Perhaps the higher power tablet chips (ie. closer to 5-10 Watts TDP) could be a nice alternative? FWIW, I have used desktop Linux on a ~2012 ARM tablet chip and

Perhaps the higher power tablet chips (ie. closer to 5-10 Watts TDP) could be a nice alternative? FWIW, I have used desktop Linux on a ~2012 ARM tablet chip and it wasn't fast but still a decent experience. I'd be more worried about finding any sort of decent graphics chip. The discrete laptop chips tend to be for gamers (ie. high power) because all Intel laptop CPUs have an integrated GPU in them anyway (for mainstream customers). And sourcing discrete GPUs in small numbers is going to be difficult. Add in a requirement for open source drivers and it's even more difficult.