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Author Topic: help choosing laptop  (Read 3704 times)

Weiss

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help choosing laptop
« on: May 29, 2023, 12:35:31 am »
Thinking to retire my Acer Aspire One. This was my primary tool until now. It is old, but I cannot find laptop with similar form factor.

I am looking for something as small, 10” display, hard and stiff outer shell, shaped so it easily slides in and out of backpack. Like Acer.

With my line of work I travel from one vessel to another, spending hours on board of passenger ferry. This is my quiet time where I have done a lot of productive time outside work.

GPD Pocket 2 is too small, I have one.


speter

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Re: help choosing laptop
« Reply #2 on: May 30, 2023, 03:55:14 am »
Have a look at
https://www.bestproducts.com/tech/gadgets/g2586/best-mini-laptop-reviews/
"The 8 best mini laptops to get work done anytime, anywhere"

Though (as always) beware that the site is probably "sponsored".

The page recommends "Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 2"
(I hope ms has improved the external connectors - they used to be a real problem with Surface laptops).

cheers
S.
I climbed mighty mountains, and saw that they were actually tiny foothills. :)

dbannon

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Re: help choosing laptop
« Reply #3 on: May 30, 2023, 05:09:30 am »
Weiss, I guess (given you are posting here) that you use this machine for FPC/Lazarus development ?
If thats the case, I'd suggest a chromebook may not be suitable.

I used to have a neat little Atom powered 10" 'netbook' (with extra memory and a SSD added) and it ran Lazarus beautifully under Linux, almost useless running Windows however. Sadly, I stuck my foot on it ...

Seems these little, cheap, atom units are no longer available, very sad. The Chromebooks are not a replacement, small and slow "harddisk", little more than an SD card really and are focused on running Web apps. I believe its possible to install Linux on some of them but no idea how practical that is.

Davo
Lazarus 3, Linux (and reluctantly Win10/11, OSX Monterey)
My Project - https://github.com/tomboy-notes/tomboy-ng and my github - https://github.com/davidbannon

Weiss

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Re: help choosing laptop
« Reply #4 on: June 01, 2023, 03:11:56 am »
thanks everyone. Dbannon, yes, I will be using Lazarus, and probably Delphi, and I was not looking for chromebook. It is pain indeed that netbooks fell out of favour. 

Leledumbo

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Re: help choosing laptop
« Reply #5 on: June 02, 2023, 08:18:27 pm »
GPD Pocket 2 is too small, I have one.
What about GPD P2 Max? It's 8.9", 1.9" more than GPD Pocket 2 and 0.9" more than GPD Pocket 3.
x86 Chromebooks can be a replacement, by I suggest waiting for 7000C series which was just announced last week. I'm currently using a 3500C Chromebook and Lazarus runs smoothly here, even if the storage is just a PCIe Gen 3 x2. Those 7000C series might come with PCIe Gen 4 x2 or PCIe Gen 3 x4, which should speed up things even more. Surely if you're not comfortable with Linux it's gonna be a PITA, but the smallest relatively new Windows machine is at least 13.3". Maybe there would be some 10-12" with Intel N series, which is... usable at best, but no guarantee. Really that small laptop market has been taken over by Chromebooks in the last couple of years as they target mostly students in lower education.

dbannon

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Re: help choosing laptop
« Reply #6 on: June 04, 2023, 07:38:49 am »
Leledumbo, your existing Chromebook that you run Lazarus on, is it running Chrome OS still or have you installed Linux on it ?

Davo
Lazarus 3, Linux (and reluctantly Win10/11, OSX Monterey)
My Project - https://github.com/tomboy-notes/tomboy-ng and my github - https://github.com/davidbannon

Weiss

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Re: help choosing laptop
« Reply #7 on: June 05, 2023, 08:15:57 am »
What about GPD P2 Max? It's 8.9", 1.9" more than GPD Pocket 2 and 0.9" more than GPD Pocket 3.

The cheapest P2 Max I could find at the time, was close to 1500 CAD, for hobbyist like me it was too much. Pocket 2 was 400 and looked sleek.

I also use Sony Vaio Picturebook, occasionally. Someone just gave it to me. Over 20 years old machine. FPC seem to run fine, though with slightly different compiler behaviour. Touch slower compilation times, and of course I cannot go online with it. Keyboard size, screen size, are about best in sub laptop class. Give it modern internals and it would be awesome machine, form factor-wise.

Leledumbo

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Re: help choosing laptop
« Reply #8 on: June 05, 2023, 12:15:41 pm »
Leledumbo, your existing Chromebook that you run Lazarus on, is it running Chrome OS still or have you installed Linux on it ?
ChromeOS, Lazarus is installed on Crostini, ChromeOS' Linux environment built on top of LXC.
What about GPD P2 Max? It's 8.9", 1.9" more than GPD Pocket 2 and 0.9" more than GPD Pocket 3.

The cheapest P2 Max I could find at the time, was close to 1500 CAD, for hobbyist like me it was too much. Pocket 2 was 400 and looked sleek.
Indeed for that price you better be off with something from a much more reputable brand, you can also get much better specs.

 

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