Foreword： A while back I got bored and decided I needed a computer, a “tinkering” toy, with two main goals: Try out the latest system updates — an aggressive platform Try out all kinds of new distros After weighing things back and forth, my requirements for this device gradually became clear: It has to be cheap, the cheaper the better, and the specs as high as possible Ideally it supports various form factors — a keyboard, a touchscreen, and Linux-friendly. I mainly use Linux, since I’m already tired of Windows Durable and light, because after testing I’ll usually just toss it in a corner to gather dust Ideally some expandability and serviceability, like a ThinkPad Occasionally usable for emergency work — the kind of thing you can toss anywhere without feeling bad

Preface: Retro handhelds (open-source handhelds) have been kind of popular these past few years. I’ve bought and sold a few myself. Honestly, before this I was just following the crowd — I barely played any games on them, it was more about messing with the hardware. Lately I’ve been thinking about settling down and actually playing something seriously, so I started wondering whether I should put together a “handheld” that genuinely fits my needs. So after a whole bunch of tinkering, I ended up with a result I’m reasonably happy with. I figured I’d write it up and share it with anyone who’s had the same idea, in the hope it helps or gives some inspiration.

Preface: my history of buying Windows handhelds The first Windows handheld I bought was probably back in 2015 — also the industry’s first Windows handheld, the first-generation GPD Win. I backed it on Indiegogo. Honestly, I knew it was made by a company in Shenzhen, China, but I had no idea it would later go on sale in the domestic market. I paid in converted USD, and the shipping date was half a year out. What happened next a lot of people probably know already: GPD brought the machine into mainland China, put it up for preorder on JD.com, created a Discord group, and kicked off all kinds of shameless marketing. I was in the first batch of people to join the Discord group, and I even added the two founders on Discord — one was “Wangcai,” the other “Lao Zhu.” I told them I was an Indiegogo backer but physically in mainland China, so could they just ship domestically. Lao Zhu said no problem, and sent it by SF Express. The machine arrived quickly and I wrote a short review. I was actually fairly satisfied with it — mainly because it was small and had everything you’d expect. There were some QC issues, but nothing major. What dissatisfied me most was the screen’s severe color shift, basically no calibration, and the low resolution — a lot of Galgame couldn’t show the full picture. Later I backed the first-generation GPD Pocket. That product’s build quality was far better than the Win’s: all-metal body, genuinely nice to use as a tiny computer. But I have to say, for performance’s sake GPD set very aggressive power limits on many of its products, which made battery life pretty poor. After that I went on to buy GPD Pocket 2 MAX, Chuwi minibook, GPD Pocket 3, and recently even picked up an Ayaneo Air Plus at a low price… So I’ve used a fair number of portable Windows devices, and they always had something unsatisfying. Even with the GPD Win, I never actually finished a single game on it — too hot, battery life too bad, and too much fiddling required. Many times I’d spend a whole day getting one game to run, and by the time it worked I’d lost interest in playing. There was a time I thought Windows handhelds — or X86 handhelds in general — would just always be like this. Then I met the Steam Deck, and it got me to finish several AAA titles, even got me willing to spend a decent chunk of money buying games on Steam. It also cemented one belief and opinion of mine: The Steam Deck is currently the only X86 handheld worth buying.

When I got sent to the quarantine facility, I brought my Switch, and that’s where I wrecked the sticks on the thing… The clips that hold the left and right sticks in place also went bad — the sticks wouldn’t stay put, one push and they’d pop up. So I figured I’d just replace them, and in for a penny, in for a pound: the left and right stick clips, the console’s own battery, and the sticks themselves all got swapped. You can buy all of this on Taobao: Rail clips — there are metal versions now, and I strongly recommend the metal ones, they’re just sturdier Sticks — there are second-gen ones, plus the newly released GuliKit Hall effect ones. If you’ve got the money I’d go Hall, but remember: the point of a Hall stick is that it massively cuts the odds of drift, not that it feels good Battery — I couldn’t tell which was the real “official” one, so I just bought the highest-selling listing The screwdrivers for teardown usually come free

Everyone knows my main machine used to be an X1 Carbon 2017. Unfortunately, I lost it earlier this year. After that, my wife was actually on board with me buying a new one, but the X1 Carbon 2021 was about to launch and the rumors said it was a big upgrade — new 16:10 screen, better GPU and CPU performance. So I decided to wait. But while waiting, I still needed a laptop to get work done. So I started looking: Performance has to be passable Keyboard has to at least be usable Screen at least 1080p, color gamut can’t be terrible Strong battery life Build quality as good as possible

Preface: My workplace just moved to a new office, and during the move my old computer stopped turning on. It was an ancient AMD machine anyway, slower than today’s low-voltage Celerons, and I’d wanted to replace it for a while — so this was a good excuse to put together something new. But at work my desk space is limited, and there’s no room under the desk for a tower either, so the “new computer” had some requirements: It has to take up very little space Within that footprint, as much performance as possible It has to run Win10 without issues As cheap as possible — under 1000 ideally After looking around, the Lenovo M73 that was popular a while back turned out to be a pretty good choice. After a bunch of research I decided to jump in.

Generally speaking, putting a tempered glass protector on a laptop is a dumb idea, unless your laptop is a tablet 2-in-1 or has a touchscreen. After all, the laptop screen doesn’t really come into contact with anything, and closing the lid protects it too, so why would you ever need a protector? Even if it gets dirty, just wipe it off, right? Well, lately I’ve come to feel that was naive of me. After more than a year of using mine, I personally strongly recommend putting a tempered glass protector on your laptop, especially if it’s a ThinkPad X1C series. Don’t laugh, I’m serious.

I bought a Retro Game handheld a while back and it felt pretty good, but something was always missing. Even after updating to the foreign custom firmware, plenty of rough edges remained — short standby time, an ugly look, that sort of thing. The guy behind that firmware has released a new build, possibly the true final version this time. Flashed it and it’s actually decent. Also took the chance to dress the thing up a bit, and I’m liking it more and more.

I bought this purely to save a buck… Think about it — 199 yuan. Even just a hard drive enclosure costs about that much, so it’s a win.

I bought a Raspberry Pi before, left it powered on for half a year, and then it just up and died for no reason… Once it died I had no idea how to fix it, and I don’t think it was covered by any warranty, so it just sat there collecting dust. Recently, for certain reasons, I needed a small computer to use as a server. Originally I was thinking of buying one of those recycled thin clients, but with electronics you always buy new rather than old. The server didn’t need high performance anyway, so I just went with the newer Raspberry Pi. The latest Raspberry Pi: Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ . Compared with the previous version, the CPU is improved and the network card performance is expanded—it’s now a gigabit NIC! Sure, it’s still routed through the USB bus, but that’s better than not having it, right? The price was fairly low when I got it, and Taobao has all sorts of cheap bundles—basically a simple case and a simple heatsink, but that’s about enough. Actually, when I bought the Raspberry Pi 3, I somehow ended up contacting the Chinese general distributor. This time the distributor just ignored me, saying they don’t accept retail and telling me to find their sub-sellers on Taobao, so I had no choice but to buy on Taobao. It even came with a case that looked like a big gift pack.