Comment by bartread
8 hours ago
> It's an awful piece of shit and I love it.
I think, realistically, the issues the author describes - particularly with the keyboard and trackpad - would drive me up the wall for any kind of serious use.
But then, if you're travelling on holiday, do you really want serious use? I like your rationale of taking something that's bad enough that you won't want to use it but you have something if you really need it even if it didn't quite work out that way for you.
And, apart from theft, and depending on where I'm travelling, maybe a cheap device that I don't mind the authorities rifling through the storage of wouldn't be such a bad thing. Like I don't necessarily want $RANDOM_CUSTOMS_PERSON_IN_SOME_COUNTRY to have access to my bank statements, account details, or to get into my social media accounts, or whatever.
And it would be nice not to have to worry about any of that stuff if the machine did get stolen (sure, the drive on my main laptop is encrypted, but physical access is always a massive force multiplier when trying to gain access to a system or its contents).
I've been to a lot of countries (and thus through a lot of customs agents), the most they ever ask me to do, if anything at all, is turn the laptop on. I think the point is they want to make sure it's an actual laptop and not just a shell hiding something else. I've never had an agent touch my machine or show any interest in doing so, and I say that as someone who gets the extra searches often because I carry a lot of odd looking parts and small tools for work. Just pointing that out because I think the paranoia about what customs agents are allowed to do is a bit overblown unless you're suspected of smuggling or transporting something nefarious. They're not interested in what's on your laptop until you give them a reason to be.
I almost got denied boarding for a EU -> US flight ~13 years ago because the TSA agent at the gate noticed my 2011 MBP had 2 screws missing on the bottom panel (I've opened it up a bunch of times and lost some screws in the process). It didn't convince them that I turned it on and logged in etc. They still had doubts because, apparently, missing screws on a macbook was unheard of.. in the end, they held up the plane for ~10 mins due to waiting for a go/no-go decision via phone from some decision maker at the airline (as the final call was apparently theirs to make for some reason). Luckily, they were OK with missing screws and I was let on board.
I think it probably depends where you're going. We have relatives in a country where it might be a bit more of a concern, and we did briefly research taking a trip there to visit them, which is when all of this came up. In the end, for a variety of reasons, we decided it was going to be too risky to take that trip unless and until conditions change.
There are many countries where I wouldn't be at all worried about that, but I'd still be concerned about the possibility of theft (which, let's be real, can happen anywhere: I went on a trip to Switzerland once - generally considered very safe and low crime - where somebody had their laptop stolen from their room).
> the issues the author describes - particularly with the keyboard and trackpad
I don't have the same problems with my model, possibly theirs is bad. I don't like that the keyboard is teeny and in the ANSI layout but I got used to it.
The trackpad isn't great but that's just yet another reason to avoid using the mouse and do everything with the keyboard.
That being said, I would never use it for fulltime use. I'm not even using it to type this message even though it's right next to me. I use it while travelling and it remains off at all other times.
> "I think, realistically, the issues the author describes - particularly with the keyboard and trackpad - would drive me up the wall for any kind of serious use."
Me too. But the tray table compatibility resonates. I had hoped someone would build a modern netbook as a detachable focused on productivity and light gaming (say, Steamdeck class), maintainability and (modular) expandability; a modern road warrior that's also a nice hobbyist machine that stands some abuse. Framework was/is positioned to put something out, but they decided to release the F-12 instead.
I mean for the price I can get used thinkpads (and replace the battery if needed) and not have to deal with the crappy parts - I only have to deal with older parts.