First days with the MNT Pocket Reform
Last year, I joined the crowdfunding campaign for a neat little 7-inch, open hardware laptop called the MNT Pocket Reform. After much anticipation, I finally got it in the mail a couple days ago, and absolutely love it so far. Here are some first impressions.
Why this device
As someone who uses computers every day for work and life, I’ve gone through many devices over the years. I’ve taken old ones apart when I was young just to see how they worked, upgraded others, and kept others nice and sealed up so I could just use the thing.
I was interested in the Pocket Reform because I wanted an ultra-portable device with a real keyboard that I could take with me on a day out in the city or an extended trip into the woods, and always be within reach of my business — communicating with customers, accessing servers, or doing some emergency bug squashing. (Plus I still miss my circa-2010, 10-inch netbook from college, may it rest in peace.)
These days, I don’t tinker with the inside of computers unless I absolutely have to. It can be fun, but I mostly need them to just work, and I don’t want to have to send them off if something fails.
The Pocket Reform really has me covered here, since it works almost perfectly out of the box, and is very friendly if I need to open it up, due to its open hardware design. This is a tinkerer’s dream device, but it still works great for me as someone who doesn’t want to get too into the weeds, hardware-wise.
Starting up
For me, this was useful right away. To first turn the device on after getting it, you need to slide a switch in a tiny slot with a tiny pin, such as a SIM card ejector. I didn’t have one laying around, but I did have some screwdrivers. So I just removed two screws on a side panel and flipped the switch with my finger. If this wasn’t a device meant for modification, this would’ve been much more tedious.
Otherwise, it took only a little bit of futzing with things to get my new Pocket Reform working.
I actually had to flip the power switch twice to get it to boot up. The first time, only the system controller screen turned on, and I thought the device was just broken. But once I eventually reset the switch again and it started up, I was immediately impressed. The screen is bright and clear, and the backlit keyboard brilliantly came to life.
I went through the nice setup wizard that MNT put together, setting my timezone and default desktop environment. However, none of the settings I chose actually stuck — my clock was still on Berlin time instead of New York, and the default desktop environment wasn’t the one I selected. So I spent about 10 minutes Googling and digging into the command-line to change the timezone, as I couldn’t find a graphical interface for changing it, either. I’m sure this will be a minor pain whenever I travel, but it’s nothing I’m not used to as a Linux user 😅.
Setting up
Overall, it was easy to get my normal apps installed and my settings set. This isn’t a fault with the device itself, but I only ran into problems with my preferred browser, Vivaldi. When I started it up, the screen started glitching out. I didn’t know what the cause was — maybe the device, or the desktop environment. I eventually narrowed it down to Vivaldi’s lack of Wayland support, and found this reddit thread, which only partially fixed it.
So I exported everything from Vivaldi and decided to just stick with Firefox, which works flawlessly.
Wi-Fi
From reading the MNT forums over the last few months, I knew about the dreaded Wi-Fi issues. And within about 30 minutes of booting up the device, I encountered this too. The connection dropped, reconnected, stayed dropped. Another time after booting, it didn’t connect at all.
When it is connected, the fastest speeds I’ve seen are around 800kbps, so the internet feels a bit like being back in rural Virginia on DSL again. But it doesn’t bug me too much, as long as I can actually connect to the internet. (Maybe I can improve the experience for Write.as users with slow internet connections, thanks to this device.)
Recent firmware and kernel updates seem to have improved stability just slightly, and MNT has released a new Wi-Fi card and antenna to address this. But I’m not excited to shell out more money / risk more issues for such basic functionality. So for now, I’ll endure and just hope for the best.
Batteries
This is the first laptop I’ve owned that charges with USB-C, so I didn’t have the right adapter when the device arrived. Still, I was able to charge it a bit with my Nintendo Switch power adapter, and then bought a proper 30W charger to use permanently.
Using that, I was able to get the batteries up to 67% on the first “full” charge. Then after fully discharging and charging up again, based on other users’ advice, it hit 100% — no problem!
One nice thing about the Pocket Reform is that you can see your battery status without booting it up, thanks to the microcontroller screen. I regularly use this to see if I need to charge up before going out.
Suspend
My only last complaint was the lack of a suspend capability. Apparently there are a few issues preventing this from working. But for now, I’m fine shutting down every time I’m done using the Pocket for a bit, or at least dimming the screen and keyboard to save some juice.
Everyday use (the good stuff)
Some of these things are to be expected with a hacker-friendly device like this. But the joy of using it daily has vastly outweighed any initial issues.
The device
The Pocket Reform is really a beautiful device. It’s thick and hefty, but really solidly built. I worry much less about breaking it (for example) than I would my flimsy smartphone, or even my normal ThinkPad. The hinge holds the screen firmly at any angle, and it all snaps together with a satisfying thunk. Some solid engineering has gone into this thing, and it shows from the second you see it.
Keyboard
Despite its small size, the keyboard is such a joy to use. I went with the Choc White keys, which are so satisfyingly clicky. They have way more travel than what you’d find on most modern laptops, which also makes it pleasant to type on. The keyboard backlight is easy to adjust by pressing Hyper and scrolling the trackball, and I find myself regularly changing the color to match my mood.
I’m used to an ortholinear keyboard layout, since I normally use an Advantage Kinesis keyboard on my desktop machine. But I’ve had a little trouble adjusting to the compacted keyboard layout, which is most problematic when working in the terminal. For example, the up-arrow key on the Pocket is where you’d normally find the forward slash (/) key on a standard keyboard, so I’m regularly hitting the wrong key when typing out a file path, for example. And the right-pinky key on the Pocket is the single-quote key instead of semicolon, which is constantly messing me up when trying to exit Vim.
I’ve read it’s possible to change the keyboard layout, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. For now, I just have to think harder while typing and live without that crucial muscle memory while on the device.
Trackball
The Pocket Reform uses a trackball for pointing, and it’s a real joy to use as well. It’s smooth, and even a little more enjoyable to use than my ThinkPad’s Trackpoint nub. My only complaint is how close it is to the bottom edge of the device, especially when working with the device on my lap, but this is very minor.
Daily use
I’ve used the Pocket Reform every single day since I got it. Put simply, I love it.
I regularly keep it next to my couch while I’m out of my home office or watching TV, and already took it out for a night at my weekly writing group (where they all were intrigued by this funky little computer I opened up at the bar).
As I mentioned in the beginning, I really wanted a portable device with a real keyboard — and the Pocket Reform perfectly meets my expectations. From my couch, I can casually open it up and respond to some forum posts or fire off a quick email — all things that are painful to do on a phone. I can moderate Read Write.as, and access our servers. Out in the world, I can do some writing here on Write.as — the editor already looks great on its tiny screen — or do a little coding.
The constraints of the device itself are also helpful in some unexpected ways. Because of how small it is, I find myself being able to focus on the task at hand better. While I have probably 250 tabs open on my desktop computer, I’ll open no more than 6 or so on my Pocket Reform, and close them as soon as I’m done with them. I don’t waste my time scrolling articles or social media unless I need to. And since I have to shut the device down every time I take a break, I don’t open needless apps I’m not immediately using. It’s a calmer experience overall, even as a fully-capable computer.
My favorite part of the Pocket Reform has been how it replaces my smartphone for many of the things I need to do on a daily basis. I can better respond to Write.as customers, since I don’t have to slap my thumbs on a lifeless touchscreen to type out a message. I can research things across the web with the quickness you only get with a multi-input device like this. I can build and modify my software no matter where I am. And I can take it with me everywhere I go, just like I do with my phone. But beyond that, I can rest easy knowing this is an open, hackable device that will last me for many years.
Overall, I’m extremely pleased with the Pocket Reform, even after using it for just a few days. @mntmn@mastodon.social and the MNT Research team have done an incredible job putting this together and getting it out to everyone. Though this is my first experience with their work, I’m already an instant fan, and I look forward to what they come out with in the future.