Would you buy a modern Toshiba Libretto?

Sounds like you want a UMPC, like the GPD Pocket or similar. I bought myself a Chuwi Minibook a while back https://www.chuwi.com/product/items/Chuwi-MiniBook.html

Mine came with 16GB ram and cost under £500 new (I think they were getting rid of them at the time). Unfortunately the SSD driver didn't work properly under Linux, so it's running Windows 10 with Linux in a Hyper-V VM.

Having looked at e-ink in the market, I would strongly suggest an alternative display technology like RLCD or transflective LCD.

But I would absolutely pay for something ultra portable but with a good typing experience, without those silly dogmas of clam shell designs and 'make it as thin as possible' obsession.

I love the idea of an e-ink computer, used to own and love a Psion Series 3 [1], and would like to think that I'd buy this sort of thing, but to be honest in the end probably wouldn't. The MacBook Air is just too good as an all-round machine to make me want to carry a second thing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Series_3

Crazy I'd say. E-ink is currently too slow to use in a laptop. And why a gpu in an e-ink machine? You can't show animations, screen drawing speed doesn't matter since the screen itself is so slow, etc. Libretto keyboard is too big to be pocketable, but too small for extended typing (I've used real Librettos). Batteries should be removable and standardized like the Framework laptop's are. If you want e-ink, try a tablet, maybe Inkplate 10. Perhaps connect it to computing base holding the battery pack, a raspberry pi or similar cpu card, connectors, and a keyboard.

I do think we need more choices in small keyboards with built in pointing devices. There don't seem to be that many right now, especially wired ones.

I am interested in seeing your frankentop, have you written it up in a blog post, or submitted to hackaday etc?.

Personally, the Surface or tablet form-factor seems like the future to me, bring your own keyboard.

I bought a OneNote four years ago (8GB RAM, 128GB MicroSD, 1.6GHz proc, 7" screen, tooled aluminium case). There's a lot to like about the form factor and I found the keyboard and screen adequate, running Debian and Mint successfully.

However, it's let down by two things; [a] the combination of processor speed and SD read/write times makes it slow for many things, and [b] the battery life has bettered three hours.

The most unfortunate thing is that after three years the battery started to bloat as it reached the end of its life, and I've found no way to get a replacement battery from China to my home in New Zealand. Local distributors don't stock them, shipping services won't transport them. I bought one and got it to a trans-shipping centre in the UK, but the NZ company responsible for the final leg of its journey declined to carry it. Currently the OneNote is out of commission.

But I remain very interested in devices with these form factors. I've owned two 11" Sony Vaio laptops which were remarkable machines in their day. I plan to purchase a PinePhone Pro with its keyboard case accessory, and I do think a clamshell (or detachable) with one the latest eInk displays (colour, variable refresh rate) would be a fantastic tool.

> For me, that's a screen under 10 inches

I used to lug around Acer W4-821 [0] with 8.1" screen. It was almost perfect for me, because it fit nicely in the pockets of my coats in the winter and was small enough to fit in a messenger bag in the warmer seasons.

It also was light and small enough to actually use while standing and even could be used with one hand as a ebook reader (or reading looong pages).

> Android

No, thanks. For ocassional SSH/RDP session it is fine but for anything else it is PITA, and newer versions of Android make leaps and leaps to incorporate the walled sandbox iOS-style for the user data. If you mean "professional's" then I need a control over my data (and apps), not Googlemerate.

> RAM: 4 GB LDDR4X but ideally min. 16 GB

8GB should be a good start. On the before mentioned W4-821 I managed to run CentOS in VirtualBox, on Windows and still be able to do things. That thing had 2GB of RAM.

[0] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Iconia-W4-821.129255.0.ht...

Absolutely not. I'm specifically looking at 17" laptops nowadays and while 75% keyboards are still kind of nice, I'd not want to bother myself with keyboards with even fewer keys, unless this is meant as a vacation laptop? Additionally I'd rather not have to deal with closed source graphics on such a device, I don't have to worry about software updates on my Intel Linux laptop or my Nvidia Windows console, I don't want to have to start thinking about kernel versions on a vacation laptop - this is probably not an issue for people who use Red Hat or Ubuntu with their backports kernels. As for the eink I think it's great for watches and reading devices, but for me low input lag is important in laptops.

But if disaster strikes and I have to code and email in the middle of a wilderness not too disconnected from cellular and that's not too cold or too humid I'll be glad if such a device exists.

I'm on the fence. On one side, those dell xps' are ultra compact and cover all my coding needs, but the price/performance ratio is absurd. And i'm thinking of why not simply get a powerful desktop and a tablet. And if i'm in the forest and need to do work while being chased by bears, i can simply remote desktop to the powerful PC and do the job.

It's obvious that you can't have the best of both worlds in a single package, but the latter option comes close to it with little compromise. And this compromise will become negligible if android becomes open and grants full access to the system so that you can actually compile and run whatever you want on it.

I'd probably buy one, mostly because there is no other e-ink laptop available yet. Regarding battery life, since you've got LTE on board, you'd be better off by offloading the processing to a remote server and connecting via ssh, vnc etc. imo. See also similar art: http://www.paperterm.org/notes.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28432921 and https://www.modos.tech

Made an account just to tell you yes, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

Everything's so big nowadays, I long for a Libretto like, trackpoint enabled, with as-full-as-you-can-make-it keyboard UMPC.

I do have a bit of a reservation about the e-ink screen though, it's great for reading and all, but without fast enough refresh rates it's gonna be more of a throwback to the awful laptop screens of the 90s. I'd genuinely take a back/frontlit mono LCD over that. Still, if you could find something that would genuinely work, I'm up for it.

Also I could try to help you with the OpenBSD port, if you want ;)

I have played with an hp jornada 728 and jlime linux back in the day.

The form factor was very nice, it would be lovely to have something similar again but without the limitations of running gnu/linux on a windows ce device.

I am interested but I already bought a reMarkable. But this is a normal laptop otherwise, meaning if I run Ubuntu on it I can use terminal etc.

I would probably consider getting it for christmas or my birthday, but I am also an outlier as I would be able to take it off of taxes.

on edit: a propos the remarkable one thing I got disappointed in is I used to own a pocketBook and when it broke figured I'd move up to reMarkable because bigger screen, but it's actually harder to read because while larger it's darker. Just an UX observation.

I did buy myself a Vaio P back in the day, and artificially contrived as many excuses to use it as possible, replaced Vista with LXDE to eke everything possible out of that Atom and 2gigs.

From that I learned how not useful they are, and when I see darling things like the GPD or ClockworkDev, I ask what job I would do with it that isn't already served better by my laptop or phone, and the lack of answer always results in the same conclusion, I never buy the the darling toy any more.

Overall I’m very interested in ARM Linux laptops with good battery & keyboard, but even 10” is too small, so I don’t think Libretto form factor is interesting to me.

> Display: 7.8 inch eInk display, 300 PPI. 5 finger touchscreen.

I think this idea is cute, but I’m markedly less productive under 16” of screen; and working below 12” is out of the question for me. I’d prefer a 12.5” - 14” form factor. If you can squeeze the bezels these screen size can still be extremely portable!

I did a lot of Chromebook RDP to desktop in college (best performing $700 total computing platform for a student) on a 10”, and found I worked at about half the speed on tasks that required research. There’s less of a penalty if you’re strictly writing stuff down.

Likewise with screen technology. I’ve yet to use an ePaper display that wasn’t the worst part of a device. I have friends who are frustrated with reMarkable 2; will your display be better than reMarkable?

> CPU: 2 (2.2 GHz Kryo 660 Gold – Cortex-A78) + 6 (1.7 GHz Kryo 660 Silver – Cortex-A55)

This is fine for me!

> GPU: Adreno 619

This is fine for me

> RAM: 4 GB LDDR4X but ideally min. 16 GB

If you are buying a SoC part instead of motherboard RAM, would it be tricky to get to 16GB without increasing the CPU part?

Anyways more is always better.

> Connectivity: 5G/LTE, BT 5.2

I am okay with BT feathering to my phone, but I haven’t used a laptop with wireless internet in 10 years so maybe there’s a special joy to it.

> Battery: 137.7 mAh, hit 144 hours on 115mAh set-up on intensive drain cycle in browser, no optimization for battery implemented OS-side yet. Just long enough so you also can rest on the 7th day.

This sounds great, thanks to the ultra low power display.

> Typing: 60% keyboard with Cherry switches, low-profile

This is probably the most interesting part of your list to me. An excellent keyboard will distinguish your device from Pinebook Pro and other low power ARM notebooks. Right now mechanical laptop keyboards are very focused on gaming.

Given the hacker community love for classic X series thinkpad design, I’m surprised no one is re-targeting that design with ARM components and vastly simplified internal architecture.

I got GPD Pocket 3.

8", i7, 16GB RAM, 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD.

Super cute little thing. Full blown PC that fits in your pocket.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/pocket-3-a-modular-and-fu...

I've had some small machines: Atari Portfolio, Toshiba 320CT, Toshiba 3110CT, MS Surface Go.

The Surface Go has a great form factor. I especially like the low weight of the keyboard more than I would appreciate mechanical switches. I don't know how well it runs alternate OSes which keeps me from upgrading to a Go 2 or 3.

I would buy it. I have a few other devices in the same ball park, but this sounds possibly perfect. The only thing I might want different would a color (non e-ink) screen, and full phone capabilities (a la pinephone).

I've used an Onyx Boox Max Lumi 13.3" eInk device as a monitor to try to work outside.

My conclusion for 2021: The tech is just not good enough. There is too much smearing remaining when you scroll and refreshing manually is cumbersome.

wouldn't make more sense to repurpose some older small Thinkpad X series liner X41, X200 or X240s, they are widely available almost for free, I find 8-10" screen hardly usable with Win/Linux

For travelling it would be nice. I really don't like carrying any fragile/expensive hardware with me longer than workplace distance. (Used to have a subnotebook for that but it fell apart)

No from me just because of the size (typing)/power constraint.

It would be interesting if it was spec'd out/ (able to) connect to full size keyboard/external monitor.

At that battery life, absolutely interested.

Prefer 8gb+, but but I can deal with 4.

Also would prefer a wider form factor, but I ain't gonna build one myself to get it.

That battery life is the appeal.

If it has (close to) full size keys, I want.

Please.

Any idea of;

1. Weight?

2. Thickness?

Maybe someone can make an eInk and rlcd assembly for the frame.work laptop; seems to be a nice niche market.

I would be very interested if the screen was a bit bigger. How quickly does the e-ink display refresh?

Dude, 4GB of RAM? Sure, it's fine for the software I write. But what about normal people?

This does sound great to me. Do you have any way to keep up to date with your progress?

I would!! I like to sit outside and write code, but where I live it is too bright. Even in the shade with brightness full on, I cannot see anything.

So beginning this with YES, send me one! You seem to have my goals mostly for the perfect laptop; I don’t care about thin, but 10 inch or under and insane battery life are the things I need. Linux for me too.

Edit; from this [2] I learned that there is another display tech, so the below still applies but then I only need 1 screen but with that tech? I never saw or tried but what I googled looks pretty impressive! Why is it not used more? Most posts about it are ancient and I see pixel qi which was a hype thing until it disappeared.

My dream is to have something like the Fujitsu p1510 [0] with the swivel screen having lcd on one side and eInk on the other, running Linux and depending on the position of the screen which is on;

- closed both are off until you hit the on switch; the outer one will come on so you have a tablet or e-reader - open both are off until you you turn on; the one on the side of the keyboard will be active

4g or 5g would be perfect but not really needed (just share my phone connection). If it had 4/5g I would consider dumping my phone altogether.

8-32gb ideally

Battery enough for lcd to do 12 hours (the p1510 with extended battery did on Linux i3 and I always had a spare with me).

I would pay a lot for that today. I had lugging around all the crap and I cannot use it outside anyway; my m1 MacBook at full brightness is already impossible and it’s only spring.

I also still have feverish dreams about this exact scenario but with a Zaurus [1] or new Astro Slide.

I really care far less about thin than I care about battery life and it being one device to do everything.

I have a Boox note3 and I use that as a screen for my m1 air, but them not being one device and the fact it is basically Vnc makes the lagging worse; it is still ok to work in full sunlight but it is a messy setup so I hardly ever do it.

[0] https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/product/fujitsu-siemens-lif...

[1] http://www.gelhaus.net/cgi-bin/page.py?loc:zaurus/+content:r...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30886546

No, I had a libretto, it was very cool but in the end not usable enough for me.

way too overpriced for such poor HW, it is a way for China to sell its tech junk, no thanks

For cheaper, you can get a Steam Deck ($399), and a case with a physical keyboard (probably $50)

YES

There is a forum dedicated to devices like this at https://forum.ei2030.org/ - also a zulip chat linked there which is more active.