The Teeniest Tiniest Laptop in the West | Hacker News Reader

The Teeniest Tiniest Laptop in the West

thecrow.uk

179 pointselorant103 comments

The thing I don't understand about the P2 Max and every other micro laptop currently on the market is why they shun the trackpoint. Now, at least the P2 Max comes with a touchpad. Others like the Mix A1 rely on an optical touchpoint, which is the worst pointing device ever conceived by the human mind. A boiled egg mounted into a trackball mouse would be more pleasant to use than an optical touchpoint.

This is the main reason why I will stick to my modded Thinkpad X61 [0]. Small, classic trackpoint, no touchpad.

[0] https://geoff.greer.fm/2017/07/16/thinkpad-x62/

I dusted off my X61 this past week. Repasted, threw a cheap SSD in, and newer mPCIE Wifi card. After playing around with undervolting and fan control it idles silently. Battery life on the 6 cell is 5-6 hours light use.

It was a pretty amazing package for that sort of power in 2007, and it's still a joy to use -- especially with modern improvements.

Now if I could just find a nice SXGA+ screen...

> Now if I could just find a nice SXGA+ screen...

Took me a few months to find one on eBay, a replacement part of a X61s. Fitting this thing into the X61 was... interesting. It involved a few hours of Dremeling. I am convinced it was poor luck I didn't break it.

The trackpoint most likely adds more to the thickness of the keyboard assembly than a touchpad. So in that neverending quest for the razorblade laptop thickness is shaved all around.

They're also an extra expense very few people care about. Most people who grew up with a touchpad hate the trackpoint experience and wouldn't use it for free, let alone pay for it or have it as only option. I own IBM and more recently Lenovo laptops because they still come with that red nub and I instinctively use it but I can understand why manufacturers don't bother including one given how little the market cares for them.

But the laptop still needs the space there in order to have a decent form factor. If anything it would need more space under the keyboard to have an even better 4:3 aspect ratio.

I used trackpoints for years on Toshiba and Lenovo laptops, but had moved away from them until I recently replaced one with a cup-style cap. Holy smokes what a difference. Now on that laptop I find myself jumping from the touchpad to the trackpoint.

So, if you're not so thrilled with pointing sticks as you once were, try a few different styles. Maybe you just have bad caps.

As odd as it sounds the best mouse experience I've had on a mini PC was with the Win 2 https://i.imgur.com/MAAPc3e.png

Normally I'd say joysticks are a painful way to control a mouse but the combination of small screen, smart controls (right shoulder was right click, left shoulder was left click, holding the second shoulder button would multiply your speed), and being naturally where your fingers were while holding the device without having to change your grip as you moved around or switched to using the mouse/keyboard really made the usability sing.

The keyboard was a little floaty instead of solid and the joysticks were... there :)... but despite not being the best hardware I never had trouble controlling it.

Now if only we could throw an M1 in something of that form factor! Heat/performance (the same thing at this form factor) was what killed the device for me.

I've never used an optical touchpoint, but it's hard for me to imagine a pointing device that's worse than trackpoints. I didn't know their name until just now when I searched it. Oh, that eraser thing in the middle of the keyboard. I would pay extra for a keyboard that didn't have one of those on it.

I love trackpoints, but suspect that they are a lot nicer for gamers who are accustomed to joysticks that respond to how much throttle you supply along each axis than for non-gamers where the micromovements needed are more frustrating.

But now I'm remembering the laptop trackball. Does anyone else remember these? I remember them being built into the back of the monitor (or maybe just below, on the keyboard chasis), so that when you grasped the laptop in both hands near the natural balance point near the monitor, your right thumb would naturally sit atop the trackball.

Suddenly, I'd love to see a micro-computer that had a joystick on the front right and a chording keyboard on the bottom, with meta-keys on top. So you type with 8 fingers on the back (and one left thumb on top), and perform mouse actions with your right thumb (clickable joystick seems about right for the form-factor).

They do divide opinion. I never use my trackpad, and always just use the trackpoint.

I would really like more competition for GPD2 and One Mix[1](another HK company) from traditional laptop makers. But I understand their reasoning for not doing that, I think they're hesitant to compete in small display market where smartphones rule; but that's exactly why I want a pocket computer from reputed brand - to ditch my smartphone.

While we wait for Linux smartphones to get better, a pocketable Linux computer as showcased in OT could fill-in the need gap. Use a data dongle for Internet/Calls on-demand on the move and have full-fledged computer at hand.

I've been telling this for years now, RPi CM4 gives me some hope. Looks like Lenovo-NEC might enter this market at least in Japan and I hope nerds in Japan buy it out and make pocket computers a thing again for rest of the world too.

[1]https://1netbook.com/onemix/

[2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjkpqOn6EJ4

I'm holding out for an equivalent of the One Mix Yoga with LTE support. The combination of small convertible tablet, keyboard (albeit a small one), USB-C for docking when at home, and mobile data/calls sounds pretty ideal.

The Lavie Mini looks pretty great too, haven't seen any signs that it'll have LTE though.

I expect few more makers to come up with ultra-portables powered by 11th Gen Intel with Xe graphics, it almost seems like intel is pushing for that for portable gaming computers.

But I don't think any of them will come with LTE modem, but I personally prefer separate LTE dongle for freedom & security.

This is exactly the kind of thing where I’ve grown up enough to know that I love the idea of it, but I should never own it. Glad to see someone else enjoying it so much.

Well said! I remember excitedly buying the OLPC laptop and trying so hard to find ways to make it useful. Same with the first Raspberry pi. This gives me similar vibes.

I am an admitted SBC addict.

What does SBC mean?

Single-board computer, basically Raspberry Pi like devices.

Yeah, no idea how that term became so widespread. Every laptop, home computer and all-in-one computer and many PCs use exactly a single PCB. I've seen the more descriptive term "open frame computer" used by a local dealer. That might just be legalese though to get them out of any FCC responsibilities.

> Every laptop, home computer and all-in-one computer and many PCs use exactly a single PCB.

That's only the case if the memory is soldered to the motherboard; otherwise, it's on a separate PCB. The storage also has to be soldered in (not M.2 or a traditional HD). The WiFi has to be on the motherboard too. And so on.

The laptop I'm using to type this comment has at least five PCBs: the motherboard, two memory boards, a storage board, and a WiFi board. It might have more that I missed.

But the memory, WiFi, networking etc are all separate circuit boards even in an SBC. The fact that they're soldered on doesn't change that fact. They arrive at the assembly line as separate components.

It's a useful shorthand term but doesn't stand up to technical scrutiny.

Do you consider every semiconductor on a PCB to be a different circuit board?

Every raspberry Pi including those with memory, WiFI and networking only consist of a single PCB. You said circuit board which gives some leeway to creative interpretations where PCB is just a subset of circuit board and thus there are non PCB types of circuit boards. However, since the amount of circuit board like components on every Raspberry Pi is zero you must be talking about a definition of circuit board that is extremely uncommon.

I tried to make this as painless as possible.

My actual conclusion is that you haven't seen enough single board computers (SBCs) to know that SBC is a well defined category.

Intel NUC? Not an SBC because the memory is not soldered on the mainboard. Intel atom mainboards? Not an SBC because the memory is not soldered on the mainboard.

Raspberry PI? An SBC because everything is on the mainboard.

Smartphone? Possibly, although they are just advertised as smartphones so nobody buys them for their SBCness. The emphasis is that you usually buy the board itself when you want an SBC.

I feel like "SBC" has specific connotations of the board being sold standalone, which ain't really the case for (the vast majority of) laptops and desktops/AIOs.

It was an expensive lesson for me.

Ahhh the Psion 3a. My dad had one of these and used it everyday for 20 years. Ran for weeks on 2 AA batteries and took it with him everywhere (smaller than a wallet).

I learned to code in OPL on the Psion 3 which he passed down to me after he got the 3a. Ah memories. Does a modern equivalent exist?

I had the Psion Revo+, 16Mb RAM, and went from programming in OPL to Java 1.1, using the eshell.exe to run javac.

http://cd.textfiles.com/psion/disk2/PRO_0006/JAVA/COM_0002.H...

https://www.www3.planetcom.co.uk/devices

I have a strong desire for one of these, but absolutely no idea what I'd end up using it for when I have an excellent smart phone and a light laptop. If I could work out a single actual thing I'd use it for, I'd buy it in an instant

> If I could work out a single actual thing I'd use it for, I'd buy it in an instant

Ssh on the go, without having to lug a laptop while on call?

That would be an excellent use case, although I am at a point in my life where I (essentially) never need to SSH into machines on demand.

Would love to see a device like the Gemini with a specially designed OS rather than a tweaked Android or Linux UI. Still cool though.

I think having a known system running a custom UI is the way to go, personally. You get the benefits of years of engineering research while still getting to have a differentiating factor that users can see.

I had one, running Linux. Gave it away to the OpenBSD project. The screen is just too small to be useful. The 12" MacBook, while equally anemic, is far more usable. Hopefully they make future M1 MacBooks that are lighter, the M1 MacBook Air is significantly heavier than the 12" MacBook.

I also have a Planet Gemini, the spiritual successor to the Psion 5, that I still have but to be frank almost never use. That would be a much better candidate for tiniest laptop in the West (it ships with Android but you can install Linux).

I've had a bunch of other similar ultra-compact computers with keyboards, from the Cambridge Z88 to the HP95LX and 200LX, Sony Clié UX50 and Nokia E62 and N800. The reality never matches the dream.

My fantasy is bringing back the 11" MacBook Air, which was just a better computer than the 12" MacBook. The latter gave us the damnable butterfly keyboard, so that might just be resentment on my part.

The 11” Air is probably my favourite portable device of all time. A full proper laptop with desktop experience and Apple hardware quality, in the size/weight of a tablet. I don’t even notice it in my backpack.

Completely agree. The fantasy/dream is productivity on the go. But in reality we are productive full size keyboard. Not that you can never become productive on one of these devices but it will take a certain amount of time and one should consider the availability/discontinuation of these devices since they are so niche.

That being said, I am still going to order a PinePhone with the hope that the Psion-like keyboard will make me productive :D

I love the idea of the "pocket workstation," and I've never been as happy with a mobile device as I was with my n810, which was sort of the missing link between the UMPC and Smartphone (ran Linux with some mobile affordances, slider keyboard that was comfortable for thumb typing), and I want to have that again... but every time I look I don't think these mini laptops quite make it in to the niche.

I have my little 12" carryin' around laptop that has a decent keyboard for touch-typing and an OS that does what I ask of it, but I need to have a bag to carry and a surface or seat to use, and my smartphone that fits in a pocket and I can use on the go, but whose human I/O and coercive environment make me rage most of the time I try to do anything nontrivial on it. These mini-laptops are a little too big to pocket comfortably, and a little too small to operate comfortably.

... The Gibsonian cyberdeck of the Sprawl books had HMDs and gloves or straight up neural interfaces because it was obvious by the mid 90s that the problem was the human interface.

I want to see some innovation on that front. HMDs (both immersive and non-intrusive) that are comfortable for text. Software that works with e-ink displays (or even just wide-spread support for pgup/pgdn events to paginate and scroll without a bunch of unnecessary refreshes - lookin' at you Android). Key-gloves or Chorders you can use clipped to a pants pocket or wrapped around the back/edges of a handheld device. Hell, just going back to decent thumb-able keyboards integrated so you can hold and use them. These aren't new ideas, just once that need to be refined into something serviceable.

Get away from the fondleslab appliance that uses half of its expensive, power-hungry touchscreen to present an awkward gimped keyboard that only works as well as its prediction estimates and re-flows your content as it pops in and out paradigm, and improve on the "srs bsns computer" for the era of miniaturization.

So...I bought the original Galaxy Note with the idea of using it as a pocket workstation. I had a bluetooth keyboard and mouse that easily connected and had a spot to clip the phone to, and when a larger screen was available, it could be connected via the USB port.

I thought it was something that I wanted, but I didn't.

Now the thing that I think I want is a mobile VR headset with chording keyboard. Ironically, the Galaxy Note can sorta fulfill that role, too. But not well. And I haven't yet discovered a chording keyboard that I like.

I want a VR-headset with chording keyboard workstation setup, then finally, I will be able to live my best dystopian-future life.

Similar thoughts.

I've built myself a couple chorders, mostly using the same 7-key arrangement as the Infogrip BAT and Spiffchorder default. I'm deeply qwerty habituated and finding low enough actuation force switches to be comfortable depressing several has been a challenge^, so I struggle with them a bit, but they're _enticing_. I've been trying to come up with a good way to build one that I can reasonably comfortably and intrusively use against my leg (fabric with capacitve pads?) or as a keyglove or something - I like to pace around while I compose text or work out code, and want to try entry while I pace. I'd look like a madman, but that's acceptable.

I'm yet to see an HMD that I'd be willing to do extended text manipulation on. I occasionally consider the Microwriter model where you only have a line or so of display on your chorder, but I'm not sold enough on it to go through the hassle of building one of those little mini-OLED driven monocles.

^ BATs used Cherry MX Blacks with unobtainable custom springs. Sub-miniature microswitches throw click is super obnoxious. Etc.

A few years ago I got a mint condition Dell Mini 9 for €20. 1.6 GHz Atom, fanless, equipped with a 16GB SSD by default. I still think of turning this into my main, probably framebuffer-based workstation (I have really moderate needs if I discipline myself). This remains to be done, but I surely find this machine interesting (fanless+SSD=no moving parts=cool!). I have large-ish hands, but, surprisingly, the Mini 9 is even almost tolerable to type on.

Joey Hess famously used a Mini 9 for everyday work [1, 2]. I also dug out Jeff Atwood's old CodingHorror post on netbooks [3].

Working really efficiently on a really small (8-9 inch) screen is an interesting dream I keep coming back to. I imagine myself heavily relying on a sketchpad/whiteboard/chalk board for the "thinking" parts. The tiny machine would mostly serve as a typewriter, whilst also keeping me away from mindless browsing (it's much easier to look away from a 9-inch screen than from a 22-inch one). Nice theory for sure.

1: https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/xmonad_layouts_for_netbooks/

2: https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/Dell_Mini_9/

3: https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-web-browser-is-the-new-lap...

> I have really moderate needs if I discipline myself

Based on my experience, a constrained laptop helps your productivity shine: fewer temptation, more concentration, you create an overall better quality output in less time.

I don't know why and TBH I don't care. My next laptop has 4GB (downsizing from 8Gb) for this reason: to help me focus.

BTW link [1] is a wonderful read!! Thanks a lot, it gave me quite a few ideas for productivity!!

I think we're only a couple years away from having highly productive computers with us all the time, but I think it's going to come through head mounted displays. There's been positive reports on the nreal[1] glasses user experience, and immersedvr[2] seems to have made a lot of progress in working in VR (on an oculus quest).

The usable screen sizes in these head mounted interfaces can already beat laptops, and I suspect someone will be able to solve the input problem with a new portable keyboard/mouse.

Cyberspace here we come!

[1] https://www.androidauthority.com/nreal-light-mixed-reality-g... [2] https://blog.immersed.team/working-in-vr-8-hrs-day-e8308b679...

I’ve got an iPhone, it’s one of the most powerful computers I’ve had. Unfortunately it’s not super productive, mostly consumptive.

I've found that input methods & speed decide how "consumptive" a device is.

Great example are tablets are a pita to type on for me, so I can't use them for much other than playing Go and watching youtube. Even searching wikipedia is too laborious because I don't like the typing.

I wonder if you could use the highest resolution on the screen, while wearing magnifying (reading) glasses.

I think this will happen after Apple goes full tilt on AR glasses.

This reminds me of this Japan only very technically impressive IBM palmtop PC110 from 1995. It's still amazing to see it in action (with side talking phone and fax!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-v6kyEDCNo

OMG this thing was epic! How did I not ever know about this thing? So cool.

I had a GPD MicroPC. I fell in love with the idea of having something with a real serial port I can sling in my bag. Terrible "typing" experience (you type with two thumbs), but it did what it claimed, for a while.

9 months later, my battery life was down to less than 1 second on battery. Not impressed.

Is the battery user-replaceable on one of those? I'd taken a look, as I sometimes work with serial devices in weird places, but if the battery is a little suspect and I might run it down, it's probably harder to justify the price if I can't swap the battery out eventually.

It is replaceable, just one of those silver foil + gold tape packages you see everywhere - but with a funky connector. It seems readily available, I'm just hesitant to throw good money after bad.

Okay, good to know! I could probably figure out the connector myself, but if it was some kind of space-saving soldered connection, etc. I don't think that would particularly fun to mess around with.

Replaceable in the same sense as iPhone batteries are user serviceable, yes, and apparently battery over-discharging is a known issue as well from a quick Google search.

I owned a used Sony Vaio P for a while; I think it's something worth looking into if you want a base to build a "cyberdeck" around. It's 1.5lbs with an 8-inch 1600x768 display. That diminutive size and ultra wide screen make it look unlike any mainstream laptop.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Vaio_P_series

https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/30/13473970/sony-vaio-p-201...

My dream laptop is a Vaio P with a power efficient ARM chip inside.

That but an ergonomic built-in stand, no keyboard.

I started reading the "Performance" section, and after reading that he is writing this on Atom, I didn't need to read any further.

If it can run atom, it can pretty much anything.

It is running Civ VI too.

Nice review but I'd like to hear more about how this thing is to actually use. How does the keyboard fare etc.. The specs are nice and how it performs is decent but the real tradeoffs here aren't in the specs.

Though I suppose most people buying these will dock it most of the time.

I think personally I'd prefer an ultralight 11" with an excellent keyboard. Like a Thinkpad X270 but much thinner and lighter. Below that the keyboard starts getting smallish.

I have GPD P2 Max, the keyboard is ok for typing letters, but punctuation requires special key combos, and symbols used in programming like brackets underscores, commas, plus, equals, etc also have unusual key combos. I’ve been unable to use it for any meaningful programming work.

The fan is also loud even on quiet mode settings. You need to underclock it to reduce fan speed to what my opinion is comfortable for working in a quiet room.

I have a Chuwi Minibook (similar form factor) and I completely agree with you.

In addition to the awkward keyboard, one of the main problems is that a lot of desktop software does NOT like to run on a 7 inch screen. For example, Steam is unusable because even when the window is as small as it can be, parts of it are still offscreen

Nokia E7 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_E7-00), was a rather short-lived phone/mini-computer. It had a reasonable qwerty keyboard, touch-screen, even HDMI output.

If only it could run Linux and had a better battery, it would be a nice terminal in a pocket. Even under SymbianOS it could run SSH term in an app, enough for quick checks and fixes.

This led me to dust off my old EEE-PC 701 that's currently running Puppy Linux, and get annoyed again at how Asus destroyed the screenspace by adding those two stupid speakers around the monitor and put it back in its drawer with the rest of the computers I no longer use.

It worked perfectly with Fluxbox, though. I miss Fluxbox, haven't found a suitable replacement yet.

But I mean our phones are already more cyberpunk than Neuromancer's decks in all but aesthetics.

I remember my old EEE-PC 701: it got me into Linux, taught me about thin clients, and I've never really looked back. When I moved to the UK to start graduate school I purchased a huge 17 inch Dell Inspiron. After being dumb enough to loose my bus pass in under a month, I started walking the hour to campus everyday. Pretty soon that beast of a laptop seemed like a pretty bad idea, so I sold it for the EEE-PC and an early e-ink device, the iRex iLliad.

When I learned you could just ssh into beefy servers and use those for compute, it basically taught me CLI as well as remote editing. Pretty soon I was distro-hopping on the EEE until I found Arch Linux and then I settled on that. I eventually upgraded to a X31 ThinkPad when I grew tired of the microscopic screen, but without the EEE forcing me to think about a different way to do things I doubt I would have picked up many of my current skills. I even went so far as to install Linux on my Game Boy Advance and used that to check websites and emails on a backpacking trip across Europe.

> But I mean our phones are already more cyberpunk than Neuromancer's decks in all but aesthetics.

They still don't have the neural interface. Although, all things considered, that might be a feature. I would really hate for some piece of ransomware to scramble my childhood memories...

archive.org mirror

https://web.archive.org/web/20210126173020/https://thecrow.u...

The Eeepc was as small as I could go. I hacked that thing to death, used it like crazy in college. Managed to get LEAP wifi working on it in linux. I loved that piece of crap. I then loved the 11" macbook air. How I wish Apple had an M1 11" macbook air.

Which Eeepc? There were several in different sizes. I still have my 901, although the screen is broken, and it's relegated to sitting in the back room with a couple of USB hard drives plugged into it as a backup storage.

There's a way to make a 7 inch laptop with a minimum of both effort and cash. Zagg sells a hinged laptop-style keyboard case for 7 inch tablets. I paired mine with an Amazon Fire. It's a little on the thick side, but still tiny. The Fire is too slow for daily stuff, but it does ok with Termux. The Brave Android browser has full keyboard shortcuts and works decently too. Since I found both the Fire and the keyboard were on sale at the time, I managed to create this 7 inch laptop for around $50.

I'm not sure how useful this thing is, but it's kinda fun and easy way to try out the form factor. Would be better if I could find a Windows / Linux tablet in that size, but I haven't yet.

"The screen itself is a work of wonder. At 8.9 inches, it can support resolutions of up to 2560 x 1600 px. That’s insane. No-one on Earth has eyesight good enough to comfortably read text that small for an extended period. Yes, it’s just about do-able, and the text itself is perfectly formed, but eyestrain will quickly become an issue. After spending an evening at 1920 x 180, I eventually set it to an easy 1440 x 900 px."

Well, why using non-native resolution and cripple your experience? I'd say it's better to use scaling or just change font size. And one remark, it would be awesome if OS and GUI toolkit manufacturers started to correctly support DPI already, none of my screens is 96 DPI.

√(2560² + 1600²) ÷ 8.9, that’s 339dpi, waaaaay too much for 1× use.

1920×1200 is 1.33×, 254ppi, still waaay too fine.

1440×900 is 1.78×, 191ppi, still way too fine.

I’d think 1280×800, 2×, 170ppi, is probably about right for a laptop like this, though it’s still likely to be a bit on the too-fine scale so that I’d give 1024×640, 2.5×, 136ppi, a try also.

I think I did a bit of fractional scaling on Linux a few years back and it went fine, but I’m not quite sure—my memory’s fuzzy on the point, I might have just tweaked the dpi that I told X.org (to reflect reality) and not adjusted anything else. But certainly Windows handles all scaling, including fractional, pretty much perfectly.

Issues with Linux graphical toolkits, perhaps? I hear they're reasonably consistent with all screens at the same integer scaling ratio but have issues with other setups. Admittedly, I haven't looked into this myself in years.

The current state of things is that dpi scaling at non fractional rates works perfectly when all screens are at the same scale. Everything else works if you use Wayland and your applications support wayland as well.

So basically what happens is all native apps work fine and everything electron doesn't scale properly.

KDE scales pretty well for me! Even non integer.

That form factor running clean, stock Android with cellular connection, phone calls and all.

Graphic linux running alongside with simple hotkey screen switch. Linux doesn't have to be integrated with Android at all other than being provided cellular data and access to the I/O devices.

That way you get the best of both worlds. Android apps, but with a real keyboard for all that text input. And push a button and you have an always on, always interconnected pocket Linux machine. This respects that 99% of the use would be as a bulky smartphone, but when it comes to that 1% - which for me mostly translates to ssh-ing somewhere, be it via Termux or Connectbot - that keyboard sure would be handy.

We all know exactly what kind of research is going down in Workspace 4...

Reminds me of the time I put Arch on an Asus netbook and then didn't have any use for that, because it was too small and had an anemic Atom CPU.

Currently my performance and portability needs converge on a M1 MacBook Air, but I kinda wish i was doing on site support for embedded stuff or something, so I could just run around a building and be able to whip this bad boy out with an 80s-movie sound effect.

So what is the tiniest Intel based device that can be connected to an eGPU through Thunderbolt casing with an Nvidia 307 so I can SteamVR?

The GPD Win can connect to an eGPU over Thunderbolt. It’s about the same size as the one in the article.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gpdwin/comments/ith6wk/vr_using_an_...

> NB: This page cotains a single Amazon affiliate link. Clicking on it may financially benefit the author

Clicked on his Amazon link just for that.

What's a cheap and small laptop to have as a backup to take with me when I go to holidays? I dont want to take my computer because it means I wont get disconnected, but I want to have something "better" than my phone in case I have to check code or do tasks like that. 4gb ram and a small ssd disk should be enough, right?

What do you actaully want to use a computer for when on holidays? That probably determines the answer more than anything else.

Without any information, have you considered an ipad and maybe a bluetooth keyboard? You can pick up older but still supported ipads pretty cheaply second hand.

One of the little Chromebooks which will take a standard Linux distribution is a good option.

A tablet running Debian, and a wireless keyboard, is my choice these days though.

i've been using a 4gb toshiba cb35 with galliumos (chromebook ubuntu flavor) as a daily internet reading device for like six years now, it was $250 when i bought it so it can't be that expensive. i'd recommend swapping out the ssd for something bigger than stock (16gb iirc) though. gallium is very very good.

There is an even smaller laptop: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5 (without a keyboard but it's a full GNU/Linux computer).

This brings back memories. I wore cargo shorts in college so I could carry my Libretto 70 to class.

While I love the idea of an ultra portable performant laptop. I can't use anything other than an ergonomic keyboard for more than a few hours before my wrists start to kill.

I'd love someone to release a 14"-15" ultrathin with an ergonomic keyboard!

"Don’t have a proper use case for an ultra portable rn but having a large fresnel lens sheet fixture in front of it would really make for an awesome coffee shop coding experience." - S. Lowry

I loved the Acer Aspire One. It was perfect for programming on the train.

Loved my Aspire One as well. It was my only computer for a semester in university. Played YouTube without a hitch, ran old 3D games smoothly, and compiled my CompSci assignments just fine.

The psion organiser would last for months on its tiny batteries.

Interesting although a tad confusing image names (alt attribute). I saw them because I have uBlock Origin set to block media elements over 20 KB.

I miss my phone that had a slide-out keyboard...

You might like the Astro Slide, (I have one on order).

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/astro-slide-5g-transforme...

I got a GPD mini laptop it was a huge waste of money because I hate working with it and the resale value has dropped a lot.

Carrying those things on your back pocket is cool and all... until you sit. I had broken 2 ebook reader in this way.

This gives a whole new meaning to the excuse of 'sorry for the typo I just fat-fingered that keypress'.

I want one, but I just bought a M1 MacBook Pro.

I wonder how Linux runs on the P2 Max? Amazing that it only weighs 1 pound.

It runs Linux beautifully. Absolutely the nicest portable Linux machine I've ever owned

Thanks!

I mean, neat, but dang it I'm 50. A tiny screen like that is pretty useless to me.

I've found that with the right focal length glasses, I can resolve very high ppi screens fine. Just not the focal length the optician says I need..

TL;DR

This is an add for an affiliate link to amazon for the GPD2

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