house without internet access yet. If I damage it, I would not care. If I loose it I will not care. If I forget it there I would not mind. Basically just a glorified jukebox with an cheap Bluetooth speaker. ^^
i have on old Acer C720 from like 2013 and I have managed to get it on the latest version of ChromeOS. I installed a custom BIOS using the Mrchromebox tool, so it functions like a normal laptop then I installed ChromeOS Flex on it, and it still works great even though it only has 2gb of ram. it was also fairly easy to do.
I don't know why linux would come with any issues? It has very good support for older software. And it's pretty plug and play like windows, I would say even easier than windows.
Ich habe mal 6 Lenovo Thinkpads für 100 € gekauft, alle 15,6 Zoll groß, und liefen mit Windows 10 Pro. Dann habe ich 2 der Laptops für 160 € verkauft, nun habe ich im Endeffekt 4 Laptops gratis!
I have a 2 - 4 year old hp chromebook and it can’t open google or anything without waiting 30 minutes and every click takes about 30 seconds to process
hey if you want to tinker with this device some more, look up guides on how to install any Linux distro you want on it I bet someone has already done it for this laptop considering it's 10 years old at this point, it won't be much better but at least you can run Crunchy roll now. so far of the Chromebooks, I have converted its as easy as undoing some special screw and running some firmware that cracks it so it gets a BIOS to allow you to install it and so far I have noticed Mint works the best, Ubuntu and its lighter versions like Kununtu, Xubuntu, and Lubuntu don't run or run very poorly.
Chromebooks were IMO overly overpriced for what they were and that is why they never took off. For 500-ish you could start getting decent Windows laptops. For $500 you have had an i5 8GB RAM Acer E15 with 1TB HDD. For $400 you had an ASUS K50 with 4GB of RAM, T6500 and 500GB HDD. For like $350 you had ARM powered Acer Switch 10. Chromebooks should have been heavily subsidised by Google to help them get the foothold and should had been not more than $200. At that point you'd have a lot of people's first computer be a Chromebook and the ecosystem would take off from that. Instead I remember Chromebooks selling for midrange laptop prices which just made it an object for diehard fans. No company would want them as they were not as easy to manage (back then) as Windows laptops (they were even harder to manage than Macs and that is saying something). No school would want them because of lackluster feature set (and again terrible management). So they ended up being a niche netbooks after netbooks failed. And 5 year support is laughable. You could get that Acer laptop and still run latest version of Windows 10 on it today. Or you could get one with Linux and run up to day OS on it till the heat death of the universe.
I installed GalliumOS on an old, no longer supported Chromebook, and it works fantastically! I would honestly recommend it, it wasn't very difficult, and all told took me about 20 minutes (although that was after trying out different linux distros that did not work as well, but Gallium worked first try).
Gallium OS is no longer in development but it was excellent distro
how can buy this chromebook?
Arch works?
what about Armbian or Debian for ARM?
@@typingcat I have arch on one 4GB Ram Samsung Chromebook 3 after removing the write protect screw, and another of the same model/specs running manjaro. They work great and were ~$40
I bought a later generation chromebook that came in the original box and honestly looked brand new. It wasn't a convertible but a decent screen, snappy web browsing and perfect to play movies off an external drive. I gave one to my 81 year old father with a external drive full of over 500 movies. Totally worth it.
so sweet. now i understand why people would buy it
Chromebooks are quite tricky when it comes to putting a new operating system on, but if you get the right model it's reasonably straightforward.
that's almost entirely untrue now. Most of them can be modded and you only have to enter dev mode, open crosh (chrome terminal) and run 2 script commands.
wow big hard
@@escapetherace1943 some have write protect screws that require disassembly, some are arm or 32 bit so custom OS is harder to install.
Thanks for mentioning to first unplug the battery. As someone who has experienced a lithium battery fire firsthand, I can positively say that it's not so much the fire that is dangerous, but the HUGE volumes of ultra toxic smoke that are released. If you are indoors when this happens with a large battery, and you do not quickly move it outside (which is not easy to do with an object that is on fire) you can pass out from the toxins, and you're gonna have a bad time either way.
It's good to be readiness 😂
I had my $100 Chromebook as a travel laptop for 4 years. I don't run programs on it, I use it to remote my PC at home. Low-end Chromebook from 2018 on itself take like 20-30sec to load 2000+ rows Google Sheets.
TH-cam/Twitch works well in 30fps, mine has a framedrops streaming 60fps videos
I love when you do content covering older hardware! Great video Matt!
I have an old Commodore 64 system.
Going through the process of installing linux on your chromebook is worth it in my opinion, I did it for a Samsung Chromebook 3 that I have. It's definitely a task given that I had to remove the write protection screw and find a linux distro that actually worked with my hardware (The now discontinued GalliumOS was the only one that worked for me), but being able to use a more full featured operating system that is much better than the bare bones ChromeOS made the process all worth it.
I have the same chromebook installed bodhi linux it but there are minor issues like the first time you plug in charger it will not charge or show if its charging idk there's no indication but i plugged it out and put it back in it starts to charge the second one the micro sd card slot doesn t detect any sd card and the multimedia keys aren't mapped but you can manually do so and finally the hdmi doesn't give video output but sound out works
I have two of those, one running manjaro and one running arch. It takes some doing to setup the keyboard hotkeys (brightness) but after everything works fine. I specifically search Samsung Chromebook 3's out. Cant beat $40 for 4GB of ram and linux for specific projects.
Try installing ChromeOS Flex on it. My Chromebook was no longer supported with updates, less than 2 years after I bought it. But ChromeOS Flex installed successfully on it, and got updates. Yet, its 12 -hour battery life, made it more valuable as a music performance machine, so I re-wrote its firmware with a version that works with Linux, and made it into a Linux machine, which works fine, and I continue to make good use of it.
Unfortunately no Play Store with Flex. Music Performance Machine - hmmm - what is that? I bought one for streaming with an external DAC a few more dollars an HP will update until 2029.
@@JohnGlen502 Recently, the latency (delay from hitting a key and hearing a note) is so bad on ChromeOS Flex, that I'm considering withdrawing KeyMusician Keyboard support for ChromeOS. Unfortunately, I no longer have a Chromebook to test on, and given how quickly they withdrew support for the one I had, I don't plan to get one - even for test purposes.
I'm watching this on a Chromebook that I spent less than $20 on used. It's in great condition and I use it to remote into my office setup back at home because my gaming laptop has bad battery life and work computer is connected to my router so I can do remote work anywhere I feel like. Finesse. Good job on the video.
Lately I've been noticing many 2 in 1 laptops, Chromebooks or otherwise, have been suddenly going for low prices in the used market. I recently refurbed a Dell 5290 for about $130, and with a full LInux install, it's super performant, minus the stylus not pairing right. I mostly use it as an advanced Chromebook with higher flexibility.
Its cuz nobody wants that linux trash.
I used to work at a computer recycle plant and the chromebooks went for dirt cheap because nobody wanted them. At one point we even started installing Windows on some, but decided it wasnt worth the time in the long run with all the devices we got daily.
@@silvy7394Why would you ever put Windows on a Chromebook? Yeah, maybe it's more marketable but you're basically just turning something that's cheap into something that's still cheap but worse to use.
@@pptemplar5840 I mean you either have a linux OS thats useless, or Windows which is vastly more capable. 2GB of RAM and todays dual cores are more than enough to run 10 smoothly.
Only if you're running 32-bit Windows, will 2 GB be fine. Plus, the laptops on the used market are usually several years old.@@silvy7394
@@silvy7394 what's so useless about Linux?
Honestly, the real value in these devices is similar to both the Raspberry Pi or the One Laptop Per Child Project. In developing nations, something so simple to us, with a good Linux install, can be the difference between reading and illiteracy.
I work with a non-profit that does just that, providing one machine as a server, and many cheaper machines as clients to allow access to educational resources that would otherwise be unobtainable, in an area that lacks the very prospect of reliable internet connectivity.
One Laptop Per Child ,,,, its a pity about that,, an opportunity lost
Cool! What's the server OS/config? Is it basically just sharing folders?
@@electricwalden8964 The current build is working on Debian, with Kolibri and Kiwix serving web applications, as well as HTTP folder access to extra files. Older builds used Gallium, but with a lack of support, it's best practices to switch, in case these machines do make it to the internet in the future.
I also have ThinkPad 11e Chromebook, but the 3rd gen. I have installed Windows 10 on it and it works surprisingly well, although 16 GB it’s not a lot of disk space and without SD card it’s almost impossible to use it on a daily basis
Can you share any references do this ?
I have a Chromebook from my brother's middle school still laying around. It's from when he was in 8th grade, and because we went into COVID at that time, we never returned the Chromebook to the school. I'm thinking of doing some simple touch ups to it and giving it to my grandmother, who currently uses an over complicated windows 11 laptop that best buy recommended to her (all she does is browse Facebook and play basic mobile games like slot machines).
I never messed with them before, but it seems there are a metric buttload of old chromebooks out there. Once they get to their last update, I guess schools or whoever are just selling them off in bulk. I bought a couple Dell chromebooks for around 40-50 each including the shipping. They are still quite usable.
The listing shown at 00:14 shows a chromebook with play store for $25.59 with free shipping. I take it you didn't buy that one for some reason.
I scored a refurbed HP chromebook for 50 bucks from woot, removed the internal write protect screw and installed galliumOS. System runs so much smoother and has consistent updates. Makes a perfect burner laptop!
GalliumOS is no longer being developed/supported. I would recommend looking for another solution that includes up-to-date security and bug fixes, unless you are keeping GalliumOS updated yourself. If you are, then more power to you. I tried that myself, but couldn't hack it :-)
@@antoarre yup he should move to arch or arch-based or debian 12 or mint
@@escapetherace1943 I went with Manjaro on my Chrome book. I haven't had the time to sort out the "top row" buttons, but it is on my todo list 😄
I'd definitely love a vid with Gallium instalation.
Google is really incredible with their lack of support for older hardware. If at least they didn't lock it down the way they do. This way, old chromebooks often become chromebricks.
Yeah it's weird, while most Linux distro could run and update itself just fine until at least 10 years, Chrome OS only has average support time of 5 years
There are multiple reasons to drop official support after a time, the most common being inability to obtain an ongoing stream of parts. Individual chips simply become harder and harder to get unless an ongoing supply has been arranged and stored ahead of time.
With the newer chromebooks, this is being done, and with the older chromebooks, the information to move them to linux is, at least for the intel-based machines, is available and utilized by many.
For the ARM-based machines, once they have reached end-of-life, (EOL) they are mostly useful for clients, but guest mode leaves that available, especially in non-internet environments, where security is built on the air gap from the outside world.
So basically, we should be fine with engineered obsolescence? Or making it unfixable on purpose?
I've seen plenty of windows computers made over 10 years ago that work perfectly fine, fixed some too. There wasn't that much of a problem to find a replacement part.
While Windows 11 doesn't officially support older computers, installing it isn't that hard - you'll still get security updates regularly, and we're not happy with that solution. Installing Linux on it is a breeze, maybe you'll have to disable secure boot if you want a smaller distro at most. An expensive pixel chromebook will, on the other hand, get 5 years of updates in total. After that, hope you'll have a way to install Linux.
Even that isn't for everyone. Not every Intel based model can be unlocked. If it can, it's not a simple process.
As for arm based models, what do you do with a device that has pretty much nothing but a browser, yet can't go online? Use it as a paper weight?
@@youzernejm Stopping support does not mean they are completely obsolete, just that they are no longer updated by Google. Any of those not upgradable still have a browser, and can be used as client machines in offline networks.
I fix these things all the time, sadly, there is a point where this is unreasonable, such as when whole machines are still available for $20-25 in bulk.
@@RealJonDoe we are talking edge cases now, where you would have to run in house offline web server with software set up just for your usage. That's something most businesses would prefer a bit less hacky route. Any sbc computer could do a more efficient job. If you need a bit more power, there are great embedded solutions. Making a whole network with no Internet access and a web server just for these machines though, it's just too much of a hack job for most business cases.
As for that $20-25 price tag, would they really be that cheap if they had security and chrome updates? Even if Americans wouldn't pay more, there are always poor markets like mine. They would end up getting dumped here. Our prices are significantly higher for old used tech - as long as it actually works. As far as average person is concerned, these don't.
Did you try to test that chromebook with FydeOS??
Tiny11 but for chromebooks
I use fyde. Just so good
It's a Lenovo Yoga 11e. These models were made both as Windows and Chromebooks.
The Windows version has a 2.5 inch hard drive caddy and SODIMM module support.
The Chromebook version has soldered RAM and no support for 2.5 inch Drive, It lacks SATA cable and connector on the motherboard.
At my work we had about 7000 of the Windows editions and 500 chromebooks editions, so I know everything about the 2 models.
Because I've repaired hundreds of them
They were used for school students.
We replaced them 4 years ago
i have a 3rd gen Chromebook variant and the emmc failed after installing a very stripped down windows 10 ltsc install.
Indeed. I've got an old one with 8gb ram and Linux mint and it still works pretty good for web browsing and normal tasks
Linux Mint would run well on this. Worth the investment if you can continue to find hardware in the sub $50 range. A superb netbook.
If this laptop was offline by default with only online connections for syncing remote files, it's really damn good for $25. Hence, only reason why it's worthwhile to try a custom Linux OS, because as long as the display and keyboard drivers work, you'd only get the same limited features as-is with the outdated Chrome OS, possibly more, but very rarely a brick.
This is kinda the best I can do, these are pretty great for when money's super tight.
In middle school we were given a later model version of these 11e Chromebooks that had USB-C charging instead of the Lenovo proprietary charging port. I keep forgetting how thick they are especially compared to more modern devices like my Latitude 5490.
There's not much point in buying an old chromebook unless you're going to bios-mod it and install another operating system. Most of that process is automated by scripts you can find online. So if you can follow guides for removing a write protect screw, holding key combinations at startup, and typing commands in a terminal, its doable
for basic use is useful, specially for such low price, I already have a pretty powerful game desktop at home, so a cheap portable one is useful for uni works and study
Could you PLEASE solve that Rubik's cube on your desk. It's driving me insane.
I miss my old Chromebook. I use to have an Acer one I paid $120 for it brand new. But ended up letting it go after I got a message saying there are no longer going to be updates for that model by certain date. So sometimes I question shelf life of them and only use I had was for basics stuff.
You could've installed Linux or Windows on it
ChromeOS Flex is what you install when support ends. You won't even notice the difference from ChromeOS as it is pretty much identical. You will need to open up your Chromebook and remove a security screw or something similar in order to root your device. Still using my 2014 Toshiba Chromebook and it handles the latest release like a champ. Updates are very frequent.
I have linux mint running on a 10 year old chromebook. Works great.
I use my old Chromebook just for work purposes works pretty good
I would throw a variant of linux on it...otherwise you open yourself up for issues with hacks and whatnot
Might even been a cyanogenmod firmware for it out there
I wonder how well ChromeOS Flex would work on that
im not sure you can install anything like that on a chromebook
@@matthews4159 ChromeOS Flex is just ChromeOS but for older and less powerful computers.
@@matthews4159 I installed it on my Chromebook when support ended.
yes finally ive always wanted a video like this but couldn't find one thank you soo much please make more videos like this!
I'm not surprised theyre that cheap. I've seen cheap $80-120 laptops at electronic stores.. In alot of cases, these chrome laptops are on par with modern android tablets.
For $25 you can get a much more modern 2nd hand chromebook than that atm. They just don't hold value the moment they hit the 2nd hand market, and they are a totally different beast these days in terms of storage, support and specs. You can't do loads of gaming on them, but you can do proper office work on them and retro game emulation. My last one was an ideapad 5 14ITL6 at $20, which is still currently available to buy new. I'm assuming resellers are flooded with them and getting them sold on quickly is more profitable than hanging onto them for ages to get a better price
Yeah, a lot of school chromebooks get periodically replaced so it's a steady supply of obsolete machines. Probably great for any projects you'd use a Raspberry Pi for were form factor isn't a concern. Sadly it's pretty much only a US thing so for everywhere else in the world the shipping cost ruins the deal.
I had that computer but the windows version, I used to like it a lot, so I bought one that looked just like it, the yoga 11e that I remembered, but I got the exact model wrong and got the 11e 3rd gen, which has a skylake based pentium processor, vulkan support and everything, and it used an m.2 sata drive, it's waaaaay better than the original in this video, no joke, I like it even more, looks the same as the one I remember and is way more powerful than the one I had
got an acer chromebook tablet thing for about $45. was supported until january 1st this year.
Is a $25 Chromebook Worth It?
Hell yes. It's fine at least for writers and simplistic worksheets as well as simple graphics. Besides, you can always toss out the "chrome" and install a decent and more useful Linux.
good usage might be a small little server for small applications
Please try installing Chrome Flex. I have tried it on several machines and was impressed. But I am leary about whether Google will allow it to be installed on old Chromebooks. I have not been able to find out if they will allow it and the answer to that question will greatly influence my future decisions about whether or not to buy another Chromebook. The one I have now, I like, but don't like the policy that in another year that machine will be sidelined due to no op sys updates and no access to more apps and updates.
Thank you in advance for investigating that issue.
ChromeOS Flex will install on Chromebook but requires a UEFI firmware flash first.
I did it on a Toshiba CB30 I was gifted. The trickiest thing was rooting the device by scraping off a foil connector inside. After that, just follow the nearest guide for your Chromebook as to how to install ChromeOS Flex. Google doesn't support it and there is a chance that some hardware on your device will not be work. Sound stopped working for mine but it's no biggie as a small USB sound dongle works just fine when needed.
Had you done further research, you'd find out that the plate that looked like a 2.5" bay in fact IS a 2.5" bay albeit with no SATA cable. The Yoga 11e is the Chromebook version of the Thinkpad 11e laptop that came before it, which ran windows (poorly). The internals are almost all the same, except with the full laptop version, there is a 2.5" bay, a RAM slot, and the keyboard has the standard windows layout instead of the Chromebook layout which lacks a Windows key (hence the large CTRL and ALT keys).
Linux works OK on this device, but I haven't been able to find any distro of Linux or drivers that's able to detect the fan, so it will run hot on Linux.
... before you by any Chromebook ... always check "Auto Update policy"
most last 5 to 8 years,, if its out of its policy it will not be receiving os or security updates
and since you can buy refurbished in policy machines with a few years still avilable
its not worth getting out of policy machines....
5:56 im 99% that this is just the lenovo yoga 11e, lenovo just turned it into a Chromebook, would explain this empty drive bay, they probably just removed the ports. Same design. All the ports and buttons are in the same place. The keyboards the only real difference + a windows logo on the screen. And its also a 2 in 1. I haven't looked at the specs but those are probably the same as well. The yoga came out in 2012-2014 i believe (going off the windows 8 sticker) idk if 8.1 had its own stickers.
That held up pretty good compared to an old Windows laptop (from 2016, for $400- Atom x8350, 4GB of RAM, 128 GB of EMC storage, 1080p touchscreen) I have. Up until recently I used it to print documents as I forgot the printer password. That being said it is totally unusable as of today. The computer takes 10 minutes to boot up, due to flash storage rot and the machine barely works. Last time I turned it on I literally wanted to throw it against the wall. I need to hack the printer on my newer laptop/gaming PC.
Chromebooks are basically what we used to call netbooks...
Maybe cleaning the screen might be a good start. You will probably gain a few pixels by cleaning it.
Current Chrome is 119. For $75, you can get one with a couple of years of updates.
Things a beast compared to the Acer my Mom gave me after she got a new one. 1GB of ram with Vista, Linux saved that thing. Ya get what you pay for, throw something like puppylinux on there and it is gonna be a good time. Also awesome FreeDOS machine I bet.
When you can get old MacBooks for $50, easily upgradable with OpenCore, this doesn’t seem like a prudent option.
I have this exact laptop except it's not a Chromebook. It's a Windows machine and it also has the ethernet port unblocked. It also has a a SSD and non-soldered ram that is actually removable.
how do people even sell thing like that on ebay and make money? after 13% ebay takes and 10 dollar shipping do they make like 5 bucks?
When they are getting them for $2 apiece by the pallet, in bulk, it adds up.
Since that is an Intel CPU, you can reflash the firmware and install any distro of Linux you want. I did, and now I have a fully functional laptop.
man, I was hoping to see you mod it. But thanks .....finding a way to give these older chromebooks new life can really save some E-waste. thanks again
For 40$ in mid-March I got a Lenovo Chromebook 300E gen 1 MTK. It has much more modern ports, and still getting updates. I would say for chromebook, the bottom-of-the-barrel approach might not be the best.
I have one, and it's nice with ChromeOS, however, the mediatek arm processor is generally unsupported by the linux distros (the celeron on his thinkpad will boot almost any linux version), so it's pretty locked down as far as future use goes.
@@johnpinion8033 I would agree the part that the future of ARM Chromebook might be limited. Just a thought that the bottom of the barrel Chromebook, passed the AUE date is not the best value
I got a 500e 1st gen for 40$ with a Celeron and it's good on Linux.
Back when Chromebooks were still catching on, I remember looking around and finding work arounds to FORCE install newer versions of ChromeOS onto systems that didn't exactly support them, and it wasn't too much work. I'm curious if that's still something that's possible to do so that you COULD use Chrome to do more, and you could get access to the Play Store. Especially now that Android has become usable on Windows(With some stuff you can do to access the Play Store) and things like the Google Play Games beta ALSO exist on Windows. I of course don't expect Windows to be doable, But I do wonder if there's any chance of turning something like this into an older Windows system, like XP or something like that.
Loved the review. Except I paid $70 😢 Still cannot get the touchscreen to function after all available updates.
Have one of these that is also expired. You're better off getting a refurbished Windows Thinkpad and installing ChromeOS Flex.
I have the same size ones of mine Adele and I got it for free through the county program but I love my little chrome book and I've also had them before in the past
Never buy a used school book chromebook. Bought a 11.6 Lenovo off ebay dirt cheap. It can't update, its almost a 11.6 inch paper weight. Spend more money and get one that you can use.
what are the specs ?
I think i bought the same model of Chromebook that came from the same school. It has the same etched logo thats scratched out on the lid.
i bought one of these iap top 28.99 it's meade by lenovo and called n42 touch it works great i have on probaim with it but i do have to get use to the touchscreen and not haveing a cd player on it when my laptop came it was nice and clean like new but i did notic that they wrap the computer in carbon fiber to hide the school that came from i don;t how old it is but it still working for me i do avriged computing.
great video amazing content ! keep it up :)
You can definitely get a newer model that supports the latest chrome os for that price, maybe not the best condition tho
I don’t know meant, an iPad or android tablet might be a better performer (minus keyboard/mouse) for the simple tasks that chromebooks are designed to do.
Been meaning to buy one of these for a lubuntu programming laptop, dont need super high specs so a used chromebook is perfect. Love these vids though
I have an Acer c710 that has a slower processor and only had 2gb ram and 16gb SSD. I upgraded ram to 16gb and SSD to 240. I am currently running Chrome os flex but have been able to run win 10 and Ubuntu with no problem at all even with an Intel 1007u CPU.
I wonder if that chassis is used for other devices from that time, hence the faux drive bay?
yep the 11e windows version
On the note of the Thinkpad logo, there is an IT store in the city near that makes ~10% of its income by selling badges removed from laptops and PCs. Yeah, they don't make much money.
Most chromebooks or emmc laptops have a higher end version, hence why it had a caddy for a ssd/hdd.
Wait, couldn’t you install Chrome OS Flex on it?
I bought a 500e off mercari for $50 and use it daily as a Google docs only machine. Its battery life is wild thanks to its kind of crappy yet low power screen. Honestly ill miss it when it finally dies. Its been a workhorse.
there was a windows version of the yoga 11e that did have a SATA drive, hence that spacer
For 5 more dollars a ThinkPad could of been had 2010 or later models usually go for 30 or more and run Linux no issues
You really have to question the value of a (possibly/probably) stolen junker with so much damage that can't do more than the most basic tasks. Especially in the ultra-low price laptop/portable category, there are much better deals around. As one example, I recently got a ThinkPad L380 for less than £100, including the original power adapter/charger. It's in great condition with a few superficial scratches and tiny cracks around the keyboard. It's got a 13.3" 1080p IPS matt(e) display, an i5-8250U, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB NVMe drive (Samsung PM961), and a 45Wh battery. Sure, it's about 4-5 times the price of the Chromebook featured in this video, but it's also a significantly better value proposition, at least for me.
The likelihood of it being stolen is low. Stolen chromebooks are locked from signing in, just like any locked to a company or district, whereas decommissioned chromebooks are able to log into personal accounts, as we see here.
@@RealJonDoe If actually known to be stolen, yes. However, consider the case where the company contracted to destroy the hardware issues the appropriate certification but they somehow make their way onto eBay anyway.
edit: originally wrote "decommission", meant "destroy".
@@amp888 I can't say that I would find a problem with that.
The urge to completely destroy old hardware is an environmental disaster.
What societal good comes from shredding a usable keyboard or LCD, much less a chromebook that has destroyed it's encryption keys to whatever data it formerly contained?
@@RealJonDoe Well, now we're shifting to another topic. We started with something being potentially illegal, and now we're moving to morality and/or ecology. I totally agree that a device with any utility to another party would be better off being re-sold and re-used than destroyed. The reality is that some organisations are either forced to (by regulatory standards) or choose to destroy equipment though, and if they do contract a third-party company to do so, then obviously I believe that should actually happen.
There's so much waste in IT generally, and I've seen examples of literally tens of thousands of pounds/dollars worth of enterprise storage enclosures with SED drives being destroyed to meet a legal certification requirement where they could be reset and re-sold to the public without any practical chance of the original data being recovered. That's absolutely, 100%, a real problem, and we're in total agreement there.
I love my little Chromebook
Why not install Chrome OS Flex - it's supposed to be a generic version for any PC and the spec required seems to be OK for this...
tbh if windows 7 was still kept securely updated by microsoft and steam most laptops from the early 2010s would be a pretty cheap and viable choice, also they look a bit better
For $40 you can get one that will update until 2029. That was not a good buy but you could use it as a music streamer with an external DAC.
What one
The one I have on my Ebay Watchlist is a Acer C733-C37P it is $32 with free shipping and includes charger. It has 32gb of storage also which is much better than most that only have 16.
Cool video! I think to me this might be useful to play music from an usb stick while I tinker and renovate my old country side house without internet access yet. If I damage it, I would not care. If I loose it I will not care. If I forget it there I would not mind. Basically just a glorified jukebox with an cheap Bluetooth speaker. ^^
i have on old Acer C720 from like 2013 and I have managed to get it on the latest version of ChromeOS. I installed a custom BIOS using the Mrchromebox tool, so it functions like a normal laptop then I installed ChromeOS Flex on it, and it still works great even though it only has 2gb of ram. it was also fairly easy to do.
I loved that laptop and would still be rocking it if I didn't drop it and shatter the screen
@@dantheman1998 Good news! There're a bajillion of 'em out there. :)
you should do a video flashing it with chrome os flex!
Looks like that trackpad is _social distancing itself_ from the body of the laptop.
*bum bum tiss* :D
@@lisagibson2975 You can thank Shango066 for that one. I didn't come up with it.
Huh. It looks pretty nice for 25 bucks. I might get one just to play with ARM linux on that thing.
that one is x86 , though ARM chromebooks are very common
since the os is from 2019, you could try to play flash games
I don't know why linux would come with any issues? It has very good support for older software. And it's pretty plug and play like windows, I would say even easier than windows.
Ich habe mal 6 Lenovo Thinkpads für 100 € gekauft, alle 15,6 Zoll groß, und liefen mit Windows 10 Pro. Dann habe ich 2 der Laptops für 160 € verkauft, nun habe ich im Endeffekt 4 Laptops gratis!
Picked up a nice Dell Chromebook 3400 for $20 dollars at my local flea market.
A lot of business company don't like thinkpad branding, that why they claw that out😔
I have 1 .... I installed windows 10 and yeah it can play game from Windows XP to 2014
try to use with Fedora 39 Linux distro and sway desktop environment ... I think will works better !
it's run age of empire II ? yes. buy 8 of them, and do a lan party. you just build a cybercafe for only the price of a used ps4.
i have one of these lubuntu runs great on it
I like how the Chromebook are all locked and when not supported it becomes e waste
Sounds like a good deal my cheapest SSD is $25.
I have a 2 - 4 year old hp chromebook and it can’t open google or anything without waiting 30 minutes and every click takes about 30 seconds to process
hey if you want to tinker with this device some more, look up guides on how to install any Linux distro you want on it I bet someone has already done it for this laptop considering it's 10 years old at this point, it won't be much better but at least you can run Crunchy roll now.
so far of the Chromebooks, I have converted its as easy as undoing some special screw and running some firmware that cracks it so it gets a BIOS to allow you to install it and so far I have noticed Mint works the best, Ubuntu and its lighter versions like Kununtu, Xubuntu, and Lubuntu don't run or run very poorly.
You could always install ChromeOS Flex
Could this be connected to a Rasberry Pi to be used as a monitor?
Chromebooks were IMO overly overpriced for what they were and that is why they never took off. For 500-ish you could start getting decent Windows laptops.
For $500 you have had an i5 8GB RAM Acer E15 with 1TB HDD. For $400 you had an ASUS K50 with 4GB of RAM, T6500 and 500GB HDD. For like $350 you had ARM powered Acer Switch 10.
Chromebooks should have been heavily subsidised by Google to help them get the foothold and should had been not more than $200. At that point you'd have a lot of people's first computer be a Chromebook and the ecosystem would take off from that. Instead I remember Chromebooks selling for midrange laptop prices which just made it an object for diehard fans. No company would want them as they were not as easy to manage (back then) as Windows laptops (they were even harder to manage than Macs and that is saying something). No school would want them because of lackluster feature set (and again terrible management). So they ended up being a niche netbooks after netbooks failed.
And 5 year support is laughable. You could get that Acer laptop and still run latest version of Windows 10 on it today. Or you could get one with Linux and run up to day OS on it till the heat death of the universe.