It looks pretty cute. But holy shit the mouse on that thing looks awful to use.
I used to travel a lot and didn’t need a full sized laptop but did need something more powerful than a phone, this would have been perfect. I might get one anyways for transferring files on the go from my cameras.
It arguable it’s not more powerful than a phone, but the keyboard would certainly be useful.
Phones are capable of a lot, but even something basic like a network ping is buried and they prefer you to install some crappy app with adverts and in app purchases, rather than let you use the PC in your pocket.
but even something basic like a network ping is buried
Termux on Android solves a lot of that. But the touchscreen keyboard is definitely a tricky issue.
You all know what would be the most awesome thing for 90% of people? Fully developed Linux Phones + Lapdocks.
- Just one device you carry all the time anyway
- Super powerful phones make more sense
- All data in one place without all sync stuff
- Battery for daaays when docked
- 2 displays
- Super portable setup
Samsung screwed it up with Dex and other companies didn’t want to create reasons not to buy more. Luckily devs working on projects like aftermarketOS do not give a fart about such things, and what’s currently possible and being worked on is really promising.
Imagine all you need for general computing and light gaming / editing on the go on any display or TV you come across would be a USB-C dock and perhaps a small keyboard & mouse combo. I want that future.
That would be awesome. With legit Debian VMs and desktop mode coming to Android, I would love to see some serious development progress in that area. But we all know the big tech firms are gonna fuck it all up and neuter it.
There have been several attempts at that and none succeeded.
Ubuntu Touch is somewhat there but also not.
But can it play doom 3?
It can play 20 separate instances of Doom 2.
It can play doom 40?
Urgh. Why do they always have to ramble about AI?
There was one paragraph about AI. Hardly a ramble.
I appreciated it, since he didn’t do a legit stress test. Running a local llm is intensive on the hardware, and if it performs well on that, it’ll likely perform well on most standard, non-useless tasks. So, I see that part as a makeshift stress test.
Right but all it’s testing is the hardware. The hardware would be the same if it was running Windows.
Eight inches ought to be enough for anyone!
It was enough for yo mom ohhhhhhhh!
j/k
did her twice, huh?
I can’t imagine many people would find this a pleasant device to do any actual work on. Maybe writers on the go, as the author says, though with a dubious keyboard layout even that is questionable.
I haaaate typing on a laptop, layout not withstanding.
My work-issued T15 G2 has a large keyboard with a separate 10-key. It’s glorious.
Docks are pretty great now.
I have a dock at home and at work. Single cable to plug in and get proper peripherals, 2 + 1 monitors, and power.
It’s nice to be able to undock and go sit in a Cafe to read emails or do whatever you don’t need full regalia for.
I can see this working on a smaller form factor.
Yeah, I’ve been pretty happy with my usb-c dock. Although randomly I stopped being able to use all the usb ports on it at the same time. I wonder if the cable is failing.
But it’s been super useful and I don’t mind buying a new one down the line.
If you have to carry a separate keyboard, it defeats the purpose of an 8" laptop…
Well, I carry a keyboard with my 17" laptop. Carrying a keyboard with a 8" laptop is that much easier.
Same here, Meko Blink or GK64 are my usuals for my big laptop
It’s not. I carry one(mix 3s) as a pocket laptop for when Im going out but might need to do some work urgently and also as a lightweight backup in case something happens to my main laptop. For the former, it’s been great and saved me many times, but for the latter… this did once happen when I bonked the entire screen out. To say it was a painful week while waiting for the replacement would be an understatement. My back was killing me the entire time, and the thing is so underpowered it was easier to remote into that screenless pc rather than trying to launch stuff locally. And even with that, the thing whirred like crazy. It’s fine for a few minutes at a time but hearing it sll fay got annoying quick. And dont even get me started on the keyboard…
My eeePC still works. Installed a touch screen. The battery and power adapter is long gone but it keeps on chugging with a random 12V power supply.
I had one of those but the tiny keyboard used to drive me nuts it was literally unusable.
I had a 9" HP mini 2140– the keyboard was surprisingly good given its size.
It’s just a shame the build quality matched the price and they fell apart in short order.
Plus it was horrifically slow for everything. Even when new.
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I remember having 10 inch netbook. It was okay for a while, but I would never want to go back to 10 inch display on a laptop. It’s just horrible to use. 13 inches is ideal for me =)
Well, at least it’s 1920x1200 resolution. The old 10" netbooks mostly had 1024x600 which was terrible even by standards from 15 years ago.
I’ve got this little tablet…you know how so many people turn an iPad into a crappy laptop by adding a keyboard cover to it? Well Lenovo turned a laptop into a crappy iPad by making the hinge a floppy skin flap with a magnetic pogo pin connector. I intended it as a little computer I can use in the wood shop, I wanted something fanless and preferably with a removable keyboard so it wouldn’t be destroyed by sawdust that can run FreeCAD natively.
I’m not sure Linux is ready for tablets. FreeCAD is not ready for tablets or laptops, holy fuck it’s unusable without a 5 button mouse and a spaceball. I may have to distro hop a little on the thing because it likes to wake up with the keyboard attached, not recognize the keyboard, and stay permanently in portrait mode. So wake up the computer, rip the keyboard off, wait a second, reattach.
It’s kind of fuckpuke, tbh.
10 inch screen size isn’t a problem though. For a general laptop I’d want to go 13 inches but for something I’m mostly going to use as a tablet and then occasionally as a laptop 10 will do.
I’ve got this little tablet…you know how so many people turn an iPad into a crappy laptop by adding a keyboard cover to it? Well Lenovo turned a laptop into a crappy iPad by making the hinge a floppy skin flap with a magnetic pogo pin connector. I intended it as a little computer I can use in the wood shop, I wanted something fanless and preferably with a removable keyboard so it wouldn’t be destroyed by sawdust that can run FreeCAD natively.
I have an 11" M1 iPad Pro with a Logitech keyboard case. It was intended to be my “laptop”. Clearly that didn’t work out, as Apple hath decreed that running full-blown VMs on hardware that’s more than capable of doing so is not allowed on the iPad, despite the fact that the same hardware runs Mac OS in the Macbook line.
I have a Thinkpad T14 G1 now.
I did the iPad-only thing for a year back in 2019/20 and while it was fine, I spent much of the time low-key irritated by the shit I had to jump through hoops for. Shit that a regular computer can just do.
By the end of my experiment it was abundantly clear that Apple had 0 interest in making iPadOS more useful for anything more than whatever its apps could do. Five years on and my opinion hasn’t changed. I still use an iPad (mini), but mostly because it was a gift which comes in handy for note taking.
I barely use my iPad these days. I’ll pull it out every once in a while, like if I’m sick in bed and wanna watch youtube for a few hours without holding my phone, but otherwise, yeah, iPads are kinda useless. They even suck at filling out PDFs.
To be fair, an iPad can be used for way more than the average punter will do with theirs. I used to broadcast my radio show with mine, using a mini as a midi controller for my mic. It was pretty cool.
But yeah, for all the workarounds and hoop jumping I had to do, Mixxx could do it all on a regular computer, for free.
So these days mine is a social media / note taker / third screen for my Mac. Very much not worth the £600 Apple are rinsing for this thing. I can’t imagine how disappointing it must have been to shell out for an M1 Pro in the belief that Apple were about to beef up iPadOS. Then they…didn’t.
I can’t imagine how disappointing it must have been to shell out for an M1 Pro in the belief that Apple were about to beef up iPadOS. Then they…didn’t.
Yep. I paid ~$1200 for it and the Logitech keyboard case, right after it came out in 2021. First brand-new Apple device I bought for myself. And it is definitely the last.
The library near me has a bunch of 3D printers people can rent time on, or maybe it’s based on filament used I’m not sure I’ve never actually used them.
At one point they had some surface tablets connected up to them so people could review their 3D prints or something, (again not my area of expertise), but apparently it was enough of an issue they eventually got rid of them and just replaced them with some desktops. It seems that the 3D design software just isn’t built for touch screen primary interfaces. They’ll work up to a point but then you’ll come up against something that you have to use a mouse and keyboard for and be stuck, so then you have to go get a mouse and keyboard.
I bet those tablets had their slicer software on them.
A 3D printer is a CNC machine, it doesn’t understand 3D model files, you have to give it a series of gantry movement instructions, usually in G-code format. G-code has to be written for the individual printer it’s being run on, because some of them consider the bottom left edge of the bed to be the origin, some the bottom right, some the center, you need to know the nozzle size, things like that. So you typically slice your model right before printing. And yeah I’m not really aware of any tablet friendly slicer software.
14 here. Lenovo T-series life.
AMD T14 G1 here, with LMDE. Definitely my most used computer.
Well, you’re in luck. The Piccolo N150 netbook is an 8in screen lol
I remember my 9 inch “netbook.” That thing was dope.
I’m down to see this form factor make a comeback, personally.
ASUS still makes netbooks.
I bought a little $200 model a few years ago. It weighs 9 oz.
Yeah, my favourite ever laptop. Would love to see the netbook return. Cheap and cheerful. Chromebooks just not the same
Chromebooks suck the nut, netbooks all the way
I have an older Samsung chromebook loaded with coreboot UEFI firmware and boots Linux. Works…fine. It only has 16GB eMMC storage, so I think I will load a proper OS on a USB drive, hot glue it into place, and use that as the boot drive.
My 11" netbook is my favorite portable PC I own. A bit slow but rock solid and about as heavy as a tablet.
11 inch is a pretty nice form factor, too!
Still love my Acer Aspire v151, core i5. 11" is a great size, just big enough for a standard keyboard. I wish they would have updated models like that. A Ryzen 9 version would kick ass.
I’m strongly hoping that the framework 12’’ becomes widely successful so that the format keeps being relevant.
Unfortunately I think most of this audience (if there ever was any) have switched to tablets.
What they kind of eyes do you people have? I mean, my phone screen is smaller but I’m not doing stuff I would normally do on a desktop or full size laptop.
I had better than 20x20 vision when they gave us eye-tests in high school and I’ve often gotten, “Holy shit, you can read that from here?” I always chose screen space over font-size even on small laptops but I recently had to dial it back a notch for the first time. The optometrists come for us all, eventually.
My vision still seems fine but it takes longer to adjust and focus. Like I have a digital clock I used to glance at to check the time and now I have to squint for a few seconds and wait. It’s sort of like a phone camera auto-focus where it sorts things out but it used to be immediate.
Yeah, lots of young people apparently. After the second 24" screen of my dual screen (primary is a 32" QHD) started dying I’ve ordered a curved 44.5" DQHD 1440p as a replacement. Will arrive tomorrow, I hope I didn’t make a mistake by not ordering a second 32" QHD instead.
Mad lad installed KDE Neon. Weird choice, but okay!
Uses the calamares installer, comes with all neccessary tools and, above all, is the safest bet if you need all KDE components to work properly. Makes enough sense to me but I’m biased since it’s my daily driver too 😅 It’s my first distro where genuinely so far “everything just works”. I’ve had a much better experience than with stuff like Mint or Pop or whatever else people usually recommend.
That keyboard layout gave me a stroke. I’d rather relocate Enter than the apostrophe. I suppose that could be remapped…
“Upon picking it up, you can feel the metal chassis has a surprising amount of weight to it.”
A surprising amount of weight is exactly what I do not want to feel when picking up a micro laptop.
That being said, it’s just a little under the weight of the new 12“ surface pro. Pretty much any bag I have could easily fit a 12" laptop but I imagine it would be hard to get Linux to work well with the surface - especially the touch screen. Not to mention a pretty big price difference.
Either way, it’s nice to see more options for small laptops! Maybe in a few years someone will start making small phones again.
I ended up falling into using a surface for my travel and it’s been surprisingly good. I have surface pro 7+, and it’s small enough to use on an airplane seat, has good battery life, a great screen, and can do some limited gaming. With an upgraded drive (1TB for $100) for movies and low end games it’s a great little computer. They also run for 200-400 dollars on eBay.
I use a Lenovo nano and haven’t looked back to my surface days. Has a touch screen and I really like it. Sounds like used surface market is good, but prices for new ones tend to be quite high. The 12 inch sounds really interesting to me though
but I imagine it would be hard to get Linux to work well with the surface - especially the touch screen.
There’s a dedicated Linux kernel for Surface devices. Surfaces are your best bet for installing Linux out of any of the Windows tablets.
Neat. Like the other poster said I also have an old surface 4 I think that could really use a new life.
Thank you for this! My husband has an old surface and it’s getting slow as shit. Didn’t think there was a way to get Linux on it. Cheers!
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