Ask HN: Does anyone make portable PCs? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Does anyone make portable PCs?

If I always use my laptop with an external keyboard and display, why do I need to carry these around with me? They largely determine the form factor of the PC. A suitably robust box, housing CPU and storage, could be much smaller and do the job just as effectively. Does anyone sell such a device?

View on HN

Something like https://mind.khadas.com/ ?

https://www.cnx-software.com/2023/07/22/khadas-mind-raptor-l...

It looks they have spotted this gap in market. It will be interesting to see prices when it becomes available.

Go to amazon.com and search for "mini PC'.

This but on eBay. Depending on hardware requirements there are some fantastic deals to be found compared to Amazon.

Portable PC have gone out of fashion. The 'Notebook' design took over.

But we used have these: https://medium.com/geekculture/the-1983-compaq-plus-portable...

There are pc cases made to be carried around—you could diy it.

Apple sells the Mac Mini.

Intel and numerous other companies sell NUCs.

These are small, but I don't see them specifically marketed as portable - i.e. robust enough to withstand the sort of treatment a laptop is expected to withstand.

Any bump severe enough to significantly damage a micro PC would also be enough to crack the screen or otherwise damage a laptop too.

Shock resistant, dustproof, etc. industrial computer modules do exist but you'd be paying something like 10x the price of an ordinary computer so it's not worthwhile.

Because not many people carry a PC, monitor, keyboard, etc. around. We have laptops for that. You can get a sturdy case like a Pelikan if you want to protect it.

I have one of these, they are just as durable as an actual laptop. Even more so, as a matter of fact.

Raspberry Pi?

If needed, RPi-like computers come in x86 flavour too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com