Originally published at: Useful guide to small laptops | Boing Boing
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A bit of simpering praise for Herr Doktor Beschizza, but i really appreciate the excellent tech scouting --Thankee! [pull-o-forelock]
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While I like the idea of a subminiature laptop (and once owned the HP LX200 palmtop), the 7" GPD Pocket 2 forced me to admit my age and fading eyesight make anything less than 12 inches impractical
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Looks cool, and good storage and RAM specs, but I avoid anything with a Celeron. I like my programs to load today. 
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I wonder if such minibooks suffer the same fate as the tiny iPhones: essential for a vocal minority, but said minority isn’t large enough to sustain a quality market.
(Apple only makes the smaller phones every few years because that’s enough to saturate the market, and otherwise they can’t apply their economies of scale)
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Chuwi you say…?
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Recently picked up a 2015 Air for a travel machine and secondary video recording setup — upgradeable/replaceable SSD but fixed memory. Was able to install Ventura with Open Core Legacy Patcher, and it looks like Sonoma will work as well.
About $300. 100% worth it.
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Chuwi
I owned a Chuwi laptop for a short while, and it was atrocious.
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I’ve got an RCA Cambio that I got pre-pandemic. Underpowered, but good enough for a Scrivener install. Still works like a champ.
Amazon has one used for twice what I paid for it new. Go figure.
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It was missing the 0 in the original quote and I just pasted it in. I thought I’d noted the error in brackets, though.
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I read the words but don’t understand. This Open Core Legacy Patcher of which you speak, is that a way to breathe life into old machines? Should I ask a tech to do it for me?
Assuming yes and probably (as I’m so dim as to have to ask these questions), do you think of this BB offering will require the same upgrade/conversion?
An old MB Pro would be handy for web surfing and music playing. Also, I have a circa 2010 iMac 27" that could be useful if updatable.
Can’t tell from the ad. If it’s one model it’ll sort of support Ventura and Sonoma, with some bugs. If it’s a different model, it’ll work perfectly.
The 2010 iMac definitely isn’t going to go to Ventura as-is. There’s a link off the Open Core Patcher site for upgrading the graphics card, which would indeed get you up to Sonoma, but it’s not an easy job, and if you’re not already at ease taking Macs apart, you’d probably want to enlist help for that.
You should probably be able to run BIg Sur on it, though.
Generally speaking it is not hard to do this, but I would recommend the following:
- full backup with Carbon Copy Cloner to an external drive so you have a bootable external disk. Worst case if it doesn’t work, you can restore the disk from backup.
- Mr.Macintosh has pointers to download the installers, which you’ll need.
Basically you download and run the patcher, then download and run the installer. You shouldn’t have to do much else.
If I was buying a machine now, I’d try for something about 2015 vintage, but not the 2015 MacBook, be cause it and the machines after that until 2020 have the butterfly keyboards that kept failing.
If you are considering buying an older machine, find out what About This Macintosh… says the model is, and then check it against Supported Models | OpenCore Legacy Patcher, which has the full list of supported machines.
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Alternatively
^one of these can get you old laptop running on Chrome OS Flex or Linux Mint by following a few instructions online after Windows starts crawling at a snail’s pace.
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