Lenovo 11e 11.6" laptop notebook Intel Celeron N2940, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD, HD, Camera, Windows 8.1 Pro

Pros: - Windows 10 Pro x64 - 4GB RAM -128GB SSD - Celeron Quad-Core (what??) - Bluetooth / AC Wifi - Lightweight - 6+ hours battery life - Minimal bloatware - Decent keyboard feel - Screen Mirroring works - Sound quality Cons (very few minimal cons at this pricepoint): - Only two USB ports - No physical wifi switch (dedicated hotkey though) - Hotkey FN button disabled out of box but keys work I picked this up on an impulse buy last week. This was on sale for $199. I know PCs and this was a steal at that price and is still a great deal at the currently listed price of $270. I have a custom built desktop for gaming and everything else at home and a bunch of workstations at work but I lacked an ultra-portable. The main use for this will be as a backup in case something goes wrong with my home PC (need to be able to get work and school work done) and to take with me on trips if needed. It's also nice to be able to do homework or light browsing somewhere other than the home office. What I like about it - The laptop has some great hardware specs (true quad-core!) and runs Win 10 effortlessly. It's not a powerhouse but it's definitely a few steps above your average Chromebook or under-powered "netbook" that you can get for the same price. Very little bloatware came installed. I removed McAfee and a few Lenovo add-ons that weren't necessary for normal operation of the hardware / software. Took maybe 20 minutes to go through. There are a few things you'll want to keep so don't go uninstalling anything that says Lenovo (will update and provide a list later). Battery life states 6+ hours on full charge. With the screen at 25% brightness, the estimated jumped to 7 hours 22 minutes. Impressive. The design is simple and functional. Nothing too flashy. The bottom of the laptop and the bezel for the lid is coated in this grippy texture that makes it nice for use on your lap or other sloped surface. It doesn't slide. What I dislike about it - I use the term dislike very loosely here but the only thing I noticed that wasn't right was that the hotkeys did not work out of the box. There are an assortment of functions like volume, screen brightness, wifi off/on, etc. that can be controlled by pressing the Fn key and another key but none of them worked for me. Not a big deal since I use the controls within the OS primarily. Still something I will investigate further. **EDIT - so as of week or so ago, I discovered that the hotkey options in the BIOS were set to disable the Fn key and just use F1 - F12 as hotkeys. I switched it back to what I am accustomed to (Fn + punction key for hotkey function) and all is well. There are also options to switch the CTRL and Fn key which I may still use since the Fn key is in a weird spot. Only two USB ports available, with at least one being USB 3.0. Other uses: - This will be an outstanding student laptop if what you want an actual PC to do homework, browsing, media playing and maybe light (very light) gaming. - It's also just a great little PC to have in place of a Chromebook or even a tablet if you're considering a portable device. Windows 10 (and Windows 8 / 8.1) have screen mirroring technology built into the OS so as long as your hardware supports it (most new devices will) you can mirror the device's screen on a smart TV or other smart display. All in all, this is a great deal and you should buy it while you can, even at $270. **EDIT** - So as promised, I went back and made a list of the bloatware that I removed in case someone could benefit from it. Software Removed: - McAfee (should be self explanatory as to why I removed it. Windows Defender (aka - Microsoft Security Essentials) is perfectly fine as an antivirus / antimalware SCANNER. If you want live internet security you want a better full security suite like Bitdefender Internet Security. - Active Protection System (only needed for a HDD, safely stops HDD if the laptop is dropped, not necessary for SSD). - Lenovo Quick Optimizer ("toolbar that allows the user to view computer optimization status, quickly optimize the computer, and launch the Lenovo Companion universal app." So in other words, it allows you to manage PC status like temp files, settings that can be done from elsewhere. To me it's unnecessary and redundant if I can do these functions in the OS so I removed it.). - Lenovo Battery Gauge (simple battery gauge that can go on the task bar. Windows already has one so I removed). - REACHit (a cloud service from Lenovo for storing and managing data. I like simplicity so I have one Google account to store important data and that uploads my pictures from mobile regularly. No need for another product that does the same thing, removed). - Lenovo Experience Improvement (feedback tool for Lenovo. I can submit feedback and bug reports on my own, I don't need an added program to do that, removed). Software Kept: - Lenovo On Screen Display (displays hotkey status as a message on the screen. Have yet to get hotkeys to work but the messages do work for caps lock button) - Lenovo Power Management Driver (probably only needed to use the built-in Lenovo power profile but I kept it just in case. It doesn't look like it uses many resources if any.) - Lenovo System Interface Foundation (have yet to evaluate this one but apparently it is tied to Lenovo Companion so that it can access the MS app store. I don't think I'll use the app store so I may remove both. Kept for now though).

I conducted a huge amount of research before I chose this particular version of the Lenovo 11e. I've used Lenovo laptops at work for years and they have always worked well and have been very sturdy. This unit is no exception. I purchased mine from Amazon for $235.00. I liked the fact that I could get a Windows 10 machine with 128GB SSD hard drive and 4GB of RAM for the price of a Chromebook. Chrome OS is nice for what it is, but it is very limited since you can only run Chrome OS apps. This 11e runs a full version of Windows 10 64-bit which means you can load any Windows 10 compatible software. I've loaded the full Microsoft Office 2016 Professional Suite since I have a license (I teach a night class at a local community college and that is one of the perks). I'm new to Windows 10, but I've been using Windows since version 3.0; it's come a long way baby. For my usage, this little laptop is perfect. I use if for email and web searching mostly. Like others have reported the screen was a little hazy or washed out looking for the first few days and now it looks normal. I find typing on the keyboard to be fine, and I think the touchpad works great. Others have reported the touchpad to be quirky. One interesting note, my 11e came with the square power receptacle. I have a new Lenovo T450 as my work computer, and both came with exactly the same power supply. I have found the sound to be good, both with the speakers and headphones. I've watched some Netflix and that works fine. I have a USB attached DVD drive and I'm able to watch movies and install software from the DVD drive. I just plugged it in and it worked. I deleted a couple of the installed Lenovo software, and immediately installed the Chrome browser. I'm using the Windows 10 email for Gmail, Exchange (community college mail server) and my Live.com/outlook.com accounts. Setup was easy and the functionality seems to work fine. Now that I've had this little unit for a week, I can honestly say that If I had it to do over again, I'd buy this one over again.

If you're buying this in 2022, you're likely to experience a lot of issues running Windows 10 in it. With only 4GB of RAM, this laptop struggled a lot with performance and battery life. The good news is that if you're somewhat tech savvy, you can rescue this machine with Linux. I installed Debian 11 with XFCE4 on it, and got it running using only 517mb of ram on boot/idle. Make sure to use the nonfree firmware net installer if you go with Debian, and plug an Ethernet cable during the installation, because WiFi won't be available until the installation is completed and you reboot into the system. Or just go with Linux Mint if you want a more streamlined install process. After some tweaks, performance is very snappy now. I'll try to list here the tweaks I used to tune it up. Keep in mind I did it under Debian 11 with XFCE4: Under BIOS: Set the option 'UEFI Secure Boot' to off. Change 'UEFI/Legacy Boot' to both. Disable 'OS Optimized Defaults'. Using the terminal once the system is installed: Update and upgrade your system. Install the 'linux-firmware' package (which also pulls linux-firmware-nonfree as a dependency) so you have drivers for all your firmware with proprietary drivers. Install the 'linux-cpupower' package (and optionally the 'cpupower-gui' if you want to control it through a graphical front end). Run the command 'cpupower set -b 6' to load the default/more performant intel perf bias at the kernel level. You can check the status of all core with the command 'cpupower -c all info -b'. Getting rid of tearing: Disable the XFCE4 compositor under 'Window Manager Tweaks' > 'Compositor'. Install another compositor. I used Picom and enabled vsync, setting it to 60. If you still have issues, you can try the 'TearFree' option fix for intel (search for it online). Keep in mind that you can upgrade this machine to a maximum of 8GB of RAM, but with Linux you shouldn't have to. Battery life under Linux is sitting around 8-9 hours for me, an improvement from the 6ish hours I was getting under Windows. The brightness could be a bit better and the colors are a little dull, but other than that, this machine is a great bang for your buck, specially if you get it second hand/refurbished.

I wanted to switch back to Windows after using a macBook air for several years. I needed a tiny but rugged computer to dedicate solely to my work as a copywriter. This had almost the same specs as my old macbook air, cost a fraction of the price I paid for that computer severl years ago, and it was a Window's ten machine. Perfect. The keyboard is surprisingly roomy and comfortable, given that this is as small as the old, phased-out netbooks of yesteryear. The keys are nicely laid out, and although I don't mind a small keyboard due to my small hands, this was even a comfortable fit for my partner when he tried it out. (he's a fan of larger keyboards.) I love the anti-scratch case and the rubber seal on the perimeter of the computer. It's just rugged enough for me to feel comfortable about carrying it whereever I need to. (I'm infamous for somehow breaking computers, so this was a major plus) Another major plus is the solid state hard drive. I wouldn't purchase a computer without one of these today. Tehy are virtually unbreakable. Also they run so quietly, and they are incredibly efficient. Last but not least, call me old-school, but I love the dedicated volume buttons on the side, along with the tactile, dedicated on/off button. thank you, Lenovo!! These are noticeably absent on most modern computers. I'm so glad mine has them. Overall, this computer fits my needs (and my budget) perfectly. I'm happy with it, and confident it will last me a very long time.

I bought this primarily to have something to mess around with, possibly installing linux if I decide it would be better suited for that. At $240 that I bought it for, Intel Processor and an SSD is pretty hard to beat. I did almost buy the amd version because the processor and gpu benchmark slightly higher but I didn't want to spend extra to get the ssd version of it. I've had it for about an hour and am writing this review on it, I've only uninstalled preloaded stuff nobody wants (mainly macfee). Just wanted to get a review posted now and see how I feel and update it in a couple weeks. Pros/Cons: +Small, easy to carry around in hand or toss into a bag. +Durable (Toss into bag, I wouldn't be too concerned about this breaking.) +Decent Keyboard, Better than most laptops I've used. Feels a little small and not a ton of key travel (coming from mechanical keyboard user) that said its pretty great as far as a laptop is concerned. +Upgradable RAM & SSD/HDD. And from what I've looked at you can get to the wireless card too. According to docs you can also replace the battery if needed. -Relatively poor viewing angles, but still decent for what it is. - All and all I have no complaints at the moment. Mine does have the EDU sticker, but I doubt that matters. More when I've spent a bit more time with it.