Gemini NC14 Ultra Slim aluminium Laptop, 14-inch Full HD IPS Notebook (Grey) - (Intel Dual-Core Celeron N3350 Processor, 4 GB RAM, 32GB (Add up to 256GB SSD) Windows 10 Home, Bluetooth 4.0, Webcam)

This notebook is nothing special, got it for someone who needed something small and simple. It's good for every day admin and light entertainment. Do mind the disk size being less than 30gb though.

I got the 32GB model for my sister for Xmas, but wisely also bought a 256GB M.2 SSD which was straightforward to install. You're only left with a pitiful 16GB of internal storage on the 32GB model which is not enough. Having two internal drives is nice, so I made it my mission to install Linux (a superior OS on low-end machines like these) as well.Of course, I needed to be able to boot a live Linux USB stick and unlike everyone else here, careful scrutinising of the impressively comprehensive BIOS options found the solution. I'd advise preparing a live USB stick on another machine and inserting it in one of the USB ports prior to following the instructions below.Power on the laptop and repeatedly press the Delete key to get into the BIOS at boot start. Use the arrow keys to navigate to Boot -> Fast Boot. This option is bizarrely disabled by default, so enable it (move down to the option, press Enter, choose Enable and press Enter).Once Fast Boot is enabled, new options appear below it and one of them is "USB Support", which has the crazily stupid default option of "Partial Initial" (meaning USB sticks won't be visible prior to the OS being looked for - arrgh!). Change that option to "Full Initial" and press Enter.Go back up the page a little bit to the Boot Option Priorities section - here you want to put your USB stick at the top (Boot Option #1), so you do this by selecting the first boot option (probably "Windows Boot Manager") and choosing your USB stick instead. If your stick can boot either via BIOS or UEFI (my Fedora 29 live USB stick could do both), it might be presented as two options. I just picked both of them and put them in Boot Options #1 and #2, but you can just pick one that works.Now use the arrow keys to move to the "Save & Exit" menu and select the first item which is also called "Save & Exit". Reboot the laptop and happy, happy, joy, joy, you should be booting into your live USB stick.I'm not going to explain how I copied Windows 10 from the 32GB eMMC to the 256GB SSD or moved the Windows recovery partition to the end of the 256GB SSD or how I extended the C: drive to fill around 200GB of the SSD - use the Google force, Luke!After Windows 10 worked fine on the 256GB SSD, I installed Linux Mint 19 Cinnamon on the 32GB eMMC and tweaked the Grub menu so that Windows 10 was the default, Linux Mint or the BIOS could be selected alternatively and it boots into Windows 10 after 3 seconds if no key is pressed. "Grub Customizer" is your friend :-)Of course, I made sure the Windows C: drive (an edit to /etc/fstah to mount the NTFS partition) and the microSD card were visible (Linux Mint mounted the latter automatically, but not the former). I also soft-link linked sub-folders like Documents, Videos etc. in the Linux ~username/Desktop and the C:\Users\~username/Desktop folders across to "real" folders on the microSD card, so anything read/written there would be shared between the two OS'es.My sister will probably never use the Linux setup - it was more of a fun exercise to see how it performing on a low-end laptop like this (very well, plus the 150% volume setting you can get in Linux Mint is a real bonus :-) ). Weakest thing? The CPU struggles badly with Windows Updates, which as we know kick in at uncontrollably random times on Windows 10 and beat the hell out of the low-end CPU. Yet another reason to use Linux, where *you're* in control of the updates!If you are only doing simple tasks like Word processing (note to another reviewer - it does *not* come with an activated copy of Office 2016 - you need to buy a product key...so I deleted it and put LibreOffice on instead in both Windows and Linux), Web surfing, watching videos, then it's fine. It will not play any demanding games, but you'd be a bit foolish to expect it to at this price point.I'd hate this to be my only machine, but as a second laptop for the family or to have something basic that's portable to complement your desktop, there really isn't anything to touch it at this 150 quid price point. However, you will soon be desperate for extra storage (SSD preferably, but if you skimp a bit, maybe a high capacity, fast microSD - I did both :-) ), so budget bringing the price closer to 200 quid.

I ordered this on the strength of the reasonable reviews it had. However I was disappointed. The machine itself seemed badly put together - the integral mouse enter key had an audible creak, which did not fill me with confidence and the overall build seemed flimsy. So after a little more exploration I decided to return it and get something more robust. However Box's refund policy states that factory settings must be restored in order to qualify for a refund and here is where it really fell down as there was not even enough space on the hard drive to perform this reset. After wrestling with it for a day or so I spoke to someone at Microsoft who said this is a common problem with these budget machines, which are sold without any real usable space on the hard drive and with the operating system just kind of crammed in there. Eventually after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing with Box's representative they did agree that I could return it as it was, as long as I'd signed out of what I could, eg my Google account, and I have now received a full refund. It was a worrying few days though and I think anyone thinking of buying this without extra storage should be aware of this issue.

I was looking for a cheap laptop that had a 1080p screen so I could install Linux on it. My previous Linux laptop was old and had a TN screen that had a poor resolution (by todays standards), awful viewing angles and pitiful battery life. The NC14 was cheap and seemed to fit the bill. I received the laptop well before the estimated delivery date which was great. The packaging was good and the laptop itself was foam protected in a shrink-wrapped box. I then used a USB flash drive to install Linux Mint 19.1 Cinnamon on it. The process involves changing some BIOS settings but the posts here by R. K. Lloyd (14DEC18) will get you through it (good work R. K. Lloyd. You are a star!). Linux Mint 19.1 works "out of the box". WiFi, audio etc. do not require any driver installation / configuration; It just works. I found that in Mint I had to reduce the touchpad sensitivity to low but I don't know if the reason it was set to its highest setting was due to the laptop or Mint itself. This laptop is not going to break any speed records but it works perfectly with Linux and the screen is fantastic for the price. It is bright and clear and sharp. Battery life is good and so the short(ish) lead on the charger (as others have mentioned) is not really an issue as you can get lots done without having to have it plugged into the mains. As a two finger typist I have had no problems with the "chiclet" keyboard and the build quality is very, very good for this price point. Using Linux means that even after I have installed every Linux program that I want I still have 18.5GB left of the 32GB. I also already had a 32GB M.2 2242 SSD so I popped it into the laptop (panel underneath) and I now also have a 32GB drive for any other data. I did not really test it with the Windows 10 Home OS it came with but for the brief time it existed on the laptop it seemed a bit sluggish. I cannot comment about the laptop lacking space to update Windows 10 to the latest version as it was not on the laptop long enough to let it update. In summary: if you are looking for a cheap laptop that will run Linux well, has a great screen and is of a decent build quality, this is great candidate.