It’s a novel idea. But despite the article’s claims this is not a practical alternative to a laptop in planes, coffee shops, etc. Nor is a minipc inherently more serviceable than a laptop as others have pointed out.
For traveling, if it’s a longer trip, it almost makes sense to me as you’d have it set up for a while. Though I’d do a mini ITX system. The ones with external power supplies and no drive bays or expansion slots are pretty small. But even then, I don’t feel like this would be significantly better than a laptop. And that’s a lot to buy for a niche use case.
I’ve looked at this before and I agree that mini-ITX is probably the most realistic. You want to look hard for a small mini-ITX case. Though even that isn’t that small. I think that you could maybe save some space — the mini-ITX power supply pushes the case size out in one dimension, so there’s probably some unused internal volume – if you could stick components, like the HMD, into part of what would normally be airspace interior to the case.
You wouldn’t use a typical SFX power supply for something where size matters; you’d likely use a Flex PSU, which are often long and thin. If you got a lower-power CPU with integrated graphics, you could manage a case that’s not much bigger than the motherboard or much thicker than the IO shroud.
Lemmy doesn’t have a lot of SFF or Ultra SFF content yet, but getting the most out of limited space is definitely a thing people are into, and they can get quite creative.
The final product is often portable but still rarely as tiny as a mini PC or NUC-like. Depending on your needs, someone might be better off making a Steam Brick.
It’s a novel idea. But despite the article’s claims this is not a practical alternative to a laptop in planes, coffee shops, etc. Nor is a minipc inherently more serviceable than a laptop as others have pointed out.
For traveling, if it’s a longer trip, it almost makes sense to me as you’d have it set up for a while. Though I’d do a mini ITX system. The ones with external power supplies and no drive bays or expansion slots are pretty small. But even then, I don’t feel like this would be significantly better than a laptop. And that’s a lot to buy for a niche use case.
Edit: spelling and grammar
I’ve looked at this before and I agree that mini-ITX is probably the most realistic. You want to look hard for a small mini-ITX case. Though even that isn’t that small. I think that you could maybe save some space — the mini-ITX power supply pushes the case size out in one dimension, so there’s probably some unused internal volume – if you could stick components, like the HMD, into part of what would normally be airspace interior to the case.
You wouldn’t use a typical SFX power supply for something where size matters; you’d likely use a Flex PSU, which are often long and thin. If you got a lower-power CPU with integrated graphics, you could manage a case that’s not much bigger than the motherboard or much thicker than the IO shroud.
Lemmy doesn’t have a lot of SFF or Ultra SFF content yet, but getting the most out of limited space is definitely a thing people are into, and they can get quite creative.
The final product is often portable but still rarely as tiny as a mini PC or NUC-like. Depending on your needs, someone might be better off making a Steam Brick.