Looking for a Tablet with keyboard/Laptop JUST for school from Best Buy.

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ITDEFX

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Back in late 2016 I bought a Digiview 10 inch tablet with keyboard for 80 bucks for my daughter so she can watch videos during long distance car trips.   Ended up getting a Amazon Fire tablet later on and we kept that one for use and I put the Digiview tablet back in the box and left it alone for about a year.

Beginning of Jan 2018 I started school again to get my master's degree and needed something portable JUST for school.   I decided to us that Digiview tablet and it worked.   First day of school it decided not to respond and was stuck in it's reset screen.  I let the battery die and I was finally able to get it to work and it was fine for several weeks.   Last day of class it died so it lasted maybe 8 weeks of use?

Fast forward to now.  I used my best buy reward credits and bought the Insignia 11 inch Windows 10 tablet with Keyboard.  It was actually nice as it had two USB 2.0 and a USB C port.   I bought a case/cover for it that looks like a leather book case giving it a good protection but it creaks every time I open the tablet with the cover on.

The Tablet itself it ok/slow.    I am thinking of taking it back and getting something a little bit more powerful from best buy.   Can anyone recommend something around 200-400 bucks? 

The reason why I liked the size of the tablet is because I was able to read the books for the class using the Kindle app.   Now the Kindle app for the old Digiview tablet was android and it looked and worked great.   The Kindle program on the Windows 10 Insignia tablet is crap.   I am looking for something that works well enough to last me 2 years of this program I am taking.   I am really not going to be playing games, some netflix/hulu/youtube.    I really don't mind android as I like to customize it with different launchers but I notice these tablets have only 2gb of memory and 32gb of storage on board with expanding storage via MicroSD cards.  

Let me know!

Thanks

 
They just announced the new entry level iPad with Pencil support.  Great deal for $329.  Updated processor and pencil support make it a solid offering.

I use the pencil on my iPad Pro for taking notes and it is amazing.

I believe they start shipping April 2nd.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
theemadgamer said:
They just announced the new entry level iPad with Pencil support. Great deal for $329. Updated processor and pencil support make it a solid offering.

I use the pencil on my iPad Pro for taking notes and it is amazing.

I believe they start shipping April 2nd.
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I am not a fan of Apple products. I am looking to stick with Android/Chrome/Windows OS machines... must have a keyboard. I thought about those 2 in 1 flip computers but I played around with a few demo models and can see myself scratching or dropping it easily since there very little protectors for them.

 
Have you looked at the basic Chromebooks?  If you're going to type a lot, you'll want the laptop config.  

If you're going to go the tablet route, I've hd great luck with the Belkin KB cases.  Battery lasts months, excellent protection for the tablet, and despite size for 9-10" tablet, still good enough for short typing sessions.  I've used variations of their Ultimate line up for the last 5 years on various iPads.

 
Are you just looking to browse the internet and read your kindle books? If so a chromebook is a good buy. If your unsure look at ebay/craigslist. You can get a 11" non touchscreen one for around $75 or cheaper.

You don't need a lot of hardware to run a chromebook. The newer ones with touchscreen either have or may (look up each model) the google play store. But some apps are hit or miss since they are designed for phones with smaller screens.

 
SchmidtA99 said:
Are you just looking to browse the internet and read your kindle books? If so a chromebook is a good buy. If your unsure look at ebay/craigslist. You can get a 11" non touchscreen one for around $75 or cheaper.

You don't need a lot of hardware to run a chromebook. The newer ones with touchscreen either have or may (look up each model) the google play store. But some apps are hit or miss since they are designed for phones with smaller screens.
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Yes I mostly use the tablet for reading kindle books for my assignments, using google docs to type my papers, email/news/some youtube. I liked how I was able to get a nice leather cover for it ( https://www.amazon.com/Insignia-11-6-NS-P11W7100-Mama-Mouth/dp/B01LYC1X4I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522387826&sr=8-1&keywords=insignia+11.6+tablet+case )

but it can slow to a crawl even with one browser window open...could be firefox.

So what do you suggest from that list?

 
Try chrome browser or microsoft edge browser if its the windows version of the tablet. Firefox has been pretty hit or miss for a while.

Any chromebook with 4gb of ram is great for what your looking to do. The 2gb ones are fine but the cost difference to jump to 4gb isn't much on them that have both sizes. Chromebooks are all pretty similar. Even the older ones from a few years ago still work pretty good.

On your current laptop/tablet do you use the touchscreen much or is a touchpad fine to control everything? If a touchpad is fine then don't spend the extra to get a chromebook with a touch screen. Unless you really want access to the google play store.

Next look at the sizes of the screens. 11" screens are pretty tiny but jumping to 13" may be worth it. But that is a personal preference and since your going to be carrying it around the size may be a concern.

All best buy's have either returned or damaged boxed laptops/chromebooks/tablets Look to see how much they are at yours. You might find a good deal on an older laptop either windows or chrome os.

You may also want to look at just getting a tablet then buying a folio bluetooth keyboard case. You can get the cases for pretty cheap. Then you have both. Best buy/walmart/target have them in store to check out. You could get a universal one that works for many different tablet sizes.

If you have anymore questions feel free to ask.

 
So this is what I am currently using.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-11-6-tablet-32gb-with-keyboard-black/5255800.p?skuId=5255800

It has 2 USB ports (one on each side of the keyboard)

a USB C on the actual tablet itself

I currently use the Logitech M570 wireless trackball ( https://www.bestbuy.com/site/logitech-m570-wireless-trackball-mouse-gray-blue/1260761.p?skuId=1260761 )  and it works great for it.

I do not use the touch screen at all as I can't find a good screen protector for it.   I don't use the trackpad either, just the external track ball.

At one point I was using the Logitech wireless keyboard that had the ability to switch between 3 BT devices but found that to be cumbersome in carrying it around with the tablet.

The case that I got for the tablet works really well when the KB is attached to it, sans some creaking sounds when I open and close it.

I guess my question is, what type of processor should I go for in these chrome books?

 
Since you have the windows version I would try chrome or Microsoft Edge (its pretty good, not as good as chrome). And see if your browsing problem disappears. I see you can add either a micro sd card or usb drive to add on to the storage. See how much free space you have. Windows 10 can get flaky when you get below 5-7gb of free space. A 32/64gb micro sd card can help that out significantly. Then just go into the system folder and have windows use that drive for storage.

The Celeron naming sceme is confusing as hell. Some are dual cores, some are quad cores. The i3, i5, i7 are all faster. But with chromebooks the dual cores are plenty fast until you get 7 or more chrome tabs open (unless they are all playing video or doing something very graphical). The chrome os doesn't need a lot of resources. Anymore you have to look up individually about the Celeron's. 

The screens on some of the chromebooks won't look as good as the 1080p panel on your current device until you move up from the base model chromebooks. 

 
About 2 weeks ago it notified me that the current version of Windows installed on that tablet will no longer be supported on April 10th (I think) and that it needs to update the system now...it pushed out a big update that took about nearly 20 gigs of space out of 32 on the system :O  It did ask me if I wanted to delete the back up copy but I decided to wait it out.

I did add a 32gb micro sd card I had left over just in case......  It would seem that the Kindle app has been removed from the windows 10 store.

I am going to switch browsers and resync my settings as I have to log in to black board and do a lot of stuff to submit work.

 
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