You do want to expand this with a proper ssd, as the internal one is rubbish, then move the windows partition to it. Then if you feel adventurous you can add a CPU sink mod, there are some videos around showing how to use both a CPU copper cover and a thermal pad to get more juice out of it. You can get all of these these for under $50 easily. I use 8GB on a gaming desktop under Windows 10, 8 is alright, not "bare minimum". You can find W10 machines with 2 GB of ram. When these things are said and done, the laptop is amazing. The speakers whilst not the best, at least they are not bottom firing, keyboard is quite decent even though there's no backlight, and the battery life is amazing considering the quality of the screen and how much it can suck from it, charger is small and portable, fanless, you don't have to worry about it being damaged in your bag due to the all metal build (on the exterior at least) etc. Downsides? in my case the bluetooth connectivity is spotty at times and the trackpad is a bit rubbish. But other than that, you would be a fool to buy any well know brand laptop for that price, as all of them are either plastic or have a crappy screen, or both.
You do want to expand this with a proper ssd, as the internal one is rubbish, then move the windows partition to it. Then if you feel adventurous you can add a CPU sink mod, there are some videos around showing how to use both a CPU copper cover and a thermal pad to get more juice out of it.
You can get all of these these for under $50 easily.
I use 8GB on a gaming desktop under Windows 10, 8 is alright, not "bare minimum". You can find W10 machines with 2 GB of ram.
When these things are said and done, the laptop is amazing. The speakers whilst not the best, at least they are not bottom firing, keyboard is quite decent even though there's no backlight, and the battery life is amazing considering the quality of the screen and how much it can suck from it, charger is small and portable, fanless, you don't have to worry about it being damaged in your bag due to the all metal build (on the exterior at least) etc.
Downsides? in my case the bluetooth connectivity is spotty at times and the trackpad is a bit rubbish. But other than that, you would be a fool to buy any well know brand laptop for that price, as all of them are either plastic or have a crappy screen, or both.