7 ms·
MNT Reform Next
- amatecha 2y agoSo awesome. Looking forward to being able to order one of these! There's no one else making computers like this, and I definitely want to not only personally benefit from the radness, but also help support them so they can continue to work on new hardware (and software)!
- theodric 2y agoI didn't buy the MNT Reform because it simply didn't have enough RAM to be useful to me. Now this new one has enough RAM, but it dispenses with the trackball - which was the thing that initially drew my eye to the Reform - in favor of a painfully tiny trackpad. I just can't win with these guys! So frustrating. I want to love it.
- nine_k 2y agoI hope they will offer options for the keyboard, with a trackball or (better) a trackpoint. Maybe not themselves but somebody who cares enough, given the complete openness of the thing.
- nosioptar 2y agoI don't ever want to buy another laptop without a trackpoint.
- fuzztester 2y agotrackpad, trackball, trackpoint ... interesting. what are the pros and cons of them? I've only used laptops with trackpads.
- nine_k 2y ago- Trackpad: multi-finger gestures. Usually no explicit buttons or scroll wheels detectable by touch, so you need to look down sometimes. Potentially the trackpad allows you to jot arbitrary gestures / glyphs, given proper software. Sits tunder your palm, so you have to move your hand significantly away from the keys to operate it. Good palm rejection is a must. - Trackpoint: single-finger micro joystick. Sits in the home row, so you can operate it by barely moving your fingers along the home row. Requires explicit buttons; combined with them, usually emulates scroll wheels, etc. Tiny precise gestures are harder. Never bothers you while typing; can be operated entirely without looking, like a mouse. - Trackball: I have little experience with it. Sits under your thumb usually. Allows for very precise small motions; big motions are harder. Has buttons (see trackpoint), sometimes a larger assortment, accompanied with scroll wheels, etc. Some balls have considerable inertia, some totally don't. Some allow for extremely comfortable hand placement, but it's not a given. Have hard time not being rather tall / thick. Need most cleaning of the three.
- fuzztester 2y agoThanks.
- theodric 2y ago> Requires explicit buttons I had a ThinkPad i1300 back in 2003 which allowed, in Windows anyway, a thump on the trackpoint to serve as a click. That functionality seems to have been abandoned during the couple of decades I was mainly using desktops and/or MacBooks, because none of my more recent ThinkPads offer it under any OS.
- numpad0 2y agoThat's a default off option in Control Panel. I'd recommend everyone enable that tap to click feature, sensitivity raised to ~240/255, and middle button as wheel click as must have QoL improvements for TrackPoints.
- nosioptar 2y agoNot having to move off the home row with a trackpoint is great for RSI.
- stonogo 2y agoThe SoM in this is available for the original Reform. Plus other SoMs with 8gb or 16gb have been available for some time.
- evgpbfhnr 2y agohttps://shop.mntre.com/products/mnt-reform-rcore-rk3588-processor-module https://shop.mntre.com/products/mnt-reform-rcore-rk3588-proc... 500/750€ for the som is a bit spicy considering the soc itself can be brought for $150 in orange pi 5 plus (16GB); being part of the business I know how big the economy of scale is, but it still is off putting as a consumer. Hopefully selling it as part of the new laptop will allow sufficiently bigger batches to bring this down a bit
- stonogo 2y agoIf you're concerned about cost, the small-batch handmade laptop market probably isn't ever going to make you happy.
- doublepg23 2y agoIsn't part of the ethos of the laptop being fully hackable? I'd assume you could design the case to your liking or upgrade the SoC.
- prmoustache 2y agoYou can change the cpu/ram module on the original reform, or order one with a different module.
- geerlingguy 2y agoThe original suffered from an underpowered CPU and a high price, along with a fit and finish that looked great but compared favorably to 20 year old PowerBooks more than modern computers (even "thick" laptops today were much thinner). Seeing this one become quite a bit thinner, using an Arm CPU (RK3588) that is about as good as it gets outside Snapdragon / Apple M in terms of efficiency... I think price may be the major turn-off, as I'm assuming it still won't hit under $1k fully built. But if they could hit that number, more people would be willing to take a small hit in performance/compatibility to have a fully open design laptop.
- amatecha 2y agoPerformance-wise it's looking to be miles ahead of the ThinkPad X230's I daily-drive so I'm 100% on board (in addition to all the other gigantic upsides like open source hardware, repairable, LiFePo4 support, etc.)!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- gaws 2y ago> Performance-wise it's looking to be miles ahead of the ThinkPad X230's I daily-drive What are the specs?
- amatecha 2y agoRockchip RK3588. I mean, not sure how trustworthy/accurate these are, but: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/4906vs817/Rockchip-RK3588-vs-Intel-i5-3320M https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/4906vs817/Rockchip-RK35... https://gadgetversus.com/processor/intel-core-i5-3320m-vs-rockchip-rk3588/ https://gadgetversus.com/processor/intel-core-i5-3320m-vs-ro...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- DoctorOetker 2y ago
- fuzztester 2y agoWhat are they going to call it next?
- soapdog 2y agoMNT Reform Neeeext
- fuzztester 2y ago'next'. wonder if they were trying to copy / emulate steve jobs, who started the company 'next', after he was manipulated out of apple by sculley, who he had hired.
- dtx1 2y ago[flagged]
- metalforever 2y agoThe problem with your suggestions is that they don't have free firmware.
- dtx1 2y agoNeither does the RK3588, which is precisely the point I was making. From the MNT Reform Website https://shop.mntre.com/products/mnt-reform https://shop.mntre.com/products/mnt-reform > RK3588 > Binary DDR and GPU firmware That makes it just as closed source as the corebooted novacustom stuff: https://novacustom.com/coreboot-laptop/ https://novacustom.com/coreboot-laptop/
- rjsw 2y agoThe GPU in the RK3588 doesn't use closed source firmware.
- F3nd0 2y agoFor the DDR, yes, but as for the GPU, is this still the case with Collabora's ongoing work on Panthor? https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/news-and-events/taming-the-panthor-opengl-es-31-conformance-achived-mali-g610.html https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/news-and-events/tami...
- mikepavone 2y agoWhile the Panthor kernel driver itself is open source, it seems to require this firmware [0] which doesn't look very open source to me. [0] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/commit/?id=c01388616e35c2f9dbcc4a207703e1ae0b47fcd9 https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/lin...
- F3nd0 2y ago> Realistically usable and proven to be more "future proof" than the MNT Reform Devices. How is Framework 'proven' to be more 'future proof' than the MNT Reform devices? > You know, with actual notebooks you might use them, this MNT Reform will be in your "theoretically cool but practically useless open source projects that I will never use and my children will throw into the landfill when i'm gone"-Drawer we all have. Why should it? I can understand if it doesn't cover your needs, but to me it seems like a decent, functional laptop that might do just fine for a lot of people.
- phil3nix 2y agotake my money
- nxobject 2y agoI'm glad this revision's thinner – I wanted to actually be able to put the Reform in my backpack! Sadly, I'm not sure whether you can get both thinness and the trackball at the same time...
- yencabulator 2y agoThere were trackballs on phones at one time.. of course, the ball has to be smaller, but it's very much doable. I'd actually expect a larger trackball to be harder to do well, it has to be sunken in to allow closing the lid, and that sounds unpleasant to use.
- nine_k 2y agoGame controllers have really nice joysticks. I wish one (or two) of them were available next to regular keys, maybe instead of the trackpad. Further, I'd like a split layout option for the keyboard, for the relaxed position oh the wrists, and better use of thumbs.
- klardotsh 2y agoI was just thinking today about whether I'd enjoy a thumb joystick on this device, given that trackpads and I agree less and less these days (I have been on various trackballs for years on desktops to fend off RSI-like symptoms... recently tried giving the Magic Trackpad 2 another go because gestures and pixel-perfect scrolling rock, aaaaaand welcome back wrist pain! Back to my Ploopy Adept I went) That, or trying to figure out a mini-trackball to fit where Next's trackpad is, maybe something sized like Pocket Reform. I don't love thumb trackballs (I'm a fingerball kinda guy), but I could make do.
- amatecha 2y agoNo, unfortunately this one won't support trackball AFAIK due to space constraints: https://mastodon.social/@mntmn/113081056191730605 https://mastodon.social/@mntmn/113081056191730605
- trhway 2y agoso, we're coming to having a laptop case with a keyboard, screen and battery - all standard interfaces - and in which we can replace, almost on the fly, the system board - using an ARM, RISC-V or x86 one or whatever else would appear - or even install a couple of such boards (NUC or even as small as those "gumsticks" boards) and simply switch between them (or run them in parallel).
- myself248 2y agoAt this point I'm 99% certain that the lack of a standard RJ45 for Ethernet is a not-so-subtle encouragement for people to dive in and start making their own port boards.
- klardotsh 2y agoI'd personally have preferred another USB-C over this industrial connector style. I already carry around USB-C to Ethernet dongles and it's just a complete non-issue. This instead requires a bespoke dongle I don't own, and frankly, don't really need. I use Ethernet on my laptop exactly once a year, at a live event (a robotics competition) I work where radio interference leads the volunteer event staff to hard-wire our devices. Otherwise... the rest of the year I forget where the dongle is. But hey, for the folks who really need Ethernet, I'm glad there's an option - even if it's an uncommon one.
- naming_the_user 2y agoThis is properly, properly cool. Not in the market at the moment but man. Those 18650's! Just awesome.
- Klasiaster 2y agoGreat to see it getting ready. Since the USB-C Power Delivery port doesn't support Display Port output, maybe there is a complex adapter that could splice the HDMI signal in (converted to Display Port) while still supporting data and Power Delivery?
- ryukafalz 2y agoI have been wondering about something similar myself. It seems like each interface on the port boards has a separate internal cable, so even though by default PD is on the left port board and HDMI is on the right it might be possible?
- Klasiaster 2y agoSeems parts of the needed adapters do exist: https://www.amazon.com/Adapter-Converter-Thunderbolt-MacBook-Microsoft/dp/B08VDT3YGK https://www.amazon.com/Adapter-Converter-Thunderbolt-MacBook...
- mproud 2y agoLooks fragile. And what’s the battery life like?
- ryukafalz 2y agoIf the previous two models are any indication (I own both) the final aluminum chassis will be very sturdy.
- amatecha 2y ago> The 3D printed case you can see in the photos will be replaced with a robust CNC-milled, bead-blasted, anodized 6061 aluminum case. Check out their most recent model, the Pocket Reform, to get an idea of the case quality https://shop.mntre.com/products/mnt-pocket-reform https://shop.mntre.com/products/mnt-pocket-reform
- megous 2y agoI have this https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006205368963.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006205368963.html heavy copper heatsink on my favorite RK3588 board and it's still ~50 °C idling (with fan off) in open air setting with convective and radiative cooling only. So good luck with having RK3588 under a touchpad in a box with no obvious airflow and actually using the SoC.
- rjsw 2y agoThe Pinebook Pro has the SoC on the underside of the PCB with a thermal pad connecting it to the metal lower case to make that a heatsink.
- megous 2y agoCu foil to spread the heat better on the inner backside of PBP would be even better. Magnesium alloys are not particularly great thermal conductors, so just the spot under the SoC is heated disproportionately to the rest of the backside.
- pengaru 2y agoSupport these guys if you can afford to. It's a no brainer if you value a more open and diverse future for general purpose computing.
- schaefer 2y agoI am very excited for this project.