you'd think that with today's technology, it would be easy to construct an old-style, modernized laptop. but it isn't

gregarious canid. avatar by ISANANIKA.
you'd think that with today's technology, it would be easy to construct an old-style, modernized laptop. but it isn't
every attempt ive seen is an underpowered sbc wedded to an ungainly “compact” but much too thick chassis for the price of a macbook, and its upsetting tbh! and a lot of portable SOCs that are good enough are poorly supported even when its intel or amd. frustrating
this. I don't want an MNT Reform or a Novena. I don't want a raspberry pi or i.MX or some RISC-V FPGA shit.
I especially don't care that it's "fropen source" or "pee software" or "gah-NOO leenucks Respects Your Freedumb Certified:tm: by the Pee Somewhere Foundation"
I want a Dell Latitude CP120 chassis, keyboard and trackball with an AMD Zen 2. I want the Framework Laptop board in a laptop that isn't the Framework Laptop. I want the Steam Deck board in a handheld that isn't the Steam Deck.
And I want it to be sub-$500, even excluding the motherboard in question. I'm not paying $1499 for a nine year old "barely ARMv8" CPU intended for set-top boxes and industrial controls.
I wonder how possible it would be to just buy a steam deck and an old laptop, and stuff the guts of the former into the shell of the latter, connected to its screen, keyboard etc
it is within human capability to make a laptop that doesn't creak and shift when you pick it up