[HN Gopher] Star Labs StarLite Mk IV - 11" Linux laptop with Cor...
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Star Labs StarLite Mk IV - 11" Linux laptop with Coreboot
Author : gadgetoid
Score : 247 points
Date : 2021-10-25 11:52 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (starlabs.systems)
(TXT) w3m dump (starlabs.systems)
| nivenkos wrote:
| Awesome to see people still producing things with this small form
| factor. I loved my Asus Aspire One when I was travelling as a
| student (even before mobile internet was widespread!), though I
| think that was 9" even.
|
| Seems quite expensive though, and it's also surprising they
| didn't choose ARM. As for such a mobile unit you'd probably want
| battery life over high specs.
|
| The PineBook Pro is a cheaper alternative for those use cases -
| https://pine64.com/product/14%e2%80%b3-pinebook-pro-linux-la...
| but is 14"
| dmos62 wrote:
| I found that ARM wasn't a great development environment. At
| least a couple years ago. Mileage should vary a lot based on
| stack.
| jjice wrote:
| The whole time I was looking at this machine, I was unimpressed.
| That was, until I saw the price. Under $500 brand new for this
| machine looks fantastic. Hell, under 2 lbs and under $500
| would've made this a no brainer for me when I was in university.
| Kind of a shame I don't need a new machine at the moment, this
| looks like some real bang for the buck, if you like new machines.
|
| I'm sure used machines are still better bang for buck, but this
| is really cool to see.
| pengaru wrote:
| You need to click on the British flag and select your country
| to see the price in your currency.
|
| Upon clicking the United States the price becomes "From $929",
| the USD is weak vs. the pound/euro.
|
| Edit: My bad, as a comment mentions the $929 is for a different
| model. When you switch your country the site throws you back to
| the home page, I didn't notice the model was different.
| Zachery wrote:
| The USD hasn't been that weak to the pound in quite some
| time. Quick currency conversion shows that 400 GBP is about
| 550 USD. The fact that the price is nearly doubled in USD
| seems very odd to me. Doubly so as the GPB price should be
| all in inclusive of VAT.
| gadgetoid wrote:
| It's $479, you're looking at the Star Book.
|
| Star Lite - https://us.starlabs.systems/pages/starlite
|
| Star Book - https://us.starlabs.systems/pages/starbook
|
| It really doesn't help that the country selector dumps you
| back onto the homepage!
| grp000 wrote:
| I'm on the checkout page of the base starlite (8GB ram,
| 240GB SSD), and all in to the USA by DHL... it's saying
| no tax (suck it USgov?), And free DHL worldwide shipping
| at PS318 or $438. I don't NEED a chuckable
| backup/emergency laptop, but for the Linux-first
| property, and the price I'm having a hard time resisting.
| The only downside is that they say the order will be
| filled mid January of next year, so a long wait.
| pengaru wrote:
| You're right, I'm going to edit my comment to reflect
| that, thanks for the correction!
| ja27 wrote:
| Wow, that's a funnel-killer. I clicked away as soon as I
| found a US price.
| wetpaws wrote:
| >Weight: 0.9 kg (1.98 pounds)
|
| I would seriously consider it along with X1 Nano
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I may be mistaken - but I thought Blue USB A port indicated High
| Speed / USB 3.0. Should USB 2.0 port be Blue?
| kreetx wrote:
| Noticed this too. But it seems it's not strict:
|
| From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.0: "It is recommended
| that manufacturers distinguish USB 3.0 connectors from their
| USB 2.0 counterparts by using blue color for the Standard-A
| receptacles and plugs,[2] and by the initials SS."
| rangerdan wrote:
| $500 for a crappy netbook with 1080 resolution? What year is
| this? Go on Swappa and find yourself a used computer for less
| money and more power, install Linux yourself.
| sdwvit wrote:
| that CPU is a waste of silicon
| Nursie wrote:
| Pretty cool looking device, and a decent price (and the weight is
| impressive).
|
| Wondering why there's an amibios option at all? Is there
| something it does that core boot can't?
| markjenkinswpg wrote:
| They have a good FAQ on this:
| https://support.starlabs.systems/kb/faqs/ami-aptio-v-vs-core...
|
| The AMI UEFI firmware behaves like most UEFI firmwares these
| days and locks out writes to firmware flash after boot and only
| allows updates by way of efi files being dropped into place and
| then updated via reboot with signature check.
|
| The coreboot setup leaves writes to the firmware flash open and
| root can use flashrom at anytime.
|
| This makes for security trade-offs, a choice between freedom to
| change your own firmware and know what you're running vs a
| mechanism to reduce the chance of advanced persistent threat at
| the firmware level.
|
| Also, their build to order model under additional OSes does
| include Windows 10 as an option at an additional cost, so I
| imagine a UEFI firmware is required.
| josteink wrote:
| Might be required for Windows HCL compatibility listing and
| certification?
|
| That's my best guess.
| LeonM wrote:
| During a vacation last week I brought a very cheap, small laptop
| (~250 euro, 11" ACER) with me as an emergency laptop. Just in
| case something would happen at work that would require my
| assistance.
|
| Naturally, one of our services crashed during my second day away
| (this service had been running flawlessly for 3 years prior). So
| I spend a bit of time using the tiny cheap laptop.
|
| To my surprise, the tiny laptop was refreshingly nice to work
| with. There is something elegant about a tiny little fanless
| machine that you can just throw in your backpack without any
| worries (unlike with my multi-thousand dollar portable
| workstation).
|
| The keyboard on this particular laptop was actually very nice,
| though the screen and trackpad are just utter crap. Though the
| screen was small and low resolution, it was just fine for email,
| some SSH sessions and light browsing.
|
| Anyway, long story short: I am now looking at buying a small,
| fanless laptop with a decent trackpad and screen. The StarLite
| would be a good contestant.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Yep I got my Chuwi 14" for the same reason. To use in
| situations where I'm not very comfortable using an expensive
| laptop.
|
| And like yourself I was impressed with the speed, display and
| battery life. I would have been disappointed if it had cost me
| 1000 euro. But for 180, wow. It's much better than I thought it
| would be.
|
| Even 4 years later I still use it a lot. I'm not really a
| laptop guy anyway, I prefer desktops so this is in fact my only
| personal laptop in active use.
| dejawu wrote:
| I recently got myself a 2017 Macbook (the fanless 12" one with
| only one USB-C port). I'd highly recommend it - it only ran me
| about $400. If anything, thanks to more mature USB-C and
| wireless ecosystems, it's nicer to use now than it was when it
| was new and cost $1700!
| stevecat wrote:
| I love my 12" Macbook, I'm using it to write this reply, but
| goodness is the keyboard awful. I have a can of compressed
| air at hand at all times to blast the keys when they get
| stuck.
|
| I'm about to (if the shipping notification is anything to go
| by) upgrade to a 14" MBP but I really hope Apple release
| something in this size again. It's such a pleasant laptop to
| use; I even work on my (2D) C++ video game on it.
| schleck8 wrote:
| I've used a Macbook Pro several times while daily driving a
| Windows PC and Linux occasionally, and I have to say that I
| didn't like it in the slightest. Not only did the model I use
| have two design flaws (flexgate and butterfly switch issues)
| and the whole device weirdly buzzed and vibrated, but the OS
| in general felt like a supervised playsession at times, e. g.
| not allowing for portable apps and making sideloading hard.
| It only having usb c ports made everything even worse. Being
| forced to use a dongle or hub each time I want to connect an
| external harddrive is just awful (the alternative being not
| using the included cables and buying a seperate one for
| everything).
| 91edec wrote:
| It would be interesting if Apple bring back this laptop with
| their M1 chips. I guess an Ipad Pro sort of fills this role
| hardware wise.
| doublepg23 wrote:
| I just sold a Early 2015 model and I agree. The M1 would be
| perfect for this machine. The form factor of the MacBook
| Air is still quite a bit bigger, it's truly wild how thin
| and light the 12" was.
| r00fus wrote:
| One could argue the M1 Air is essentially the replacement
| for the 2015+ MacBook (better perf, battery life, ports
| screen, but slightly bigger).
| necrotic_comp wrote:
| what was the model of the acer ? I have an asus 1015e that is
| my favorite computer I've ever had, but it's very old at this
| point and essentially unusable because its disk is so slow and
| it has very little memory.
|
| I'd love to replace it with something more usable.
| LeonM wrote:
| It's an Acer Aspire ES1-132 series N16Q6. I don't think it's
| still for sale. I also would not recommend it, the screen is
| really bad (though was to be expected for the low price), the
| trackpad is quite bad also.
|
| I run Linux on it with i3wm, so I don't bother with the low
| hardware specs, I rarely use the trackpad. A better screen
| would be nice though, hence that I am interested in the
| StarLite.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I have a similar one that I bought for exactly the same
| reasons - something I wouldn't be too sad if ran over by a
| car.
|
| It's now with my daughter, as her homeschooling computer
| (schools have since returned to normal where I live, but
| the kids still use Teams and other apps to keep in touch).
| It's definitely recommended.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| Looks very cool, I just wish they'd ditch x86 for better
| portability and ventilation.
|
| I feel like outside of performance, x86 is kinda burden
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| The laptop I use the most is a T500 Core2Duo P8600 with 4GB RAM.
|
| The StarLite Mk IV out performs it at every turn, and I've been
| wanting an 11" laptop for a while now.
|
| Is there any reason I shouldn't but the Mk IV, or is there any
| other similar devices I should consider? I'd rather buy locally
| for Australian consumer protections.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| It could be a great tool, but why almost always keyboards seem to
| be designed by people who don't use them?
|
| When are we going to get a keyboard with proper set of keys in
| the right size? Like cursors, PgUp, PgDown, Home, End etc?
|
| Also it's a shame they don't say where they make these laptops.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| > Like cursors, PgUp, PgDown, Home, End etc?
|
| This is a valid complaint for developer laptops (which this
| obviously is), but for general laptops I'd guess most users
| never touch PgUp, PgDown, Home, End, and probably couldn't even
| tell you what they do.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| You'd be surprised. I even see my mother in her 70s doing it.
|
| Though of course when she started doing a "computer course"
| it involved WordPerfect 5.1 :) But things she could do back
| then like editing a config file would scare her in these days
| of glossy GUIs but these keys don't. Perhaps a millenial (or
| is it Gen Z?) has more issues with them as they've never
| known anything before the touchscreen :)
| Djrhfbfnsks wrote:
| Maybe they're vim or emacs users? I can't remember the last
| time I used one of those keys.
| kensai wrote:
| I knew System76 had made a nice name in Linux laptops as
| alternatives to the mainstream. How does Star Labs compare to
| System76 generally?
| gadgetoid wrote:
| Not quite the same ballpark yet, but I sincerely hope they get
| there. System76 are rolling their own distro - Pop!_OS - and
| their own tiling window management add-on - Pop! Shell - both
| of which I've switched to using even on a _non_ System76
| machine. Star Labs _test_ with various Linux distros, but they
| haven 't shown quite the same deep involvement with software,
| community and ecosystem yet. But that's no easy feat!
|
| I can't comment on build quality- I've never laid hands on a
| System76 system, as alluring as they are! The Star Lite is
| pretty damned nice, feeling a bit like an 11" MacBook Air but
| just a little bit more sensibly proportioned. I haven't seen
| many - actually good - 11" laptops and I feel they've hit that
| particular niche pretty well.
|
| The Star Book and Galago Pro - both with i7-1165G7 options and
| close specs overall - seem to be pretty toe to toe, but with
| only three laptops in their lineup, no desktops and slightly
| lower entry prices Star Labs seem to be serving a slightly
| different market, or at least taking their time before they gun
| for the greats.
| codezero wrote:
| I've been beating myself up trying to understand why cheap 11"
| laptops aren't more common.
|
| Ten years ago the atom based "netbooks" were ~$200-300. Yes, they
| had almost no RAM, eMMC storage, and archaic wifi chips, but it's
| been 10 years, and I'm surprised they can't still put out a
| Pentium Silver system with even slightly modern internals for
| around the same price now.
|
| My best guess is volume. The netbook experiment failed and nobody
| is going to invest in a large enough volume of devices to make
| the costs worthwhile. Also, tablets and phones can do what you'd
| probably do on this device anyways, except for the form factor.
|
| Still, it bugs me. This device has nice specs, but as others have
| pointed out, it looks like it's probably just been thrown
| together from a reference which also makes me worry about whether
| this company will be around long enough to service it if
| something goes wrong a year from now.
|
| I guess I should just suck it up and buy a used 11" MacBook -
| there is one with an NVIDIA dgpu that my wife had at one point
| and it was quite a little power house.
| fulafel wrote:
| There are popular 10-12" Chromebooks & hybrid tablets with
| flippable or attachable keyboards.
| paxys wrote:
| The Netbook category was taken over by Chromebooks
| mdip wrote:
| Does anyone have experience with the processor they're including?
|
| I ask because I recently had to switch back to Windows for my
| work laptop after about 7 years of running OpenSUSE Linux[0] and
| have been looking to buy a less powerful laptop as a second work
| machine running Linux[1].
|
| I have _zero_ experience with the Intel Pentium Silver N5030
| processor -- I 'm guessing that line of processors is what
| replaced Atom. I haven't looked at that series in a while but in
| the early days I found them to be unusable -- 80% slower than
| what I was used to.
|
| I'm looking at light development/debugging work as the target,
| pretty much "living out of the browser and the terminal" with the
| majority of development done on my workstation-grade laptop.
|
| [0] Honestly pretty happy with Windows 11/WSLg, which is nice
| since the app I'm supporting would be very difficult to do in a
| development environment on Linux...my personal PCs still run
| Tumbleweed :)
|
| [1] I don't mind running virtual machines as I am currently, but
| it's more convenient to have another laptop to swivel too,
| sometimes.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| goldmont uArch -> Atom. Slow & tiny cache. It'll struggle
| my123 wrote:
| > I have zero experience with the Intel Pentium Silver N5030
| processor -- I'm guessing that line of processors is what
| replaced Atom
|
| It is what Atom got rebranded as, yes. Pentium Silver = Atom
| cores, Pentium Gold = big cores.
|
| If you are searching for performance, go elsewhere, a
| Snapdragon 7c of all things has performance that's a bit
| better...
|
| (for $299 in a Galaxy Book Go, and that's a totally borderline
| system)
| rbanffy wrote:
| > (for $299 in a Galaxy Book Go, and that's a totally
| borderline system)
|
| Can it run anything other than Windows Home?
|
| I'd love to have a small cheap Linux machine, but have no
| need for a small cheap Windows box.
| my123 wrote:
| For Windows: it can run Pro too, but that's still a low end
| machine.
|
| For Linux: It has Secure Boot that can be toggled off but
| no one seems to have done the Linux enablement part for
| that specific model... so you might not have a good
| experience.
|
| (most Qualcomm drivers don't have ACPI bindings on arm64
| yet, so the Linux on those devices port involves writing a
| flattened device tree. This issue will go away at some
| point in the future)
|
| Given that some Chromebooks are shipped with the same SoC,
| that task is doable. You might want to think about buying a
| Chromebook outright to put another Linux distribution on it
| too.
|
| (see https://github.com/aarch64-laptops/debian-cdimage)
|
| tldr: not the right machine to buy if you want to run Linux
| on it.
| nimbius wrote:
| kind of gobsmacked the processor is...intel? in 2021? for an
| $800 laptop?
|
| was arm or AMD too hard to get? Intel is easily the dead-last
| pick for performance and power efficiency in the mobile
| category.
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| Better supported in some ways with respect to privacy and
| FOSS, though. Coreboot / ME Cleaner / HAP Bit.
| gadgetoid wrote:
| I worked for ~3 months exclusively on the N5000 version,
| writing C++ drivers for the RP2040 (in VSCode) and binding them
| to MicroPython, plus tending our 32blit (STM32-based) project.
| Sure I would have used something a lot beefier if I had the
| opportunity (I do now) but I managed to be productive with it.
|
| The N5000/N5030 are not fast, but coming from WSL1 on Windows
| 10 over to a Linux-native machine gave me pretty much the same
| approximate build times.
|
| I still leave my workstation (i9, 32GB RAM, Pop!_OS) in the
| office and work on the Star Lite if I'm doing some evening
| tinkering. Or just want to sit on the sofa for a change of
| scenery.
| magnat wrote:
| I have been using one of those for a year or so (Dell Latitude
| 3190, 4GB, Debian 11), mostly for web and remote access.
|
| Firefox with uBlock and NoScript runs OK, not much difference
| between this and a proper PC. YouTube on 1080p60 maxxes out all
| cores, but yt-dlp+vlc barely touches 20% CPU. Similar results
| with Twitch. Remmina/RDP to a proper workstation works
| flawlessly. Overall performance when browsing feels much more
| responsive than Atom Z3735F or RPI3. VSCode is workable, but
| not ideal. Virtualization (QEMU) is for decorative purposes
| only.
|
| Battery usually lasts 10-12h, with 4W power draw when idle and
| 10W at 100% CPU. No thermal throttling so far.
| maxk42 wrote:
| Would love to see this in AMD. It's also just a little bit
| pricier than I typically pay for my to-go linux netbooks, but I'm
| always happy to pay a bit more to support a company that's
| supporting linux.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| Does AMD make these extreme low voltage CPUs? The small fanless
| builds I see always use Intel.
| maxk42 wrote:
| Yes, the AMD A-series would be comparable. However, they also
| have ultra-low-power Ryzen Embedded series. [0] Their
| embedded machines get down to as low as 6W.
|
| https://www.anandtech.com/show/15554/amd-launches-
| ultralowpo...
| junaru wrote:
| > power button between backspace and delete
|
| How layouts like this reach the light of day totally escapes me.
| kensai wrote:
| To be fair, it is not exactly between.
| gadgetoid wrote:
| I managed to hit power and enter in quick succession on the Mk
| III accidentally just a day or two ago so... yeah... I'd be in
| strong support of putting it somewhere less under my
| fingertips. Confused the heck out of me, I thought the battery
| had run out.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Yeah Macs deal with this by requiring a slightly longer press
| than you normally would with normal typing. Also for the caps
| and eject buttons. Smart idea that works well. I wish other
| manufacturers would follow their lead (like they do on the
| design front!)
| samstave wrote:
| Can key assignment software deal with this?
|
| I didnt have a PrtSC key on my Spectre HP machine, and so I
| remapped NumLock to PrtSc in order to use my screenshot
| program. Wonder if power can be reassigned.
| gadgetoid wrote:
| It's only happened to me once, so I haven't bothered to
| change it but at least on Linux Mint it's just Settings ->
| Power Management -> When the power button is pressed -> Do
| nothing. Problem solved! Bit of a waste of a good button,
| though and it doesn't look trivial to rebind (IE: not
| supported by the builtin Shortcuts GUI even though pressing
| the power button obviously elicits a flicker of the input
| box).
| dmos62 wrote:
| Yes, at least on another laptop I used that had the power
| button in a similar place. The button was basically a
| button like no other for the OS and I was able to just
| unbind it. It didn't keep me from being able to use the
| button to power on or to hold the button for a long time to
| power off.
| iakov wrote:
| For me it's a huge red flag. Either the company doesn't test
| their devices on real users, or doesn't care.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| Putting the power button on the keyboard is a cost cutting
| measure. A lot of Chromebooks do it too. When you are
| building to a price you get things like this. I'm not
| surprised really.
|
| I've never really considered these types of devices all that
| viable on merits. What about this is more compelling than a
| recertified ThinkPad? Because that's what $500 competes with.
| hawski wrote:
| I like how Chromebooks deal with the button. AFAIR when you
| press it screen contents fade into black and when the
| animation finishes (after something like 3 seconds) it will
| show you shutdown/reboot dialog. I never had any problem
| with the button. On Linuxen it is not as clear cut though.
| kube-system wrote:
| That doesn't look nearly as frustrating as the right shift key.
| I'm not sure how I wouldn't miss that every time I tried to hit
| it.
| spullara wrote:
| Make sure you can remap the Fn key on this keyboard. It is in a
| terrible spot and should have been swapped with the CTRL key.
| Dell has the same issue and on their system it isn't software
| remappable. Really makes using the keyboard untenable for me.
| Zardoz84 wrote:
| Intel CPU ... sadly
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| Not just Intel but a funny low-end Intel. They only name their
| worst CPUs "Pentium" today. I can hardly expect this working
| any good.
| nrclark wrote:
| That's not as true now as it used to be. AFAIK the Atom line
| was recently rebranded as Pentium Silver.
| fho wrote:
| May I guess that this is "just" a re-brand of some far east
| manufacturer? Nothing wrong with that, but I was kind of sour
| that my (not exactly cheap) Tuxedo Linux laptop was basically
| just a off-the-shelf laptop from another vendor (plus some
| additional support).
| [deleted]
| pgeorgi wrote:
| They all start like that and then fan out into more
| customization both on the hardware and the software. According
| to the coreboot sources Starlabs now have their own open source
| EC firmware in addition to coreboot support which usually isn't
| part of the ODM package, either.
|
| (No idea what they're doing on the hardware side, I just
| happened to review some Starlabs code today.)
| xbar wrote:
| It's charming and deserves consideration but I will never buy a
| 16:9 device.
| ryanteck wrote:
| I have an original Mk1 unit and this looks like a very nice
| upgrade. Sure it's not the best but for the price and being linux
| first its good.
|
| A bit of bezel on my Mk1 broke and I was able to get a
| replacement with ease (did cost me but I was happy I could even
| get the part easily).
| josteink wrote:
| For completely irrational reasons I really want a laptop with
| Coreboot in my toolbox, but sadly I don't have PS4-500 to throw
| at it as things are now.
|
| Hope Star Labs does well and that they sell plenty free and open
| devices though :)
| ho_schi wrote:
| If you need performance take a look at the ThinkPad X13 AMD/Intel
| with good 13" display and probably the best keyboard available.
| Linux is supported very well. Replacement parts widely available
| (five years). With a docking station it is well usable
| stationary, too. The nice thing is, it fully usable and fits in
| every backpack. Drawback is - it is not fan-less and doesn't
| feature Coreboot.
|
| PS: X13 is cheaper than X1, maybe more sturdy and you can get one
| USB/Thunderbolt port extra.
| _Understated_ wrote:
| Interesting messing-about-with laptop. It's the kind of thing I
| probably might get my son as his first laptop.
|
| On another note, as I was scrolling down the page, it got laggier
| and slower and I'm browsing from an i9 10900K with all the
| trimmings... odd.
| pfp wrote:
| Too bad all their products are limited to 1080p displays, even
| the 14" one that you can order with 64 (!) GB RAM. For me it's an
| immediate deal-breaker.
| sydbarrett74 wrote:
| With an 11" display, would anything higher than 1080p provide a
| substantive benefit for most users?
| pfp wrote:
| Like I said, 14". They also make a 13" model.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Looks like the most generic OEM laptop you can get from Intel
| reference design from Weibu.
|
| Though, Atom cored N5**** CPUs are complete pipsqueaks today in
| comparison to higher-end ARM cores, the benefit is that _Intel
| reference platforms are the most well supported, and documented
| pieces of hardware in the industry._
|
| If you get an Intel CPU, put it on a PCB 1-to-1 matching Intel
| schematics, and fit it with full Intel chipset (WiFi, Ethernet,
| Enpirion PMICs...) complement, it's almost guaranteed to work.
| gadgetoid wrote:
| I tested the Mk III back in Dec 2020 before it dropped out of
| existence (parts shortage I think.) Due to relocating during the
| Covid chaos I actually daily drove it as my workstation for a few
| months (using VSCode/Slack/Discord and writing C++ for RP2040 and
| running more MicroPython recompiles than I'd care to imagine).
| The keyboard left a little to be desired (inconsistent actuation
| force), but having a Linux-first, mini laptop at that price point
| was compelling. The decent resolution (1080p at 11") screen, SATA
| SSD (rather than eMMC) and backlit (!!) keyboard made it
| worthwhile and I still use it for work.
|
| If they've revised the keyboard/trackpad in Mk IV then it could
| be a pretty solid little machine.
|
| I also had some weirdness with the USB Type-C power adapter (ha I
| wish this was the only hardware I could say this about) but that
| may or may not have been fixed (in the Mk III) with a recent
| firmware update. Though it did take them the best part of the
| year since my vague and difficult to reproduce bug reports. A 12v
| barrel jack supply was rock solid. No surprise there.
|
| I know it's no Framework, but it's nice to have a System76-a-like
| this side of the pond.
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| I use Pinebook Pro as daily driver for a couple of month, and
| my only complaint was about the keyboard. Even the screen is
| bearable.
| gadgetoid wrote:
| A good, cheap keyboard would be a game changer for low-end
| devices, it's definitely the bit I find hardest to compromise
| on.
| geokon wrote:
| I thought the Pinebook Pro screen was fantastic. 14'' feels
| spacious after 13.3 :) The keyboard you sorta get used to. My
| main problem was the 4GB of RAM that couldn't really run
| Emacs and Firefox simultaneously. Do you code without a
| browser on the side?
|
| I've tried to have an emacs-only workflow - but lots of stuff
| is complicated. CIDER will now open/browse ClojureDocs, but
| there is still no way to display JavaDocs without a browser.
| I also dunno how to browser Github short of cloning every
| repo I use.
|
| I'd appreciate any tips :)
|
| However, that said, I never found the processing power
| problematic
| nanomonkey wrote:
| Emacs has some browsing capabilities itself. I've used
| `eww` in the past with some success.
| throw10920 wrote:
| I'm not the GP, and I don't necessarily have a solution for
| you, but I'm curious about your workflow.
|
| My 19-tab Firefox (with Gmail open) is consuming 1.2 GB,
| and my fully-loaded Spacemacs is ~250 MB. What's your
| memory consumption look like, and how many tabs do you
| usually have open?
|
| Suggestions for reducing memory usage: check
| about:performance for high-memory tabs, use uBlock and
| NoScript to block large images and JavaScript from loading
| by default, set permissions.default.image to 2/3[1] if you
| have lots of image-heavy sites, I suppose?
|
| You might just have to resign yourself to using a small
| number of tabs. Firefox doesn't give you a lot of knobs to
| tune memory usage with, and already is lighter on RAM than
| Chrome (at the expense of CPU/latency).
|
| [1] http://kb.mozillazine.org/Permissions.default.image
| ploxiln wrote:
| Reducing the Firefox content process limit from the
| default 8 to perhaps 2 should help (assuming the default
| is the same on smaller systems, I guess I'm not sure it
| is ...)
| throw10920 wrote:
| Postscript: it would be really nice if Firefox allowed a
| "click-to-play, but for images" addon - but it seems like
| that's not possible, given that zero addons exist that
| implement it.
| rjzzleep wrote:
| The SoC is really slow, do you mostly use it as a terminal to
| your servers? What's your rational behind getting it? The
| price and it being "open"?
|
| I was running one of those 7" OneMix laptops for a while.
| They have 16GB ram and a 512 SSD. Apparently they have
| switched to 10" form factor now[1].
|
| [1] https://www.1netbook.com/product/onenetbook-4-platinum/
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| The SoC is not that slow if you only use Firefox to read
| Hacker News and Stackoverflow, and the rest of the work
| happens in the terminal.
|
| I am more bothered by unreliable suspend to ram. It kind of
| works, but then it does not for me.
| Rudism wrote:
| On my PbPro this is caused by the lid sensor magnet being
| badly positioned. When I close the lid expecting that to
| trigger suspend, it will suspend too early as the lid
| closes, then un-suspend once it fully closes. Suspending
| manually first (via keystroke, for example) and then
| closing the lid solves that. I've read you can fix the
| sensor's position if you're willing to open the LCD-half
| of the laptop. The other issue I have is if you plug or
| unplug the power (via USB-C, at least, I haven't tested
| using the barrel plug) it causes the PbPro to resume even
| if the lid is closed, so I always make sure to plug it in
| first and avoid taking it out while it's suspended.
| Syonyk wrote:
| Barrel plug will do it too. It's an odd behavior, for
| sure.
|
| I don't think I even realized it had a suspend sensor in
| the lid. I suspend mine via the power menu, wait for the
| green LED to go off, then close it. If you've got the
| proper suspend (deep sleep) stack working, it's very much
| a power sipper when asleep as well - I've had it asleep
| for a week (when I thought it was off), and still had
| plenty of battery when I woke it up.
| Syonyk wrote:
| The PBP CPUs aren't fast, but they're certainly "enough"
| for daily driver use if you're not insanely demanding. I
| use one as one of my daily drivers, and it handles web
| (Firefox and Chrome), Element, Marktext for editing blog
| posts, and various other things perfectly fine. It's not
| _fast_ by any means, but it 's entirely adequate. Photo
| editing takes a couple ticks to process, and I wouldn't try
| video editing on it, but neither do I do video editing,
| so...
|
| Battery life is excellent (8-12 hours depending on what
| you're doing), the 2021 trackpad firmware solves the fact
| that the trackpad was beyond vile, and other than wifi
| glitching every couple weeks and needing a reboot, I've
| really got no complaints with it. Plus, it's $200, and very
| light.
|
| If you're the sort of person who "needs" 64GB of RAM and a
| 2TB SSD with a 6C/12C workstation processor in a laptop,
| it's not at all useful, but it's quite a bit more capable
| than most people realize, and that I have no fan noise, and
| it doesn't roast my legs in normal use, is really quite
| nice.
| bubblethink wrote:
| This faq entry https://support.starlabs.systems/kb/faqs/ami-
| aptio-v-vs-core... is quite misleading.
|
| >coreboot uses flashrom, which runs from the userspace (outside
| the kernel) and writes directly to the SPI (a small chip where
| the firmware is stored). Instead of verifying the update, it will
| allow anything using user id 0 (aka "sudo", "root" or "admin") to
| write to it.
|
| This is their implementation. Coreboot doesn't care about how
| it's written. That is not a part of coreboot. You, as a vendor,
| are supposed to create something sensible.
|
| >AMI ... offers many features, including a graphical interface.
| ... [Coreboot] has no dedicated interface, apart from a simple
| boot menu.
|
| This is again a function of the payload. If they use tianacore as
| a payload, they'll get a similar menu as AMI. It's their job to
| pick and customise payloads. Coreboot doesn't handle that stuff.
| StillBored wrote:
| Somewhat more interesting is:
|
| "For example, the LabTop Mk IV combined with coreboot will
| offer approximately 8% more performance and around 20% longer
| battery life (with a record of 13 hours and 42 minutes for
| general use)."
|
| Which is a bit of a WTF is different between the two.
| presumably they are sharing the low level intel powermgmt
| blobs, so why the significant power reduction?
| dleslie wrote:
| This looks almost identical to the Pinebook Pro, down to the port
| placement. Interesting! The ARM processor on the Pinebook Pro can
| sometimes be a bit of an annoyance, as it's not the beafiest
| processor and emulating x86 on it suffers.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I think that's because they use a standard Chinese laptop
| enclosure. I have a Chuwi LapBook that's also got the exact
| same enclosure, screen, keyboard and horrible trackpad as the
| PineBook Pro but it has an Intel atom board. The battery and
| PCB are totally different. I know because I was looking to
| order a Pinebook Pro battery to replace it :) In fact the Chuwi
| has the USB ports upside-down (really annoying with a yubikey
| which you have to touch on the top side).
|
| I've also been trying to get the Pinebook Pro's touchpad
| improvements going on my Chuwi, but it's been tough going
| because the I2C controller is very different. But it's
| literally the exact same part.
|
| So it looks like some company makes these enclosures available
| as a platform that companies can use to make their own laptop
| without having to worry about the case, keyboard, display etc.
| The display in this case is actually pretty good (IPS 1080p),
| it just has some backlight bleeding but that seems to be caused
| by pressure points from the lid, not the display itself. The
| keyboard is also decent. The trackpad is awful. Lots of fake
| touches if you so much as wave your hand over it, and it
| presents itself as a PS/2 mouse so you can't even use improved
| drivers.
|
| Of course OEM laptops are already a phenomenon (think Clevo
| etc) but I've never seen them where the mainboard was not part
| of the platform.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Keep in mind that this is an atom-derived chip (Goldmont Plus
| uArch), so it will be VERY VERY slow. Do not compare clock speed
| with something like Core i-series, expect this thing to have a
| much lower IPC. It barely has any cache as well. With the size of
| modern websites; JS, i'd expect it to struggle with anything
| complex...
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I have a Chuwi LapBook 14.1 which has the N4xxx atom series.
| It's a similar laptop like this one. It's actually pretty great
| for light work on the go. It cost me almost nothing (180 euro),
| has a great IPS display, is 100% silent and runs 7 hours on a
| battery.
|
| Sure, performance isn't great but it's not terrible ;) It's not
| my primary laptop of course. I use it in the makerspace, I
| bought it so I didn't have to worry about blowing up a USB port
| with an Arduino project or a soldering iron falling on top of
| it. Neither of which actually happened during the last 4 years
| but it's the peace of mind that matters.
| Lio wrote:
| There's a lot to like about this and I really like the direction
| they're heading in. So I wondered where did they come up with the
| specs?
|
| > Star Labs was formed in a pub
|
| I think I've had many similar conversations but they usually
| start and end in the pub. Good work lads.
|
| Will be seriously considering the 14" model when it's time to
| replace my XPS 13.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > a true matte display that prevents glare with an Anti-
| Reflective Coating.
|
| This alone made me pay attention, it is so damn rare to find
| something portable nowadays that is not glaring with a mega
| reflective display.
|
| I understand that reflective screens sell better next to
| lackluster matte screen in a display case but at this point it
| really feels like none of these manufacturers have used their
| devices outside.
| avhception wrote:
| Wow, I've been a big fan of tiny / cheap / fanless "ssh+vim+
| browser+chat"-machines like this for years.
|
| At the moment I've got an Asus E203M fulfilling this role, but
| I'm annoyed every time I have to carry around, untangle and plug
| in the stupid barrel jack charger when I've got USB-C charging
| available on the sofa, in bed, in the office (and even in my
| car). I'm aware that there are USB-C -> barrel jack adapters, but
| c'mon, if I have to carry something around it might as well be
| the charger.
|
| That alone would have sold me on this device.
|
| But it's got coreboot! 8gigs of RAM! Backlit keyboard! Matte
| display, fullHD! I've ordered instantly. Many thanks for the
| link!
| Syonyk wrote:
| They're hard to find right now, but a PineBook Pro might work
| for you, and they've got USB-C charging.
| avhception wrote:
| I've been following the pine64 devices for a while, but the
| "pro" is too big (14") to fit that niche for me and the non-
| pro pinebook is too weak.
|
| Too bad, I'd love to run aarch64!
| ldehaan wrote:
| Is this for those people who really want to post online but hate
| doing it on windows or Mac? I cannot see how this could be useful
| except as maybe a backup machine that I can use to burn a kubntu
| disk/usb for my real machines. Imo anything with less than 32gb
| RAM and a real video card is useless for anything other than
| consuming junk and that's why I have a smart phone, my smart
| phone with 16gb ram and a real video card....
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