I’m a remote worker and I depend on my technology for my success whether I’m going to a customer site, Starbucks, or vacation. In recent years I transitioned from and thru… Apple laptops, Dell+Ubuntu, ChromeBox, back to Apple, ChromeBook, Ubuntu desktop, Pop OS desktop… There was a short time when I was running an OpenBSD desktop when my Ubuntu desktop SSD crashed. So I have had a wide swath of hardware.
Pop OS now waiting for what’s next
My travel bag now includes 3 different ChromeBooks, 4 different external displays, and one Android tablet.
It runs Android OS 16. This machine is all about running media consumption apps. I’m writing this post using a ssh client but it’s crap. The mouse input and app navigation is sloppy. The keyboard is somewhat awkward. But it has great speakers. But it seems to support WiFi 6. Again to the benefit of media consumption.
CRAP. One of the things I forgot about is that the keyboard does not have an escape key so I have to use Ctrl+[. What a pain. The key in the escape location is a BACK key. Not helpful at all.
I really like the feel of the keyboard. The screen is a nice dimension(I think it’s 4x3). The fingerprint reader makes sleep times better. The wifi does seem to support 5G but it’s a wierd 5G which not all of my travel routers support. At 2.5G the ssh client is a little laggy. It is a 4 core i7 processor with 16GB ram. I assume the RAM is mostly cache but ChromeOS does not provide that info. While EOL(end of life) is in 2027 this machine rarely updates although it’s been updated to 125. Wall power requires heavy wattage. The speakers are passable.
The cost of the Slate was around $1000.
The screen size is generally close to the Slate but more retangular and not touch. The keyboard is less precise. There is no fingerprint reader. The CPU is an arm with 8 cores. And 8GB RAM. I’ve used it in the past and it works ok. The wifi is much more forgiving and compared to the slate on 5G is slightly more responsive.
With a second display plugged in, running youtube, and an ssh terminal to an ssh server… COG showed 2 of the 8 cores ar 50% and the terminal was still snappy.
The cost of the Duet was about $400.
This machine is an 8 Core Ryzen 7 with 16GB RAM but the design is so old that the machine studders even though the COG indicates it’s basically idle. Has a fingerprint reader, touch screen and a pen. I’ve never used the pen.. The screen is bright. The wifi support 5G.
The cost of the ThinkPad was about $1200.
My Ideas for a travel lab were born from an experience when my Apple laptop battery swelled preventing the mouse from functioning. [a] I was concerned about the data on my computer because it was not encrypted [b] the loaner from my customer was an encrypted Dell running Ubuntu [c] customization was a productivity killer. Here is my list of features…
The Slate 5G support was an error. The travel router was too close to the Slate and that prevented the slate from connecting. It’s connected now and working great.