I am just curious to know if there will be any future plan to make a full size laptop on these boards? From what I think, as a linux user we need more of Arm Devices to play around and bring it to the mainstream use.
I am not sure about the commercial side of this advice but, I am sure it will be a good kickstart with full fledge arm laptop with linux pre-loaded for basic users as well as developers.
I now use it for that goal.
I’ve got a 13.3" display that’s powered with 5V and has speakers. I use big powerbanks for it(26 800Mah from RavPower), and Rii i8 keyboard, or a small keyboard without numpad.
For years I’ve used the Odroid C2 for this. It kept being the best for this since its low power consumption, very fast at 1.75Ghz, doesn’t need active cooling, stable 5V power delivery, great performance per watt,…
The VIM3 is the first one that does as good or better in all those things.
So indeed it is perfect for a laptop.
The PineBook Pro is going to be released soon. It’s got the RK3399. But that SoC consumes a lot more for a lot less performance.
Greetings.
Wow. I was planning something like this. But i found it to be cumbersome to maintain pieces.
Id be happy to see what you’ve build. I need an entact laptop with arm soc. I can try something with actual laptop casing and add the components.
Mine doesn’t look good.
I first used a 7" display and a breadbox to put it all in.
Now I just use a carton box for the big screen. I’m planning to make a good case for it.
But I was always getting new boards, and made new plans. Now I’ll stick with the VIM3.
The case is also great for this goal.
Here a picture of my first one when it was new.
I use my SBC’s to edit and render my travel videos, and to watch movies or play games when traveling. (of course at home for many other goals too)
I charge my power banks with solar panels. So that’s why the low power consumption at such a performance of the VIM3 is just amazing for me.
Which os do you use on vim3?
Ubuntu server on eMMC with the mate and the lxde desktop installed. (depends on what task, if I need more memory I use lxde…)
I’m waiting for Armbian to have the correct cpu frequency for the big cores. Then I’ll use that.
Otherwise it’s ready, but at the performance of the Odroid N2. And that ain’t bad either.
They did do a great job with the images. I test many new SBC’s, and rarely have found so little issues. Made my work a lot easier.
@NicoD is a trail blazer 
There’s this trend in China now, to make these tiny x86 netbooks - they run Win10 for the mass market.
I’ve always wanted a (well-made + inexpensive) linux laptop running on ARM, because it would be so much cooler (temperature), and quieter (fanless). However right now, the only alternatives are something like a Android Tab (which you can hack to run linux, well not that great), Chromebook (expensive and not very useful), or Ubuntu installed on something like a Dell XPS (also expensive, and x86).
However, I have a feeling that inexpensive linux-ARM laptop-like devices may be just around the corner. It seems to make sense to me, assuming the target market is large enough for the manufacturers to spend money on writing drivers and tooling.
