PostmarketOS has a small handful of Snapdragon 870, 865 tablets (~5 year old, Cortex-A77). But it feels like it's by hook & by crook. Meanwhile it feels like bootloaders are just getting more and more locked down, making it less interesting whether mainline Linux support developers or not.

I had no idea other vendors like Chuwi were providing netbook like devices. I will be doing more research tonight. Great post by OP!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_OmniBook

They're Android tablets with non-removable keyboards.

The idea of a netbook was very small, cheap, portable, full-featured computer that you could use like a normal computer.

All the ports, your desktop OS, and so on.

Chromebooks ain't it, even if they compete in the market segment that made netbooks a success.

Getting from zero to a fully working OS was a mild journey, but I'd do it again.

I think it was a year or two latter I got a Chuwi Lapbook 12.3, which was a great machine. Lovely 3:2 screen off the Surface Pro, again a pretty good Intel small-core set-up, decent ram, ok SSD, all so cheap. Great metal case. Lovely machine, at such a great price. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Chuwi-LapBook-12-3-Celeron-2K-...

Nowadays it’s probably a performance / battery saving “feature” attempt.

I've done that with mine. Worked great, and now I get around 30 hours of battery life with a lean linux distro, as long as I'm only like reading websites or writing on it.

As a data point: I'm 100% converted personally. A Chromebook is what goes into my backpack and the device I use for all my general day-to-day UI clickery, and it's a better fit for my needs than Windows (not nearly as bad as it used to be but still sort of a PITA to make work as a Linux-focused dev environment) or Linux (not nearly as much of a PITA for a connected consumer network device but still has the occasional wart trying to get something weird to run).

the brand is trash.

13th Gen Intel, 14” screen, 16GB/512GB at about $350.

Lenovo and Dell both make similar business laptop models at around the same age and price point.

Businesses sell off perfectly functional laptops in bulk because they are on regular refresh cycles for employees, not because there’s anything wrong with them.

On the Mac side, MacBook Air M1.

At least with Lenovo laptops, that is very common. You con't need to order the laptop with a radio; it can be easily upgraded.

https://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/14/photos-of-a-prototype-m...

You (we) are old :)

I’d love to see someone retrofit a modern soc into the vaio p motherboard form factor. There were a few partial efforts on GitHub but seems like Sony’s miniaturisation skills remain undefeated.

When film is converted to 50 Hz TV, the film is sped up 24->25 fps and every frame shown twice. When converted to 60 Hz TV, there is "2:3 pulldown": every even frame is shown twice, every odd thrice. (Actually, both PAL and NTSC have interlaced video modes, with only every other line updated each frame, so as to conserve bandwidth.)

BTW, when 60 Hz computer monitors were introduced in Europe and used in office spaces with fluorescent lights with passive ballasts that flickered at 50 Hz, some sensitive users suffered headaches from using the computer screen for too long. These days, both fluorescent lights and LCD backlights tend to flicker at much higher frequencies that it isn't much of a problem.

The hardware feels great to hold (though the touchpad is still meh). I covered the Google logos with a glossy black vinyl Obsidian sticker.

https://notes.danielgk.com/Hardware/Travel+Laptop

At least it can charge off a powerbank, but that's pretty standard now.

I'd rather not have to underclock the RAM and be careful in which order I plug my USB hubs in order for the system to be stable even if I still end up with great performance.

They're sometimes an odd size, but when I hit the wrong key due to a sizing constraint, I don't even have to think: Backspace, hit the right key with mildly adjusted positioning.

I've tried a few machines with different layouts, and that's never the case - and having to stop and look at the keyboard to find a key interrupts flow in the worst kind of way.

[1] generally 24fps because that is culturally what film looks like and people get very weird whenever anyone tries to fuck with it

How's the Windows support with this flow?

Run Windows and Windows programs that I use.

> it's a better fit for my needs than Windows

Happy for you. The key here is your needs.

Psh, Fuck that. Install actual Linux on it (I have Debian on mine) and don't deal with ChromeOS (if you don't want to).

I think, realistically, the issues the author describes - particularly with the keyboard and trackpad - would drive me up the wall for any kind of serious use.

But then, if you're travelling on holiday, do you really want serious use? I like your rationale of taking something that's bad enough that you won't want to use it but you have something if you really need it even if it didn't quite work out that way for you.

And, apart from theft, and depending on where I'm travelling, maybe a cheap device that I don't mind the authorities rifling through the storage of wouldn't be such a bad thing. Like I don't necessarily want $RANDOM_CUSTOMS_PERSON_IN_SOME_COUNTRY to have access to my bank statements, account details, or to get into my social media accounts, or whatever.

And it would be nice not to have to worry about any of that stuff if the machine did get stolen (sure, the drive on my main laptop is encrypted, but physical access is always a massive force multiplier when trying to gain access to a system or its contents).

I read this review with mounting excitement until I got to the part about the things he doesn't like. And yeah, those things would drive me up the wall too.

Although it might be fine if that touchy keyboard works well for touch typists. For me, that's everything.

I also just acquired a 2014 MacBook Air for two packs of coffee to use as a distraction free tty writerdeck and toy around with, as it's my first piece of Apple hardware.

But actually interlaced content exists too. Each field is independent, there's no frames to speak of.

Early video game systems based on NTSC/PAL ran at 60 fps or 50 fps, but ran off-spec signals to always hit the same half of the display lines (odd or even). 4th gen systems (genesis/mega drive and snes/sfc) had a few games that used interlaced output; later systems had many, running PAL@60Hz became a common option too.

For a list of devices: https://docs.chrultrabook.com/docs/devices.html

Well... yeah. Likewise your post is clearly about your needs, which are different. But that's not what you said, you said it "wasn't a computer" and you couldn't use it "like a normal computer". Which is obviously wrong. But I guess "normal computer" means "windows" to you, which (especially given the forum you posted on!) is a little surprising.

So what you wrote (but apparently not meant) seemed mistaken to me, thus the correction. But if you want windows then just buy windows. Your market is well served.

A Chromebook is a first class consumer device backed by a Big Threatening Tech Giant that works on all sites everywhere because no one wants to piss off Google. And it's still Linux and runs great. I'll take it.

What's wrong with them? The M1 was popular and now people selling them are competing against a lot of other people selling them which suppresses the price. Like it or not, Macs are mainstream and therefore aren't going hold a "magic" high price.

I was too, and then AI came out, and now Codex just makes my Linux work how I want it, no needing to fiddle with .config/gconf whatever crap. I just tell it to fix my two finger scrolling on my trackpad, and it does it.

As for size and dimensions, the difference is under 200 grams, with the MBA being smaller than the 2009-ish era netbooks the blog post compares the Minibook to. Everything is a matter of trade offs.

I don't have the same problems with my model, possibly theirs is bad. I don't like that the keyboard is teeny and in the ANSI layout but I got used to it.

The trackpad isn't great but that's just yet another reason to avoid using the mouse and do everything with the keyboard.

That being said, I would never use it for fulltime use. I'm not even using it to type this message even though it's right next to me. I use it while travelling and it remains off at all other times.

Me too. But the tray table compatibility resonates. I had hoped someone would build a modern netbook as a detachable focused on productivity and light gaming (say, Steamdeck class), maintainability and (modular) expandability; a modern road warrior that's also a nice hobbyist machine that stands some abuse. Framework was/is positioned to put something out, but they decided to release the F-12 instead.

There's nothing in the market like them, which is a shame - I think a slightly better quality Minibook (Chuwis are plain crap) would be a very solid laptop.

All of them, specifically.

I don't want to think about which windows program can or can't run with Wine.

This includes:

* Microsoft software, from MSTeams to Windows itself

* Audio production software (DAWs and VST plug-ins)

* Games

* Device-specific software (like drivers/software for portable thermal printers)

* CAD (nTop, only supports Windows, for example, and don't tell me I don't need it; same for many Autodesk products. NX and Rhino don't have Linux support)

The last one is the most fun, as I'm a CAD developer who worked on nTop in particular.

Normal computer means a choice of OS to run on it without having to hack it to do that job.

Chromebooks aren't sold as general-purpose computing devices. They aren't "normal computers" in the same sense that cell phones aren't.

>which (especially given the forum you posted on!) is a little surprising.

I'm a CAD developer and user. I need Windows for my work.

I would hope that this forum includes people who are in touch with the real world.

How's nTop Linux support coming along?

That's too high a standard. When we consider MacOS along with Windows and Linux, there are basically no computers that let you freely choose between all three without hacks.

And even just considering Windows and Linux, a big chunk of the laptop market only supports Windows properly.

A laptop that runs any normal desktop OS is a normal computer.

If you must use windows, then you must use windows and you don't have a choice. None of that has anything to do with the nonsense about Chromebooks not being "real computers" or whatever, that's just the rationalization you've decided on. Obviously they are real computers.

If you can hike all day there is no way you are weak enough for this to even register.

Also drivers are often better on Linux.

I think at those sizes, what reads as small differences give an outsized experiential factor.

Sure, I can blame Chrome and JS, but ultimately, the core 2 duo and 8GB RAM did not keep up very long.

It still works, but a few specific apps started to really drag on it.

There are many countries where I wouldn't be at all worried about that, but I'd still be concerned about the possibility of theft (which, let's be real, can happen anywhere: I went on a trip to Switzerland once - generally considered very safe and low crime - where somebody had their laptop stolen from their room).