Keyboard: Reform mechanical USB keyboard with Kailh Choc Brown Switches, dimmable backlight, open firmware
Trackball (Option): Reform optical USB trackball with 5 mechanical switches (Kailh Choc Brown), open firmware
Trackpad (Option): Reform capacitive USB trackpad, open firmware
Enclosure: Modular case from CNC-milled, bead-blasted, black-anodized 6061 aluminum. Bottom cover milled from semi-transparent acrylic.
Sound: Wolfson WM8960 ADC/DAC, stereo speakers, 3.5" headset/microphone jack ( no internal microphone )
Camera:No camera . Internal MIPI-CSI connector
Battery: LiFePO4 battery technology - which is more fire-safe and has more charge-cycles than LiPo battieries. 8x owner-serviceable 18650 cells totalling 12 Ah/3.2 V. 5 h approximate battery life
System Controller: NXP LPC11U24 ARM Cortex-M0 chip with open firmware and hackable expansion port
Manual:Operator Manual incl. system schematics and full parts list
Sources: KiCAD sources for motherboard, keyboard, trackball, trackpad, STEP/STL/FreeCAD files for case parts, C sources for all firmware (input devices and system controller), build scripts for boot & system image
OS: Preloaded with Debian GNU/Linux 11, Linux 5.x mainline kernel
Dimensions: 29 x 20.5 x 4 cm
Weight: ~1.9 kg
Highlights include a 4+1 ARM processor, 4 GB DDR4, 1080p IPS screen, and a mechanical keyboard (for real). Pretty much user replaceable everything. It is absolutely thicc.
Buy/Pledge:
Note: I have nothing to do with this project, I’m already perfectly happy with my Pinebook Pro.
Kind of cool actually, and it’s about the price I would have expected something like this to be for it to be deliverable.
The lack of camera and microphone though really kills some of its potential (and they didn’t have much to start with). I don’t get why they’d leave something so important out of a mobile device.
From a privacy stand point I think it’s great not having a camera or mic. Can’t spy using something that’s not there Plus I don’t know too many people that use a laptop webcam/mic outside of this human malware. Usually it’s face to face or like Facetime or something.
Price is right about where I expect something like this as well, with other open source devices historically being pricey for the specs, Pine devices being the outlier.
I kinda dig the replaceable 18650 batteries, but those make it super thick. It would be nice if there was a common flat battery with the capacity of an 18650.
In this day and age. Jitsi. And id be more concerned about spying from browsers than a webcam that for this kind of laptop you could have just put one of these between the webcam and power
Seems like an odd stance for a laptop that connects to the internet. Each to their own though.
Generally speaking, I’m happy to see more libre hardware.
That said, my main issues with this:
Every product they compared to was from a company that has already shipped multiple products. That’s important to me considering the substantial price gap between this and the Pinebook Pro, and the fact that they’re crowdfunding.
The 4GB RAM limit on almost all ARM-based boards is almost a deal breaker. It’s convenient to sit outside and SSH into my x86_64 vmhost box to do work, but with 4GB of RAM on the local system this will always be a glorified thin-client.
They take a strong position linguistically with the “blob-free” language, and then immediately fail to meet it. That feels disingenous at best and dishonest at worst. Their DDR controller uses blobs; hence they are not blob-free, just like their competitors.
I strongly prefer the RK3399 chipset in the Pinebook Pro (official OpenBSD support, yo!) and I can’t see why anybody would pay 5x more to be able to use this at the end of the year.
While I disagree that it’ll always be a thin client, I’m also frustrated with the lack of RAM. I think 8GB would be the ideal spot for something like this, but they’ve probably got some sort of physical limitation on the CPU that they’ve hit.
I do have to say, I find it interesting how they chose the i.MX8M SOM, instead of the RK3399. It’s a lower powered chip, but I suspect they’re hoping to piggy back off the development efforts of the Librem 5.
Yeah, this combined with the price really makes this just a device someone gets to participate in e-peen measuring contests.
I wonder if it’s possible to build a blob-free DDR4 controller… It seems like DDR4 is super sensitive and is therefore, probably, difficult to write controller software for.
I have to say though, I like the keyboard layout, with the space bar split up and all. I’d love to get my hands on a laptop with a keeb like that.
I wonder if it’s possible to build a blob-free DDR4 controller… It seems like DDR4 is super sensitive and is therefore, probably, difficult to write controller software for.
It’s my understanding that at that level, NDAs are more of a problem than complexity.
Once you’ve seen the documentation needed to properly initialize things, you’re prohibited from publishing software that utilizes information from it.
Cleanroom rewrites are expensive, and hard to justify without components you can reuse in your next product iteration.
If my recollection is correct, some of System76’s earlier platform choices were because they found a vendor willing to share reverse engineered info that wasn’t subject to NDA.
The more I look at it, the motherboard would be near perfect for a custom AIO project too. Being eDP it shouldn’t require too much dicking around to get a display working either.
Plus I don’t know too many people that use a laptop webcam/mic outside of this human malware. Usually it’s face to face or like Facetime or something.
