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Hi! I actually have, and have been using as my main device, an MNT Pocket Reform, and at one point was using an MNT Reform. MNT's devices are honestly kinda incredible. I can't recommend them for everyone yet, though that will change soon. Both of them are a kind of "laptop of theseus"; you can open and change and repair them, and honestly I have. Both device's guts are dramatically different than where they started, but changes happened piecemeal. The Pocket Reform is an incredibly cute device. I can't pull it out anywhere without people fawning over it. Not even just hackers! It's an open hardware cyberdeck you can use as your main device. What's not to love? The MNT Reform Next will be closer to what many people want out of a laptop. It'll still be chonkier than a normal laptop. But again, these things are incredibly upgradeable and hackable. Now for the caveats: for most people, I would wait until the MNT Quasar module comes out. The reason being is that while the current "best" module, the RK3588, is honestly pretty good with the 32gb version, it lacks one critical thing for most people and one other critical thing for me in particular. The first thing it lacks is support for suspend. Honestly, it does make working with a tiny computer like this a bit less appealing than the Pocket Reform's form factor could be, since what you really want to do is just be putting it to sleep and taking it out everywhere. The other thing is that Blender doesn't really run on the rk3588 either. You can kind of get a patched version working based on Lucie's patches, and I did, but it doesn't support the Eevee renderer, which is a must-have for me personally. But the MNT Quasar board will be apparently fixing both of those above issues, and yes, at that point this will be a device that I can recommend generally. And I'll also note that I got the very first MNT Reform when it came out, and holy moly the state of the hardware now vs when it originally launched half a decade ago... it's hugely far between, but the amazing thing is that to get it up to the current state, I didn't need to throw things away, I could just open and tinker with things bit by bit. In many ways, the MNT Pocket Reform reminds me of the book the main character has in the solarpunk book A Psalm for the Wild Built; a computer that is issued to you at the age of 16 and that which you carry with you for life. You can upgrade and repair it easily, but you don't need to throw it away. So yeah, it's not for everyone. But if the idea of supporting repairable, upgradeable open hardware made by a lovely bunch of queers in Berlin sounds great? That you can hack on, that has a neat little community, that will be a conversation point amongst fellow hackers for its quirkiness? It's appealing to some, but not all. |
I think the question here is "main what" device? Looking at the MNT reform alone:
I can't use it as a dev laptop (tiny screen, orthlinear keyboard)
I can't use it as my main web browser (4GB RAM isn't going to be enough)
So, that leaves it for uses where I need a small computer for doing something quick (emergency ssh for my site, for example).
For the Pocket Reform, there's even fewer use-cases. I'd love a rockchip based laptop that
1. Takes 18650 batteries
2. Has 16GB+ of RAM
3. Has mechanical keys in a regular layout
4. Has at least a 14-inch screen.
The form factor is what decides what the device is good for, and a form factor of a laptop but still being unsuitable for what laptops are used for is a puzzling product decision to me.
I mean, I am looking through this entire post you made. Quite a large post extolling the virtues, and yet I don't see one single point about what you use it for :-/
Look through all the comments - I don't see people explaining what they use it for.