I once had a chance to be among the first people using a Loongson laptop, but I let it slip. Later, when Loongson was clearing out that batch of laptops on its official site for a mere 300 yuan, I didn’t bite either — and then that batch went up in price because it was the same model Stallman used. Kind of absurd. But given how RAM prices have shot up, upgrading a computer with a new machine is basically hopeless now, so I figured I’d mess around with Xinchuang and get ready for the day domestic hardware takes over my workplace. Maybe all these weird things I’m tinkering with now will be what I have to use at work. If I have to try it eventually, might as well try it early. So a while back, with a friend’s help, I got my hands on a Loongson laptop — the kind with the most stock and the hottest demand on secondhand marketplaces right now. The machine is brand new: 3A6000 + 16G + 512G. The manufacturer is Chengmai, though the seller said, “They’re all made by Chengmai, I’ve got several brands stickered on the back here, which one do you want?” In the end I picked the one with a dragon on the back — at least it can be compared to Apple…

As a longtime ThinkPad user, I’d always stuck with the X1 Carbon series, and I’d always felt the Carbon deserved its flagship status. But as time went on and the nature of my work changed, my demands for performance kept climbing. The thing is, the X1 Carbon is fundamentally a thin-and-light, so its performance ceiling is very limited — and, absurdly, the battery capacity isn’t great either. That eternal 57Wh (I hear they bumped it to 58Wh in 2026) means that aside from being light and thin, both battery life and performance are pretty mediocre. It just wasn’t meeting my needs anymore. So after watching and waiting for nearly a year, I finally saw off the absurd MTL architecture and welcomed the TSMC-powered ARL-H. I picked up the ThinkPad T14p Gen 3 with integrated graphics — the so-called “China-exclusive pocket rocket” — in the U285H + 6400 high-frequency DDR5 64G memory configuration. I ran the numbers and buying the RAM myself would actually cost more than paying the upgrade premium, so I just went all the way. I’ve been using the machine for nearly a year now. Feels like if I don’t say something soon, Panther Lake will be out. So let me just jot down some impressions here.

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

Last time I mentioned I bought an RK3588 laptop. It used a no-name OEM chassis, but the overall experience still beat my expectations. I also mentioned that the laptop had a few shortcomings, and fixing them would be a huge improvement: Fast typing on the keyboard causes double presses (probably a chassis issue) Battery capacity isn’t big enough Build quality is a bit poor, the whole body is plastic Only one USB-A port Too much empty space inside So is there an RK3588 laptop that solves all those pain points? Yes, there is, my friend, there absolutely is.

Around May last year I was thinking about replacing the laptop I’d been using for over three years. Unfortunately, the only new stuff out at the time was either a Ryzen 7840HS with mediocre Linux support, or the new Intel Meteor Lake ThinkPads. Even though going from an 11th-gen chip to Meteor Lake would have been a big jump, Meteor Lake barely improved over the previous generation — it even regressed in places — so I decided to wait it out. While waiting, I stumbled onto this “Chinese-made laptop,” the Cool-Pi CM5 Laptop. ARM architecture, RK3588, native Linux support, 32GB of RAM, hard drive expansion, and interest-free installments on the Tmall store. I thought about it and figured I’d play with it for a bit. Ended up buying one.

A while back I wanted to get my dad a computer so he could chat on Discord and check stocks. I originally planned to pick up a ThinkPad and upgrade it myself, but then I spotted something unexpected on Xianyu: DELL Latitude 7370 Intel Core M5-6Y57 8G RAM 256G SSD The seller said it was in 9/10 condition and wanted 900 yuan, shipping included. By any reasonable measure, 900 yuan is a bit much for this. But I looked closely at the screen and asked the seller what the resolution was. Turns out the seller didn’t even know how to check… So I tried a different angle: is the screen a touchscreen? The seller said yes, it’s touch. That’s when things got interesting. On the DELL Latitude 7370, a touchscreen version can only mean one thing: the same 3K wide-gamut touch panel as the top-spec XPS 13. If it really was that screen… then 900 yuan is a fair price, because the screen alone is worth more than 500.

I actually got this thing back in December, having joined the whole pre-order process, and later got kicked out of the Discord group by GPD’s marketing guy “Old Zhu” (real name Zhu Kaihui, overseas ID: Kendyzhu). I was so pissed off at the time I thought about making a video to fire back, because this asshole is just that repulsive, and he’s even cultivated some asshole lackeys. But after half a year of learning about other manufacturers (AYN, AYA, Anbernic) and seeing the state of the whole industry, I figure Zhu Kaihui might not even be the biggest asshole out there. Thought about it and let it go. So here I’ll just briefly go over the pros and cons of this product, plus my personal views on GPD, including some thoughts and advice on the so-called “Win handheld” market as a whole. Around September 2021, GPD revealed design sketches of the next Pocket series product, the Pocket 3. Along with their constipation-like “leaks,” the product’s appearance became clearer and clearer — basically an enhanced GPD Micro PC with better performance, a bigger screen, a new manufacturing process, and a rotating screen.

My old laptop was gone, so I decided to buy a new one. And since I was buying new, I figured I’d stick with the X1 Carbon line—especially since around Chinese New Year there were rumors that this generation would bring a ton of great changes. Sure enough, right around the holiday, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon 9th was officially announced: a brand-new 4K screen, a new 16:10 aspect ratio, better speakers, a bigger battery, a beefier Iris integrated GPU, and a shorter key travel. Overall it still looked way better than the old versions—at the very least, that screen alone was worth bragging about. So I decided to go for it.

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: I picked up a Pinebook Pro back around 2019. I vaguely remember the other machine I was fiddling with at the time was a Chuwi Minibook. Nearly a year and a half went by and the Pinebook Pro spent most of it collecting dust, until my ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2017 went missing a while back. I really had no computer to use, so I dug it out and used it as my “main machine” for a stretch. And honestly, when the Pinebook Pro first launched, the ecosystem around it was pretty incomplete (though already a big step up from the old Pinebook). Now that I have a new temporary main laptop, I can set the Pinebook Pro aside for the time being. The days of using it were an interesting and painful memory, but it was also a chance to seriously try out this “open-source Arm Linux laptop” and see its strengths and weaknesses. So I figure I’ve earned the right to give it a subjective review here.