It’s a long long time I’m looking for an inexpensive small laptop with long battery life and keyboard. So I can carry it everywhere to write notes, do ssh, or fix small bugs.
The experience I have with me 7" ebook reader says that under 10" is too small to work comfortably with text. Above 12" will be too big to carry. I think even 12" is too big.
I want it to run an open source OS like BSD or Linux. Unfortunately, age of netbooks are over. So I wonder what options I’ve got. As far as I have researched:
- Pinebook. The advantage is that it is open source and I can repair it easily meself. The disadvantage is that I think 11.6" is a lil big. Not sure as I never had a laptop at this size to tell for sure. But it seems these devices are not available in Pine64 store anymore. Only Pinebook pro which is 14".
- A chromebook. I am not very much sure about these. It seems I can install Linux at least on some of them. The advantages are that I can easily find one for cheap. The disadvantage seems to be that I won’t be able to repair them easily. I guess the important part is the eMMC and its failure means bye bye? If I could put them from uSD, this shouldn’t be a problem. The chromebooks with SSD seem too expensive.
- Reboot an old netbook. Advantage is that I can easily find one. Probably I could make changes to the laptop to make it more modern and usable. Mainly, replace the original lithium battery with a new custom one, possibly lighter and longer lasting. I could also replace the charging circuit and port with a modern type C. However, I’m not sure if one of these will last long enough given that they are second hand.
- A Windows tablet. I could get one of these with keyboard and install Linux on them. Haven’t researched much about them.
I also have found Chuwi minibooks. But their support said they are discontinued.
Thoughts? Suggestions?
I’ve stuck to 12" and under. using a Dell Latitude 7290 currently.
Raspberry Pi with a small screen could be an option. I have their 7" display.
You will not like this answer:
An old 11” macbook air or the 12” macbook circa ‘17.
They’re everywhere, last forever, parts are cheap, they’re durable, there is good Linux support, the screens are good and they don’t stick out when you’re using them in public.
I used to have 11” as my hard upper limit of diagonal size years ago but since then I realized it’s no big deal to carry a 13” diagonal computer now that they’re all incredibly thin and light.
Gpd pocket 4
There’s no Thinkpad under 14"
i have a thinkpad x270 which has a 12.5" screen. i admit it’s on the low end for power, but for around $300 an X260/270/280 is still a pretty good value.
I have one of these running NixOS and I love it: https://www.chuwi.com/product/items/chuwi-minibook-x-n150.html
Can flip it over into a tablet too, but you’ll need to search the web for the tools people have built that I grabbed to disable keyboard and enter tablet mode when it detects that
Yeah I have the same on fedora. Wish I could stretch the battery a little more but other than that it’s great.
Regarding the tablet, doing terminal-based stuff on a virtual keyboard turns out to be a real pain if it’s anything more than a quick task. And I haven’t found a tablet keyboard cover that isn’t clunky and disappointing in real use. Admittedly, I haven’t used a Surface tablet.
Also, the user experience on Linux tablets has left something to be desired. The best support I’ve found so far has been with Gnome and it’s not consistent at all.
My experience would steer you towards a real laptop with a keyboard.
These cheap Windows tablets with Atom come de facto with a physical keyboard. Or… are these also something gone along netbooks?
The only option I’ve seen that is actually portable is the GPD Pocket, but it is expensive. If you find something more accessible let me know
I recommend you get an old high-spec netbook and upgrade it yourself, or buy one that supports desktop OSes (like Win10 & Linux) and use an original keyboard cover for it – Xiaomi makes these.
Wild idea: how about using a small usb C keyboard (or maybe BT one?) and your phone?
(on f-droid): ConnectBot, termux, Logseq, Editor/Emacs should be able to cover your needs for ssh and writing notesToo small screen!
It’s smaller than you’re looking for but I’d be remiss not to bring up the MNT Pocket Reform
- 7" mini laptop
- 1.1kg
- Open hardware
- Mechanical keyboard
- Trackball!
- Modular and hackable
- ARM
Too expensive!
I kept seeing the MNT Pocket Reform suggested so i ended up picking one up (down votes to Crowdsupply for taking three weeks to even acknowledge my order).
This thing is not even worth half the sticker price. It crawls just trying to boot the OS and the trackball is not smooth (both hardware and software) at all.
I don’t use it for anything at this point, so I overpaid for a pretty looking paperweight. 🤷♂️
edit: spelling errors
I have one with the RK3588 (32GB RAM version), and while it is CERTAINLY not competitive on price/performance, it’s been entirely serviceable for the last year, and I really enjoy it. The trackball is a bit annoying, but not game breaking. I think I found where the issue lies in their firmware, but haven’t had the time or energy to try to fix it. For some reason the polling rate on the trackball movement during scrolling is low enough that it doesn’t register if you move really slowly or only move a little bit, which ends up feeling a bit clunky, but it’s still better than most mice. The boot process takes ~10 seconds for me, but I’m loading NixOS with
/booton an SD card and I have LUKS encryption on my SSD.That’s disappointing to hear. Which core did you get?
I agree! I had really high hopes for it. I certainly dont regret supporting a small Kickstarter but it sure is a bummer that the device isn’t very usable
Pretty sure it has the NXP i.MX8M Plus module.
A surface tablet can be booted with Linux.
However I really don’t think a laptop is a bad decision. I myself run a 14" Lenovo ThinkPad: https://amzn.eu/d/09sY8lt1
It’s honestly small and I use it as a “on call” machine when I leave the house. Thing is light so I barely notice it in my bag
I already have a 14". It’s too big for a portable device I would carry exactly everywhere. I use it as me home PC, till I get a real new one, as well as portable computer during travels.
The thing is, a 14" laptop cannot be used in bus, train, waiting room, etc. Sometimes a thought or idea comes and I have to write it. Sometimes I have to write down the stuff other people talk about.
