[HN Gopher] RISC-V Laptop now available
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RISC-V Laptop now available
Author : thebetatester
Score : 107 points
Date : 2022-10-04 18:19 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tomshardware.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tomshardware.com)
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Okay, honestly for all that I wouldn't go for it myself, $1500
| doesn't seem super bad for what it is. It's got 4 cores with a
| decent clock speed and 16GB of RAM, and it's a completely novel
| system that's not mass-market. The first RISC-V laptop isn't
| going to benefit from economies of scale; dev boards are barely
| starting to get there.
| marssaxman wrote:
| Sounds like progress. I don't need a RISC-V laptop badly enough
| to spend $1500 on this one, but I'm glad to see a shrinking delta
| between my desires and the market's offerings.
| ha-ckernews wrote:
| Why would someone buy this? Honest question, not asking it to
| make a point or be snarky.
| viraptor wrote:
| If you're really bullish on RISC-V as a developer, it may be a
| valid investment. Or if you already develop for RISC-V machines
| and it would be convenient to test binaries locally, instead of
| doing some kind of remote/emulated dev.
| snvzz wrote:
| $1500... hell no.
|
| VisionFive2[0] w/JH7110, U74x4 @ 1.5GHz, 8GB, 2x GbE, M.2 slot,
| pi-like gpio header, is less than $100, and thus a much more cost
| efficient way to get started with RISC-V.
|
| 0. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/starfive/visionfive-2
| parker_mountain wrote:
| This laptop is certainly not a daily driver, and certainly not
| something you'd buy if you're concerned about lifespan,
| durability, or support. It's a mobile demonstration that the
| burgeoning community of risc-v developers can bring along with
| them to conferences and boardroom tables. It's (relatively)
| expensive and is functionally a reference board with a battery
| and screen attached.
|
| The price, OEM, and support story is a non-issue for the
| intended market.
| leke wrote:
| Sweet. Imagine if you could put that in a laptop, like you
| would change motherboards in a PC. Then when the specs get
| dated, you can switch it out for the next best thing while
| reusing the original hardware.
| go_elmo wrote:
| Paired with linux, an ode to joy
| black_puppydog wrote:
| MNT Reform :)
| snvzz wrote:
| That'd be nice, but having a standard form factor for
| swappable motherboards in laptops is a very separate problem
| than having cheap boards with RISC-V at all.
| heywire wrote:
| Like the Framework laptop?
| brucehoult wrote:
| VisionFive 2 looks like a great board. I'll know in six weeks
| or so when my super early bird 4 GB one arrives (and a regular
| 8 GB in February).
|
| However it doesn't have a case, screen, battery, charger,
| keyboard, trackpad ...
|
| $1500 seems entirely reasonable for any laptop that is being
| made in quantities of 1000s (only 100 before New Year) not
| millions, regardless of what processor is in it.
|
| I've certainly paid far more money for slower laptops in the
| past ... PowerBook 100, Duo 230, Wallstreet G3/266, 1.0 GHz G4
| 17" to name a few.
|
| In raw CPU performance, it's probably similar to a Core 2 Duo
| MBP ($1999 for a 2.16 GHz in 2006). But it's got twice the
| cores, far more RAM, far more "disk", far better GPU.
|
| The VisionFive 2 is more like one of the last Pentium IIIs or
| G4s in performance, per core.
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| I signed up for the VisionFive2 myself, but in fairness, the
| C910 in this laptop is vastly more powerful than SiFive's U76
| in the VisionFive2. I don't have the benchmark results handy,
| but it's on the order of 6X as fast (higher IPC and 66% higher
| frequency), so it's not really a just comparison.
|
| $1500 for a limited run laptop is actually not bad deal. My
| main hesitation would be what level of support we can be
| expecting. I have zero interest in proprietary kernels and
| distros ( _Many_ Arm SBCs, like Hard Kernels ODROID line, has
| this problem and it 's a pain to deal with).
| IYasha wrote:
| Doen't have detachable battery, DRM PU onboard, no mouse keys...
|
| But still with Windows(r)(tm)(fu) logo on the meta-key? :D
| lvass wrote:
| >There's a dedicated security chip onboard
|
| And thus, the newest laptop without an Intel ME equivalent is
| still around 14 years old.
| KeyBoardG wrote:
| Was this article written by a bot fed input from the marketing
| team? Such short, choppy, and malformed sentences reads as fake.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| likely machine translated from a release spec
| downrightmike wrote:
| $1,499 base, $4,999 Premium. The point of RISC is cheap. and the
| specs don't warrant $500.
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| No, the point of RISC (and RISC-V) has nothing to do with
| cheap.
|
| The _point_ of RISC-V is freedom [to use, implement, etc] and a
| rallying point (no need for everyone to re-implement the whole
| SW eco-system if that's not the main point of the
| implementation).
| sylware wrote:
| Going forward... don't forget the road will be long and harsh for
| risc-v.
| tromp wrote:
| > weighing 1.7 kg (3.7 pounds), it's definitely at the thinner
| and lighter end of the market,
|
| Seems more like medium weight to me; hoping that's due to a large
| battery.
|
| > Battery life is rated at 10 hours.
|
| Oops, apparently not.
|
| Still, cool to see RISC-V in a laptop.
| viraptor wrote:
| Battery weight depends on capacity, not rated life. Kind of
| nitpicky, but this really depends on how the power management
| works on this platform. It could just be really inefficient
| right now. (especially since we don't have systems really
| optimised for it yet)
| mobiclick wrote:
| My problem with this laptop isn't with it's pricing but with
| who's selling it. If it was Asus or some other reputable OEM, I
| think I would have bought it.
|
| I've had _extremely_ poor experiences with some Chinese OEMs in
| the past and I 'm not risking 1500 with unproven OEMs unless I
| have to.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > It can support up to 16GB LPDDR4 or 4X RAM
|
| 4X RAM? And is the RAM socketed or soldered?
|
| > 4 TOPS NPU and an Imagination Technologies GPU
|
| Drivers are open source for both or are we stuck with vendor
| kernel images or some other garbage? How easy will it be to port
| Open/Net/FreeBSD or another OS?
|
| > The Roma is available from Alibaba (opens in new tab) as a
| basic package for $1,499
|
| I have a better idea: Buy a mnt reform.
| rjsw wrote:
| The StarFive JH7110 that is going into the Star64 board [1]
| also has an Imagination Technologies GPU, there have been
| statements that there is going to be an open source driver for
| it.
|
| [1] https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/STAR64
| sudosysgen wrote:
| I think they mean either lpddr4 or lpddr4x.
| f1shy wrote:
| Oh the name of that linux distro: "Anolis". Does not say if based
| on debian.
|
| I wonder if the user will be able to change the distro, or the
| drivers will be somehow fix with the distro.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| Centos based.
| thom_ wrote:
| Neat to see a RISC V laptop but they must be smoking crack if
| they think I'm paying $1500 for the privilege of recompiling my
| operating system really, really slowly. And the 5k option is
| outright predatory. Someone needs to protect the vulnerable
| enthusiast market (you know who I'm referring to) from this kind
| of pricing. Ask a fair price. It's an $800 laptop, maxed out.
| melony wrote:
| Wait till you hear about the Talos POWER-architecture computers
|
| https://www.raptorcs.com/
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| TALOS at least has a reason to exist, as eye-wateringly
| expensive as it is.
| incahoots wrote:
| I think you're forgetting whom this product is aimed at. Also
| small batch vs a quantity product produced en masse like a
| latitude.
| smoldesu wrote:
| It's a small-batch release of extremely-enthusiast hardware for
| a very niche segment of customers. They could charge $10,000 a
| pop and probably have no problem selling out.
|
| There are cheap RISC-V dev boards if you want to use them, but
| this is mostly evidently not that. These people wanted to see
| if they could build a fairly decent 'all-in' RISC-V machine,
| and it looks like they did.
| Kukumber wrote:
| I was interested in buying one until i saw the price.. "The Roma
| as a basic package for $1,499"
|
| Overpriced, or better, why is the price so high?
| foobarian wrote:
| And that, in a nutshell, is why we can't have nice things.
| incahoots wrote:
| I imagine it's because Alibaba does not and will never have the
| purchasing agreements like HP/Dell/Apple/Lenovo do. I'd guess
| the secondary components that complete the laptop come at a
| premium, jacking up the retail price.
| boricj wrote:
| The small production run coupled with the price suggests that
| it's basically an evaluation board in a laptop form factor. As-
| is, it's probably mostly of use for people that want to hack on
| RISC-V (operating systems, ports, application development...)
| with a hardware target that can also act as a standalone host
| computer for said hacking on the go.
| rjsw wrote:
| The Pinebook Pro is basically an evaluation board in a laptop
| form factor.
| smoldesu wrote:
| The Pinebook Pro uses off-the-shelf A53 cores that have
| existed for over a decade.
| imtringued wrote:
| You can probably find equally overpriced ARM and x86 laptops if
| you are willing to look for them.
|
| It turns out, there is not much competition in the RISCV Laptop
| market.
| theflyingelvis wrote:
| Seems like a risk to me
| thebetatester wrote:
| Ba dum tss
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