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At a previous job, I was the engineering manager for a new neo-bank and was on call 24/7 for it. I have a beefy Lenovo P52 that I hated carrying around and leav

At a previous job, I was the engineering manager for a new neo-bank and was on call 24/7 for it. I have a beefy Lenovo P52 that I hated carrying around and leaving in my car lest it get stolen. So I got a GPD Pocket. It fit very well into my back pocket. Not only did it work great for emergency situations (I ran Ubuntu MATE as well) when I needed to SSH into machines, check stuff on Datadog, edit code to make a quick fix, push code to our K8S environments and more, but I actually found myself frequently at coffee shops and bars coding away happily on it. It brought a certain amount of freedom and cool factor with it. It was a delightful little device with a very sharp and crisp screen, a surprisingly useful keyboard that combined well with my i3 environment, that I could actually be productive on (save for running our test suite which took around 30 minutes and sucked the life out of the battery). It also got a lot of onlookers asking questions about it, leading to those ever so fun random conversations that can lead to night long friendships over wine and coffee. I genuinely miss it and will probably pick up another one now that I just got hired as a CTO for another project with equally demanding on-call schedules and uptime requirements. Although I don't drink anymore so none of those fun conversations. Ce la vie.

MutableLambda 4y ago
Which one did you have? I have P2 MAX (just changed the battery after 2-3 years), but rarely use it outside vacations. Cannot really see myself coding happily on it, even though the keyboard and the screen are decent it's not really comfortable for long typing sessions
iancmceachern 4y ago
Those P52 suck, way too heavy. I insist in a Dell Precision after carrying those P52s around (sometimes 2 at a time) I'm putting my foot down.
- gsibble 4y ago
  Eh. I never minded the weight so much for the power I got out of it. The P17 is bigger and heavier and it's my favorite laptop I've ever used.
jabbany 4y ago
> It also got a lot of onlookers asking questions about it, leading to those ever so fun random conversations that can lead to night long friendships over wine and coffee. Hah. So true! It's always interesting to see that even today with all the fancy miniature devices we have, how many people still see these UMPCs as almost magic. My Zaurus in the early 2000s used to get this kind of attention which was understandable. But I'm surprised that random people will still strike up conversations whenever I use modern UMPCs in public...
prmoustache 4y ago
I also bought a GPD pocket 2 to be able to do bicycle rides or socialize without having to carry a large backpack while on call.
NikolaNovak 4y ago
... Is that a trackpoint on it?? It's a "shut up and take my money" system for me; I've dream of a netbook/micropc with trackpoint and keyboard taking as much space as it can for about 12-13 years now. Thx!
- pabs3 4y ago
  Looks like a power button to me.
  - soneil 4y ago
    The GPD Pocket (1) which the commenter speaks of has a trackpoint. The GPD Micro (in the article) doesn't.
- jabbany 4y ago
  Yes, it is on the Gen 1, but the Gen 1 has a lot of other deficiencies in the HW that make it not so great as a daily driver today. The OneMix ones have a capacitive trackpoint that's not as good (-> it works like a tiny trackpad area), but they also have touchscreens. IMO the newer GPD Win ones are probably the best implementation of mousing on a small devices. You have all the options: A touchscreen, A small trackpad, and A joystick that has a mouse mode which behaves like a trackpoint.
- zwayhowder 4y ago
  I was so sad when I specifically ordered an HP laptop for work (The other choice was Dell) to get the keyboard with a trackpoint on it, only to find out that the HP layout only has two buttons. It turns out my years of ThinkPad training has given me permanent muscle memory that the button underneath the middle of the space bar is middle mouse and therefore paste :)
  - Yizahi 4y ago
    And there is no Insert button, so you need to do a convoluted Ctrl/Shift-Fn-E combo to copy/paste in the terminal.
Abishek_Muthian 4y ago
For others in similar position as parent (i.e. in need for a hand held portable Linux computer) but couldn't buy a GPD device for various reasons(availability, cost, trust issues etc.); Then here are two recommendations which are just as good(or better?): 1. Buy a used smartphone with postmarketOS support[1]. I suggest Poco F1 if you want to make phone calls with it right away (or) Oneplus 6/6T if you can wait a bit long for it to be fixed. I use Poco F1 as a daily driver and these are the most powerful, feature complete Linux smartphones right now. If your work depends upon tool adamant on glibc and couldn't be compiled for musl then Mobian works on the aforementioned devices[2] too. Use a foldable bluetooth keyboard, case with kickstand; you can get just as productive as a GPD albeit more portable and also feel good about taking away a device from potential e-waste. 2. Buy a 11" used Chromebook (Mainly used in schools) which is supported by Mr.Chromebox's UEFI firmware[3], You can use any Linux with it but I use PeppermintOS for its light weight and OOB support for Chromebook. Of course any portable laptop could run Linux, But they tend to cost 2x-3x the Chromebooks. [1] https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices [2] https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php?id=install-android https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php?id=install-android [3] https://mrchromebox.tech/#devices https://mrchromebox.tech/#devices
- ekianjo 4y ago
  > 1. Buy a used smartphone with postmarketOS support[1]. having an attached keyboard is the whole point though
  - Abishek_Muthian 4y ago
    I don't feel that way, Productivity benefits of a Linux handled aren't compromised to any significant effect by having a detached foldable keyboard(With layouts we're used to) as compared to attached smaller keyboard, especially when you can use it as a normal phone in any pocket :P May be its a user preference, I just put out options as 'Choice' is the crux of Linux ecosystem.
    - whizzter 4y ago
ok123456 4y ago
My GPD Pocket experience was pretty bad. The battery swelled up and there was no replacement stock available. The reply I got was: sorry old model. The thing wouldn't even turn on without the battery connected, so it was trash at that point.

MutableLambda 4y ago

Which one did you have? I have P2 MAX (just changed the battery after 2-3 years), but rarely use it outside vacations. Cannot really see myself coding happily on it, even though the keyboard and the screen are decent it's not really comfortable for long typing sessions

iancmceachern 4y ago

Those P52 suck, way too heavy. I insist in a Dell Precision after carrying those P52s around (sometimes 2 at a time) I'm putting my foot down.

gsibble 4y ago
Eh. I never minded the weight so much for the power I got out of it. The P17 is bigger and heavier and it's my favorite laptop I've ever used.

jabbany 4y ago

> It also got a lot of onlookers asking questions about it, leading to those ever so fun random conversations that can lead to night long friendships over wine and coffee. Hah. So true! It's always interesting to see that even today with all the fancy miniature devices we have, how many people still see these UMPCs as almost magic. My Zaurus in the early 2000s used to get this kind of attention which was understandable. But I'm surprised that random people will still strike up conversations whenever I use modern UMPCs in public...

prmoustache 4y ago

I also bought a GPD pocket 2 to be able to do bicycle rides or socialize without having to carry a large backpack while on call.

NikolaNovak 4y ago

... Is that a trackpoint on it?? It's a "shut up and take my money" system for me; I've dream of a netbook/micropc with trackpoint and keyboard taking as much space as it can for about 12-13 years now. Thx!

pabs3 4y ago
Looks like a power button to me.
- soneil 4y ago
  The GPD Pocket (1) which the commenter speaks of has a trackpoint. The GPD Micro (in the article) doesn't.
jabbany 4y ago
Yes, it is on the Gen 1, but the Gen 1 has a lot of other deficiencies in the HW that make it not so great as a daily driver today. The OneMix ones have a capacitive trackpoint that's not as good (-> it works like a tiny trackpad area), but they also have touchscreens. IMO the newer GPD Win ones are probably the best implementation of mousing on a small devices. You have all the options: A touchscreen, A small trackpad, and A joystick that has a mouse mode which behaves like a trackpoint.
zwayhowder 4y ago
I was so sad when I specifically ordered an HP laptop for work (The other choice was Dell) to get the keyboard with a trackpoint on it, only to find out that the HP layout only has two buttons. It turns out my years of ThinkPad training has given me permanent muscle memory that the button underneath the middle of the space bar is middle mouse and therefore paste :)
- Yizahi 4y ago
  And there is no Insert button, so you need to do a convoluted Ctrl/Shift-Fn-E combo to copy/paste in the terminal.

Abishek_Muthian 4y ago

For others in similar position as parent (i.e. in need for a hand held portable Linux computer) but couldn't buy a GPD device for various reasons(availability, cost, trust issues etc.); Then here are two recommendations which are just as good(or better?): 1. Buy a used smartphone with postmarketOS support[1]. I suggest Poco F1 if you want to make phone calls with it right away (or) Oneplus 6/6T if you can wait a bit long for it to be fixed. I use Poco F1 as a daily driver and these are the most powerful, feature complete Linux smartphones right now. If your work depends upon tool adamant on glibc and couldn't be compiled for musl then Mobian works on the aforementioned devices[2] too. Use a foldable bluetooth keyboard, case with kickstand; you can get just as productive as a GPD albeit more portable and also feel good about taking away a device from potential e-waste. 2. Buy a 11" used Chromebook (Mainly used in schools) which is supported by Mr.Chromebox's UEFI firmware[3], You can use any Linux with it but I use PeppermintOS for its light weight and OOB support for Chromebook. Of course any portable laptop could run Linux, But they tend to cost 2x-3x the Chromebooks. [1] https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices [2] https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php?id=install-android https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php?id=install-android [3] https://mrchromebox.tech/#devices https://mrchromebox.tech/#devices

ekianjo 4y ago
> 1. Buy a used smartphone with postmarketOS support[1]. having an attached keyboard is the whole point though
- Abishek_Muthian 4y ago
  I don't feel that way, Productivity benefits of a Linux handled aren't compromised to any significant effect by having a detached foldable keyboard(With layouts we're used to) as compared to attached smaller keyboard, especially when you can use it as a normal phone in any pocket :P May be its a user preference, I just put out options as 'Choice' is the crux of Linux ecosystem.
  - whizzter 4y ago

ok123456 4y ago

My GPD Pocket experience was pretty bad. The battery swelled up and there was no replacement stock available. The reply I got was: sorry old model. The thing wouldn't even turn on without the battery connected, so it was trash at that point.