[Linux-aus] Inexpensive laptops (was: ARM laptops)

[Les Kitchen]

Hi MC!

On Sat, Oct 21, 2023, at 16:59, Mike Carden via linux-aus wrote:

> I'm typing this on a circa 2010 Lenovo X201 laptop which I
> bought second hand in late 2012. It has an Intel i5 M 580 (4)
> @ 2.667GHz CPU and 7728MiB of RAM. By modern standards it's a
> tad chunky, but its keyboard is perhaps still the best laptop
> keyboard ever made with proper full-throw keys.

Your post inspired me to reply on my Lenovo Thinkpad X200
(around 2008 vintage), though I first read it on my much newer
MNT Reform (see below).

I bought the X200 off a free-software buddy for $20, then spent
about $200 upgrading to 8G RAM and 500GB SSD and new 9-cell
battery.

I've had a similar experience: excellent keyboard (having real
PgUp, PgDn, etc., keys is a big win), easily swappable battery,
repairability.  A very nice machine for almost all everyday use.
I've even put in an ExpressCard to get USB3, though that works
only a fresh boot, and seems not to wake up properly after
hibernation, and I haven't had time to fix that.

I guess the overall comment is that one route for getting a
cheap laptop is to buy an old machine second-hand, and upgrade
the hardware as needed — if the design allows it, which is sadly
not true of most new laptops.  Russell's suggestion serves well
if you particularly need to work on ARM or even a particular SoC
like the RK3399 (Pinebook Pro) or RK3399S (PinePhone Pro).

In daily use I mainly cycle through four laptops: the
abovementioned Thinkpad X200; a 2007-vintage "Santa Rosa"
Macbook (black polycarbonate, hand-me-down from my son)
similarly upgraded; newer a Pinebook Pro (with 1TB NVMe
upgrade); and newest an MNT Reform (a very nice machine, with
very good keyboard and built-in trackball, but a much more
expensive proposition).  Running Debian on all but the Pinebook
Pro (Manjaro).  The older two machines have only 1280×800 displays,
but that serves well enough for most use.

Even though it's expensive, the MNT Reform is a very interesting
machine.  Besides the keyboard and trackball (and the very solid
construction with repairability in mind), of particular note is
that the CPU and RAM are on a daughterboard, and the machine
runs off a bank of eight standard 18650 LiFePO4 cells, instead
of a bespoke battery.  MNT are already selling daughterboards
with faster CPUs and more RAM.  Well worth looking into as a
machine with a long life (good for the environment) and with a
commitment to Free Software (good for everything ;-) ).

If you do want to keep running laptops of the age with easily
removable batteries, then I've found
https//www.betterbatt.com.au/ a very reliable source of
reasonably priced, third-party batteries.  No connection with
them aside from being a customer for over eight years.

And if you do want to keep such old laptops running with
up-to-date software, then pretty much the only option, as most
of you know, is to install some FOSS operating system, because
mainstream vendors drop software support after only a few years.
Such is the way of the world.

— Happy Hacking, Les.