Ebuyer Bring Budget Ubuntu Laptops to the UK

Canonical has got together with one of the UK’s leading online electronics retailers to launch a new range of budget Ubuntu laptops.

‘This is not Ebuyer’s first stab at selling Ubuntu powered HP laptops…’

Ebuyer.com will sell three 15.6-inch HP laptops pre-loaded with Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS from the end of May 2015.

The notebooks are being aimed at business users and all feature a large LED screen and AMD processor with integrated Radeon graphics. Prices will start from £199.

Maria Bonnefon, director of Global Client Sales at Canonical, says the company is “extremely pleased to be launching Ubuntu on AMD-based HP devices with Ebuyer.com” in the UK.

AMD say the hardware, e-tailer and OS combo will help business users meet the “challenges of affordability, performance and security, without compromising on quality.’’

This is not Ebuyer’s first stab at selling Ubuntu powered HP laptops. The company stocked an Ubuntu version of the HP 255 G1 running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS last year.

The “huge success” of that device is what Ebuyer say prompted them to expand their range with three new HP laptops running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. 

HP Ubuntu Laptop Specifications

Ebuyer is stocking three portables that all have a 15.6-inch LED screen, all offer a DVD drive, and all rounded out with the same selection of ports and connectivity options.

Difference comes only in price, processor speed, graphics capability and the amount of memory installed:

Similarities

As mentioned, all of the devices have the same 15.6-inch LED display driving a 1366 x 768 pixel resolution, a 1TB hard-drive spinning at 5400 RPM, a built-in DVD drive and use an Qualcomm Atheros Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n) and Bluetooth 4.0 combo card.

The laptops are housed by a thick (244mm) and heavy (2.15Kg) plastic chassis. A full-sized keyboard, decent trackpad and built-in stereo speakers feature, too.

A non-replaceable 3 Cell Li-Ion battery (rated at 4 hours), three USB ports, HDMI and VGA out, audio jack, ethernet, webcam and SD card slot ship as standard across all models.

• £199 — HP 255 G3
• £249 — HP 355 G3
• £299 — HP 455 G3

HP 255 G3 Specs

The HP 255 G3 is the cheapest Ubuntu laptop in the Ebuyer range and is priced at a rather tempting £199.

But what does £200 get you for your money?

• 15.6-inch LED screen (1366 x 768)
• AMD A4-5000 Quad Core Processor (1.6GHz)
• AMD Radeon HD 8330 Graphics
• 4GB RAM
• 1TB HDD (5400RPM)

Reviews for the AMD A4-5000 Quad Core processor point to acceptable performance, suited to handling basic tasks like web-browsing. The integrated Radeon HD 8330 graphics should handle the accelerated Unity 7 desktop environment well.

Buy HP 255 G3 with Ubuntu on Ebuyer

HP 355 Specs

The HP 355 with Ubuntu is priced at £249.99. 

• 15.6-inch LED screen (1366 x 768)
• AMD A8-6410 Quad Core Processor (2.4GHz)
• AMD Radeon R5 Graphics
• 4GB RAM
• 1TB HDD (5400 RPM)

That extra £50 bags a more powerful processor that performs well against a comparably clocked 4th-Gen Intel i3.

The integrated Radeon R5 graphics should be able to run some of the latest games on lower settings, too.

Buy HP 355 Laptop with Ubuntu on Ebuyer

HP 455 Specs

The highest spec model in the Ebuyer Ubuntu laptop selection is the HP 455 priced at £299.

It uses a powerful AMD A10-7300 processor clocked at 1.9GHz with integrated Radeon R6 graphics and 8GB RAM to keep things rolling along nicely.

• 15.6-inch LED screen (1366 x 768)
• AMD A10-7300 Quad Core Processor (1.9GHz)
• Radeon R6 Graphics
• 8GB RAM
• 1TB HDD (5400 RPM) 

This model could easily suffice as a cheap desktop replacement. The processor should be able to keep its own against an similar spec’d mobile processor like the Intel i5 4200U.

Buy HP ProBook 455 Laptop with Ubuntu on Ebuyer

Are They Worth Buying?

“Serviceable” is the best way to describe these new Ubuntu laptops.

Serviceable because the chunky design, short four-hour battery life, relatively heavy weight and low-power specs are not going to suit everybody — not even at this price point!

For a budget solution that can cover the basics the combination of HP and AMD is, on paper, worth considering.

Ebuyer is not trying to present this hardware as anything more (or less) than that and neither are we.

Don’t be blinded by the price and do some research. Seek out reviews of these laptops (which have been available with Windows 8 for some time) to swat up on their strengths and weaknesses, focusing on essentials like screen quality, build, weight, and general performance.

Sure, the tech savvy will stick to the buying a Chromebook and installing Ubuntu for better performance, battery life, build quality.

And sure, the performance conscious developer will be unswayed by the compromises on offer here and seek high-end options from leading OEMS like Lenovo (or mid-range solutions from Linux-dedicated resellers like ThinkPenguin, Entroware and ZaReason).

But for everyone else; for those in the middle simply in need a frill-free, out of the box, ready-to-boot solution running Ubuntu these laptops could well be the ticket.

Ebuyer has found a market for low-cost, low-power Ubuntu laptops. It’s fantastic to see more choice being offered, even if that choice doesn’t meet the needs of all of us.