Spotted this one in case anyone looking. Should run CM no issue.
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Gary:
I’ve had many ASUS Notebooks and the quality has gone down significantly. I loved them, at some point it became my main PC for work. My last one, however, similar to this but with a slightly larger screen, gave me a lot of grief with the battery not lasting, charging issues (USB Charger/plug), MS updates not loading properly and not being very powerful.
Just my $0.02
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This is also using ddr2 ram, which was released in 2003, so I wouldn’t recommend it on that alone. dellrefurbished.com has good prices on their stuff. If you hold out you can get really good deals (recently got a inspiron 5450 corei5 with 256 gig ssd, 8gb ram, and hd screen for $218 shipped)
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My personal computer is a laptop and has my whole digital life on it. When I first got my Shapeoko I took my laptop to the shop and it was getting quite dusty. I decided to buy a dedicated shop computer to tun my CNC machines and got a desktop with 2 monitors. I got it off Ebay. The point of this is not which computer to get but if you should have a shop computer and/or separate computer for CNC work. I would highly recommend a separate computer for running your CNC. It is somewhat problematic to synchronize the two but my router has the ability to store data on a USB stick and that makes the gcode available to both computers, the one I create on and the one I use to cut the projects.
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If you’ve got wi-fi - synchronizing is easy…file share.
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I bought a small file server for my house, thinking 4TB drive on my home network. I save my CNC stuff there with exception of actual running gcode, that’s on my garage PC. I forgot what I paid, but it wasn’t much. Backs up everything and I can access anything from anywhere, even from my phone. My garage PC was a $99 desktop deal, added 8gb ram and a 256 ssd. Have a regular monitor mounted to my CNC table (24” Walmart $120). I had a tablet PC and absolutely hated it, screen too small, touch screen control sucked, one USB for charging and USB (which then needed powered hub), cut off parts of screen which made some software useless…I think it’s in a junk drawer somewhere now!
Dan
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So many choices out there…
I bought a refurb HP Probook 6570B a few years ago. It can be had for $175 currently. Pretty decent specs as is. My only upgrade was a $89 ssd cause Windows 10 takes soooooo long to boot.
Mine is constantly covered in sawdust from my shop. I try to make a habit of blowing it off with compressed air every few weeks. The interior gets an, ahem, blow job every half year or so.
It is crazy to me that they are still selling so many computers without ssd. I could never go back to standard hdd.
I went with a cheap refurb Dell laptop for my CNC station. I’m not a brand-ophile, generally, but I’ve appreciated in the past with other machines how easily you can just download the service manual for a Dell laptop. (Over the years, I’ve replaced internal parts, e.g. fans and such, on another quite inexpensively, sourcing the replacement parts from eBay/Amazon.)
Anyway, as for specs, I just got one with a nice Intel i5 chip, then threw a few bucks at Newegg for RAM and an SSD. Everyone’s already covered how nice an SSD is, and Windows really sings when you give it plenty of RAM. I’ve found the selection is much greater and the total cost cheaper if you ignore installed RAM and HDD and just plan an immediate easy upgrade.
Thing is, I ended up with a CNC workstation that’s actually far better specs than my few years old “real” laptop. 
(My design workstation for CAD/CAM, photo/video editing, et cetera, blows the two laptops clear out of the water, of course, but it is not in the inexpensive ballpark.)
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