[prewett]

I'm not the parent, but I've traveled around with an Intel NUC, which is only a little bigger than the RPi. I got a portable 15" 4k "gaming" screen for $300, and I have a half-width keyboard. I bought a photo box from Michael's which fits all the non-screen items. I can easily pack it in a backpack (e.g. Jansport bookbag) no problem. The keyboard is frustrating to type on, although you get used to it. I probably should have gone with a keyboard similar to those Apple ones (but wired), didn't occur to me.

I was trying to have a Windows/Linux machine on the cheap for the occasional cross-platform project. However, if you're doing serious work, you'll be happier with a nice laptop. (Except I don't know where you'd find a retina laptop outside of Apple)

[dundarious]

I was really only using it while staying with family and friends where I was always able to use an old monitor or a tiny "bedroom/kitchen" TV, but a hotel TV would be fine too (I'm assuming ports aren't blocked). I brought a Logitech K400 which is small, wireless, and has a builtin trackpad. Was also only using it for programming and basic web browsing. I don't recommend the keyboard (keys are a bit wobbly, some odd key positioning and shapes, definitely takes some getting used to, and the trackpad is relatively poor), but I just wanted something I could use for an hour or two a day, and it was perfectly acceptable for that. If I had to use it for a few more hours, I'd just bring a proper keyboard and mouse (weight permitting).

I was confident I'd be fine though, I set it up in advance and used it briefly on the couch with a tiny monitor for about a week.

I strongly recommend taking advantage of the USB HDD boot that's now supported on Pi 4 -- even some 15 year old 60GB spinning platter you have lying around from a long dead laptop is in my experience going to be faster than an SD card. USB3 to SATA connectors are cheap and reliable.

The reason I did it was just trying not to be wasteful. My laptop died and I have no problem getting a new one, but I'm pretty sure I'll need a new one in a year for work -- the problem is I won't know the specifications (even OS, architecture, etc.) that I'll need until then, so I just wanted to see if I could get away without having to guess in advance. Generally I like to buy only when I need to, and to buy the best thing available at that time (within reason), and use that for a long time.

[mongrelion]

> (Except I don't know where you'd find a retina laptop outside of Apple)

These days there are vendors releasing laptops with 90hz refresh rate OLED screens, 2k and 4k resolution even, on the 14" and the 16" ones. Asus for example has that on their ZenBook and their VivoBook series.