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Most insane laptops? (europe.pub)

submitted 3 days ago by phantomwise@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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What are your favorite insane laptops?

Mine is the Dell Rugged: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F56ION4_n0

Bump and fall proof, liquid proof, sand proof (and cat hairs proof I assume), extreme heat/cold proof, can be used as a blunt weapon in an emergency. Ridiculously overkill for anyone that's not a geologist working in Antarctica or an archaeologist in the Gobi desert, and ridiculously overkill is fun

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[–] drathvedro@lemm.ee 2 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Could you elaborate on the reform? I hear the hype yet to me it looks like a severely overpriced tv box with some low-grade peripherials strapped to it in the least space efficient way possible. Did they got rockchip to release sources instead of blobs or something? What is the praise actually for?

[–] HayadSont@discuss.online 2 points 2 days ago

Could you elaborate on the reform?

For some reason, I was under the impression that laptops in the MNT Reform series were the only laptops that were manufactured using open (source) hardware only. Or, if there were others, that it must have been doing something so special that they deserved to be put on a pedestal. But, currently, I don't feel confident enough to state why it would be superior over say the Olimex TERES-I or Pinebook Pro.

I hear the hype yet to me it looks like a severely overpriced tv box with some low-grade peripherials strapped to it in the least space efficient way possible.

We definitely pay a premium, but I don't know exactly why. Especially when the aforementioned Olimex TERES-I and Pinebook Pro are almost an order of magnitude cheaper.

Did they got rockchip to release sources instead of blobs or something?

From what I understood, Rockchip offers (at least some of) its SoCs as open source hardware. So, what MNT Reform did for the SoC is order them as open source hardware and include/publicize/provide all the schematics (etc).

What is the praise actually for?

FWIW, the open source hardware aspect is what I was intrigued by*.

[–] monovergent@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 days ago

I've sketched out ideas for something like the MNT Reform, but with a Framework motherboard, and it's surprisingly hard to whittle down the form factor any more without sacrificing unique and useful features, like the user-replaceable battery cells and modular mechanical keyboard. Those were the main attractions for me, and it is indeed very weak hardware for the price. Tallying up the component prices, it's about as good as it gets without economies of scale while insisting on libre firmware.