MNT Reform is an open hardware laptop, designed and assembled in Germany

Posted by speckx 22 hours ago

MNT Reform is an open hardware laptop, designed and assembled in Germany(mnt.stanleylieber.com)

96 points | 30 comments

honkcity 45 minutes ago|

I use their Pocket reform option pretty regularly, its a gorgeous device. The keyboard is a delight to use and the community is very friendly and helpful. The RK3588 is also plenty fast for the programming I like to get up to -- mostly writing things in Go or Ocaml for myself, but also for larger tasks its worked fine.

It has rough edges but its very usable , especially for somone inclined to hack on their devices. My main trouble being my yearning to use Alpine on it but not quite having the know how personally to get it up and running.

I like it enough though, that I've also got the Next ordered, which I'm very excited for. Being able to upgrade them both more or less ad-infinitum while new boards come out is a big plus too.

jabl 2 hours ago||

I'm intrigued by this, but waiting for the MNT Reform Next.. https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/mnt-reform-next

vaylian 2 hours ago||

They also have a small-form-factor stationary computer in the pipeline: https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt-research/mnt-station

znpy 5 minutes ago||

I wish there is more information about battery life of that laptop.

irusensei 3 hours ago||

I think 1450 EUR for a 16GB RK3588 is hard to justify. Is the Rockchip open to begin with?

I'd go for a framework using the Roma or CIX boards if I wanted to go for an "open hardware but not really" goal.

Palomides 7 minutes ago|

other than maybe some RAM related blobs I believe the mnt stuff is completely open in both ways

framework stuff is generally neither open hardware nor open software, intel and AMD don't permit it

exitb 3 hours ago||

It's an interesting concept, but perhaps a bit financially and environmentally wasteful, when you can get a 10 year old ThinkPad for 10% of the price that will perform roughly as well as this one. We don't need to bring more low-powered laptops into this world.

utopiah 1 hour ago||

Maybe https://www.ifixit.com/News/94927/how-open-hardware-empowers... helps to get how it's different than "just" getting older hardware that had good repairability scores (indeed like ThinkPabs,cf https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/laptop-repairability-sc... ) namely that the idea isn't to "hijack" a locked-down supply chain and get cheap parts assembled anywhere. Rather it's to challenge that supply chain and open it up, which is indeed going to be expensive, maybe even environmentally wasteful (to clarify IMHO) at first but then long term will radically improve the situation.

whateverboat 1 hour ago||

How are they better than framework? Looks a worse product for much higher prices.

miladyincontrol 1 hour ago|||

Agree, being weaker than an N100 I would argue by large it is already ewaste compared to just getting an old thinkpad or similar.

Its over engineered in some ways and woefully under engineered in others. Any real effort in making it more performant or trying to extend it's life will just generate more additional ewaste than it will save by just reusing existing hardware.

timschmidt 2 hours ago||

On the other hand, since all the design files are available, anyone can design an upgraded motherboard for this machine and keep all the other parts out of the landfill.

exitb 1 hour ago||

That’s true. It doesn’t even have to be just „anyone” as they sell compute module upgrades themselves. The thing it though, the old ThinkPads are already here, readily available. It’s still more environmentally conscious to get one every few years instead of buying a new compute module.

timschmidt 47 minutes ago||

I'm not sure it's so clear. On one hand, businesses will continue to purchase computers and sell them in lots every few years. On the other, every computer purchased from some other supplier is one less made by someone else. What's important about a computer is it's suitability for purpose, which is not necessarily the same thing as fastest / latest / cheapest / whatever. If my purpose requires modular expansion, my choices are this thing and Framework. Neither of which I'm going to find inexpensive used. I can think of a lot of scientific and engineering data logging applications that would be great for. And a machine like that might serve 20 years if it works well at the task. I've seen a lot of machine controls still running Windows 98.

https://www.clockworkpi.com/home-uconsole is another great example of a machine I've seen people mod into all manner of special-purpose device that wouldn't work as well with a used business laptop.

Schlagbohrer 5 minutes ago||

Website appears to be slashdotted

dv_dt 29 minutes ago||

For this kind of hobby device, I would love a different kind of approach that is more like an detachable independent tablet panel with a extended docking base both with CPUs - and hack on the smarts to make resources on the docking base seamlessly available between independent/docked states.

boesboes 3 hours ago||

I've been looking into switching away from apple and try to buy more EU based services and products.

I love the concept and might just buy one to support the project, but I want something sleeker for my daily use. So I'm considering slimbook & tuxedo atm as buy-from-eu options.

dlahoda 3 hours ago|

Where do you want it to be produced? Assembly is not production, essential parts production is.

jstummbillig 1 hour ago||

I wished it was easier to manufacture things. There is a reason that Apple is held in high regard, and looking at this makes abundantly clear, why.

bluGill 56 minutes ago|

You can make things at home. However some parts will need $100 worth of your time when you can buy it - at slightly the wrong size - for $0.50. You could make the part for $0.25 instead - but it would cost several years to design the molds.

Tade0 1 hour ago||

It's been a while since I've last seen a laptop powered by 18650s. The thickness seems to be directly the result of using them there.

leonleon69 34 minutes ago|

Curious why they went with the i.MX8M SoC specifically — was it purely about open documentation, or did the memory bandwidth also factor into the decision?

Palomides 10 minutes ago|

imx8 chips generally have good upstream linux support and are easy to work with

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