$80 laptop anyone? Evolve III Maestro E-Book 11.6" Laptop Computer - Dark Grey

MrGuvernment

MrGuvernment

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https://www.microcenter.com/product/646649/evolve-iii-maestro-e-book-116-laptop-computer-dark-grey

  • Intel Celeron N3450 1.1GHz Processor
  • 4GB LPDDR4-2133 RAM
  • 64GB ROM Data Storage
  • Intel HD Graphics 500
  • Microsoft Windows 10 Pro Education
  • microSD Card Reader
  • Wi-Fi 5 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0
  • LTE Capable
  • 11.6" HD Display - 720p
The only group harder on electronics than the military are elementary school students. When it comes to durability, the Maestro E-Book Wi-Fi edition brings portability and the peace of mind of knowing it can handle a few bumps along the way.
 
The fact that it has LTE and a SIM card slot make it kind of interesting.

Apparently (according to Redditors) CPU Power Limit can be tuned in BIOS and the M.2 slot that the Cellular card comes installed in can alternatively take a SATA SSD.
Reddit also says the build quality is terrible, but hey its a Windows laptop with LTE for $80
 
NattyKathy said:
The fact that it has LTE and a SIM card slot make it kind of interesting.

Apparently (according to Redditors) CPU Power Limit can be tuned in BIOS and the M.2 slot that the Cellular card comes installed in can alternatively take a SATA SSD.
Reddit also says the build quality is terrible, but hey its a Windows laptop with LTE for $80
Click to expand...

Right, this is a small web browsing computer that if you drop it, who cares kind of deal.
 
I grabbed one. Got it today. Keyboard is terrible. Worse than my $65 HP Chromebook. But it seems like I can put up with this one. It's more blue than grey. Fast enough. Crappy enough that I can use it for target pratice if I choose and not really care
 
Does anyone know if this laptop will play older games such as Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri?


These are the system requirements for Alpha Centauri:

System:
Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8 / 10

Processor:
1.8 GHz

Memory:
512 MB RAM

Graphics:
3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 9.0c

Storage:
2GB

Other:
Requires a monitor that supports a minimum resolution of 800x600
 
Hulk said:
Does anyone know if this laptop will play older games such as Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri?


These are the system requirements for Alpha Centauri:

System:
Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8 / 10

Processor:
1.8 GHz

Memory:
512 MB RAM

Graphics:
3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 9.0c

Storage:
2GB

Other:
Requires a monitor that supports a minimum resolution of 800x600
Click to expand...

...a 23 year old game that wasn't even demanding at the time? Pretty sure. 🤨
 
matt167 said:
I grabbed one. Got it today. Keyboard is terrible. Worse than my $65 HP Chromebook. But it seems like I can put up with this one. It's more blue than grey. Fast enough. Crappy enough that I can use it for target pratice if I choose and not really care
Click to expand...
Hey if you don't want it pass it my way! I'll gladly pay shipping.
 
I ended up picking one up. It's going to be a few days before I get a chance to tinker with it. A friend of mine got one too, he's trying to get OpenBSD running on it and is already running into much difficulties.

Wireless NIC isn't working, X doesn't work, microSD reader isn't working.
 
Looks like some kind of USB implementation and not a normal M.2 card then that sucks! Only one M.2 slot?
 
Was able to get wifi going on ubuntu 20.04, but it requires manual build, reference: https://github.com/lwfinger/rtl8723du
Of course, since no wifi driver out of the box, you will need to fetch the repo on another machine with internet and transfer it via flash drive or something. In addition to the joy of manually downloading the branching dependencies needed to run make for the build.
It will work, just needs extra effort. Definitely keeping the cloned repo and debs in case of future reinstall.

Sound and mSD slot worked out of the box for me on 20.04.

What I haven't gotten working yet is the LTE. Hardware seems to be Quectel EC25, specifically the EC25-AF variant. They have drivers on their site, but I admit to not being fluent enough to have gotten them built and running yet in my spare time, and their site is kind of a mess. Easy enough on Windows though (run the usb driver executable, reboot). Curious if you did anything specific for WWAN functionality Stugots or did that work out of the box on 22.04?

^ Can disregard that last paragraph. Somehow missed the very obvious ubuntu wwan config.
 
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The more I’m using this thing the more I want to smash it over this ridiculously terrible keyboard and trackpad.

Got WiFi working under Ubuntu. Not really happy with how Ubuntu runs on it. Going to try some lighter weight distros.
 
Last edited:
Stugots said:
The more I’m using this thing the more I want to smash it over this ridiculously terrible keyboard and trackpad.

Got WiFi working under Ubuntu. Not really happy with how Ubuntu runs on it. Going to try some lighter weight distros.
Click to expand...
I didn’t realize Ubuntu was that heavy…
 
My goto lightweight Linux distro used to be CrunchBang Linux, they closed down in like 2013 and BunsenLabs that was started as a continuation project was looking pretty good for a while, but they haven't released a new version in like 2 years now.

Maybe I'll give Lubuntu a try.
 
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