MNT Reform Next | Hacker News Reader

MNT Reform Next

mntre.com

177 points_Microft65 comments

The original suffered from an underpowered CPU and a high price, along with a fit and finish that looked great but compared favorably to 20 year old PowerBooks more than modern computers (even "thick" laptops today were much thinner).

Seeing this one become quite a bit thinner, using an Arm CPU (RK3588) that is about as good as it gets outside Snapdragon / Apple M in terms of efficiency... I think price may be the major turn-off, as I'm assuming it still won't hit under $1k fully built.

But if they could hit that number, more people would be willing to take a small hit in performance/compatibility to have a fully open design laptop.

Performance-wise it's looking to be miles ahead of the ThinkPad X230's I daily-drive so I'm 100% on board (in addition to all the other gigantic upsides like open source hardware, repairable, LiFePo4 support, etc.)!

> Performance-wise it's looking to be miles ahead of the ThinkPad X230's I daily-drive

What are the specs?

Rockchip RK3588. I mean, not sure how trustworthy/accurate these are, but:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/4906vs817/Rockchip-RK35...

https://gadgetversus.com/processor/intel-core-i5-3320m-vs-ro...

I wouldn't call Open Boardware a fully open design.

The CPU would've been good enough for a lot of things (especially the later revisions) - but it has a lot of other flaws.

A big annoyance is the screwed in acrylic sheet on the bottom - it looks cool, but it makes access very annoying. For something designed to be tinkered with I'd have wanted some quick access solution.

Next is lack of internal USB ports - there are just enough for the peripherals. Now there's enough space in there to add an external USB hub, but it'd have been way nicer to have an additional USB hub on the board, and a bunch of ports you can plug stuff in.

The CPU cards all have a different set of outputs supported - which is annoying, but I was expecting that based on other experience with projects trying to do that kind of modular system. Reality ends up having incompatible interfaces on your SoCs, and then you and up having to do the best with what you got handed.

RAM is also a bit of an issue, but for the use case tolerable (at least for the later modules).

My biggest issue (and main reason I'm rarely using it) is the keyboard, though - I was hoping for a good keyboard after all their talk about mechanical, but it's by far the worst keyboard I've seen in a notebook over the last decade.

I'm glad this revision's thinner – I wanted to actually be able to put the Reform in my backpack! Sadly, I'm not sure whether you can get both thinness and the trackball at the same time...

There were trackballs on phones at one time.. of course, the ball has to be smaller, but it's very much doable.

I'd actually expect a larger trackball to be harder to do well, it has to be sunken in to allow closing the lid, and that sounds unpleasant to use.

Game controllers have really nice joysticks. I wish one (or two) of them were available next to regular keys, maybe instead of the trackpad.

Further, I'd like a split layout option for the keyboard, for the relaxed position oh the wrists, and better use of thumbs.

I was just thinking today about whether I'd enjoy a thumb joystick on this device, given that trackpads and I agree less and less these days (I have been on various trackballs for years on desktops to fend off RSI-like symptoms... recently tried giving the Magic Trackpad 2 another go because gestures and pixel-perfect scrolling rock, aaaaaand welcome back wrist pain! Back to my Ploopy Adept I went)

That, or trying to figure out a mini-trackball to fit where Next's trackpad is, maybe something sized like Pocket Reform. I don't love thumb trackballs (I'm a fingerball kinda guy), but I could make do.

No, unfortunately this one won't support trackball AFAIK due to space constraints: https://mastodon.social/@mntmn/113081056191730605

So awesome. Looking forward to being able to order one of these! There's no one else making computers like this, and I definitely want to not only personally benefit from the radness, but also help support them so they can continue to work on new hardware (and software)!

Support these guys if you can afford to. It's a no brainer if you value a more open and diverse future for general purpose computing.

so, we're coming to having a laptop case with a keyboard, screen and battery - all standard interfaces - and in which we can replace, almost on the fly, the system board - using an ARM, RISC-V or x86 one or whatever else would appear - or even install a couple of such boards (NUC or even as small as those "gumsticks" boards) and simply switch between them (or run them in parallel).

This is properly, properly cool. Not in the market at the moment but man. Those 18650's! Just awesome.

Great to see it getting ready. Since the USB-C Power Delivery port doesn't support Display Port output, maybe there is a complex adapter that could splice the HDMI signal in (converted to Display Port) while still supporting data and Power Delivery?

I have been wondering about something similar myself. It seems like each interface on the port boards has a separate internal cable, so even though by default PD is on the left port board and HDMI is on the right it might be possible?

Seems parts of the needed adapters do exist: https://www.amazon.com/Adapter-Converter-Thunderbolt-MacBook...

At this point I'm 99% certain that the lack of a standard RJ45 for Ethernet is a not-so-subtle encouragement for people to dive in and start making their own port boards.

I'd personally have preferred another USB-C over this industrial connector style. I already carry around USB-C to Ethernet dongles and it's just a complete non-issue. This instead requires a bespoke dongle I don't own, and frankly, don't really need. I use Ethernet on my laptop exactly once a year, at a live event (a robotics competition) I work where radio interference leads the volunteer event staff to hard-wire our devices. Otherwise... the rest of the year I forget where the dongle is.

But hey, for the folks who really need Ethernet, I'm glad there's an option - even if it's an uncommon one.

I didn't buy the MNT Reform because it simply didn't have enough RAM to be useful to me.

Now this new one has enough RAM, but it dispenses with the trackball - which was the thing that initially drew my eye to the Reform - in favor of a painfully tiny trackpad.

I just can't win with these guys! So frustrating. I want to love it.

I hope they will offer options for the keyboard, with a trackball or (better) a trackpoint.

Maybe not themselves but somebody who cares enough, given the complete openness of the thing.

I don't ever want to buy another laptop without a trackpoint.

trackpad, trackball, trackpoint ... interesting.

what are the pros and cons of them? I've only used laptops with trackpads.

- Trackpad: multi-finger gestures. Usually no explicit buttons or scroll wheels detectable by touch, so you need to look down sometimes. Potentially the trackpad allows you to jot arbitrary gestures / glyphs, given proper software. Sits tunder your palm, so you have to move your hand significantly away from the keys to operate it. Good palm rejection is a must.

- Trackpoint: single-finger micro joystick. Sits in the home row, so you can operate it by barely moving your fingers along the home row. Requires explicit buttons; combined with them, usually emulates scroll wheels, etc. Tiny precise gestures are harder. Never bothers you while typing; can be operated entirely without looking, like a mouse.

- Trackball: I have little experience with it. Sits under your thumb usually. Allows for very precise small motions; big motions are harder. Has buttons (see trackpoint), sometimes a larger assortment, accompanied with scroll wheels, etc. Some balls have considerable inertia, some totally don't. Some allow for extremely comfortable hand placement, but it's not a given. Have hard time not being rather tall / thick. Need most cleaning of the three.

Thanks.

> Requires explicit buttons

I had a ThinkPad i1300 back in 2003 which allowed, in Windows anyway, a thump on the trackpoint to serve as a click. That functionality seems to have been abandoned during the couple of decades I was mainly using desktops and/or MacBooks, because none of my more recent ThinkPads offer it under any OS.

That's a default off option in Control Panel. I'd recommend everyone enable that tap to click feature, sensitivity raised to ~240/255, and middle button as wheel click as must have QoL improvements for TrackPoints.

Not having to move off the home row with a trackpoint is great for RSI.

The SoM in this is available for the original Reform. Plus other SoMs with 8gb or 16gb have been available for some time.

https://shop.mntre.com/products/mnt-reform-rcore-rk3588-proc... 500/750€ for the som is a bit spicy considering the soc itself can be brought for $150 in orange pi 5 plus (16GB); being part of the business I know how big the economy of scale is, but it still is off putting as a consumer.

Hopefully selling it as part of the new laptop will allow sufficiently bigger batches to bring this down a bit

If you're concerned about cost, the small-batch handmade laptop market probably isn't ever going to make you happy.

Isn't part of the ethos of the laptop being fully hackable? I'd assume you could design the case to your liking or upgrade the SoC.

You can change the cpu/ram module on the original reform, or order one with a different module.

What are they going to call it next?

MNT Reform Neeeext

'next'.

wonder if they were trying to copy / emulate steve jobs, who started the company 'next', after he was manipulated out of apple by sculley, who he had hired.

I have this https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006205368963.html heavy copper heatsink on my favorite RK3588 board and it's still ~50 °C idling (with fan off) in open air setting with convective and radiative cooling only.

So good luck with having RK3588 under a touchpad in a box with no obvious airflow and actually using the SoC.

The Pinebook Pro has the SoC on the underside of the PCB with a thermal pad connecting it to the metal lower case to make that a heatsink.

Cu foil to spread the heat better on the inner backside of PBP would be even better. Magnesium alloys are not particularly great thermal conductors, so just the spot under the SoC is heated disproportionately to the rest of the backside.

I am very excited for this project.

Looks fragile. And what’s the battery life like?

If the previous two models are any indication (I own both) the final aluminum chassis will be very sturdy.

> The 3D printed case you can see in the photos will be replaced with a robust CNC-milled, bead-blasted, anodized 6061 aluminum case.

Check out their most recent model, the Pocket Reform, to get an idea of the case quality https://shop.mntre.com/products/mnt-pocket-reform

take my money

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