Asklemmy

Same

Could you elaborate on the reform?

For some reason, I was under the impression that laptops in the MNT Reform series were the only laptops that were manufactured using open (source) hardware only. Or, if there were others, that it must have been doing something so special that they deserved to be put on a pedestal. But, currently, I don't feel confident enough to state why it would be superior over say the Olimex TERES-I or Pinebook Pro.

I hear the hype yet to me it looks like a severely overpriced tv box with some low-grade peripherials strapped to it in the least space efficient way possible.

We definitely pay a premium, but I don't know exactly why. Especially when the aforementioned Olimex TERES-I and Pinebook Pro are almost an order of magnitude cheaper.

Did they got rockchip to release sources instead of blobs or something?

From what I understood, Rockchip offers (at least some of) its SoCs as open source hardware. So, what MNT Reform did for the SoC is order them as open source hardware and include/publicize/provide all the schematics (etc).

What is the praise actually for?

FWIW, the open source hardware aspect is what I was intrigued by*.

I've sketched out ideas for something like the MNT Reform, but with a Framework motherboard, and it's surprisingly hard to whittle down the form factor any more without sacrificing unique and useful features, like the user-replaceable battery cells and modular mechanical keyboard. Those were the main attractions for me, and it is indeed very weak hardware for the price. Tallying up the component prices, it's about as good as it gets without economies of scale while insisting on libre firmware.

That's true, but I found parts like the bottom chassis, display assembly and keyboard on Aliexpress. They probably have the joystick modules too.

The only thing I couldn't find were the actual rubber thumbsticks, which might become a problem in the future when they wear out. GPD promised to sell them individually a while ago, but as of yet, they haven't done so.

It's around ~48°C under my regular coding workload (Chrome, Firefox, Slack and phpStorm opened with a video playing). It's basically unhearable under these conditions, with the fan running on the lowest speed.

The max temperature it gets to is ~83°C, which it will reach fairly quick when playing demanding games like Cyberpunk and the device gets a little warm, but not annoyingly hot then. Yes, it's a little thicc boii, but that works for its benefit because the thickness comes from the big heatpipe, fan and cooler.

Disclaimer: I put a PTM7950 pad onto the CPU and it greatly benefits from it. Temps with regular paste are worse - I definitely reached temps in the 90s before (but it was not throttling).

yes. yes it is.

GRiD has been making these 'milspec' laptops for decades! I wanted one so much when I was a teenager because they were all cyberdeck looking back then, too!