If you (1) are broke to average financially (2) have no need for AI / gaming / 3D-modelling et cetera, then laptops & most PCs are a losers' game for you. An e

If you (1) are broke to average financially (2) have no need for AI / gaming / 3D-modelling et cetera, then laptops & most PCs are a losers' game for you. An ergonomic portable computer that can run emacs, lynx & imagemagick; made from entirely replaceable brandless parts, would cost between $10 and $100 to make. FDE would provide reasonable security. Since you'd be able to get enough of these for the rest of your life for the price of one MBP, each device could have different profiles from "access social media of relatives" to "communicate through onion-nets." ALSO, would not it be cumbersome & costly to tamper 100 portable computers (probably leave evidence of your tampering techniques making them much less reusable)? Old ThinkPads are still competitive for this role, but even they require somewhat special parts and have very long mainteinance manuals. Simple fixes are doable, but replacing the motherboard or screen approaches the level where it is better to simply buy new one. There was https://www.pcbway.com/project/shareproject/PICOmputer_Mothe https://www.pcbway.com/project/shareproject/PICOmputer_Mothe I wonder if the new microcontrollers could be used for a PC. Good mainteinance for years, $5 price... I believe that a frugal (+ ergonomics-focused) approach to design instead of what MNT has done is the noble path. A minimal device may not really be a laptop, but with today's technology whatever it actually is, it certainly can be good enough to compute most programming, writing & internet browsing.