Seems like no stylus? If so it makes the starlite not very surface-like in my mind. Ain’t a stylus the reason for something like this?
Ah damn yeah, I was just thinking that this device might be something I’d consider blowing my budget for, if it can replace multiple devices. But the lack of stylus on a device like this is huge let down.
How hard would it be to make it work with a third party stylus?
It depends.
You can basically always use the crappy ones made for general touchscreens to replicate your finger. You can’t use a real one with features like Apple Pencil/surface pen/wacom without an extra layer built into the screen to recognize them.
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Interesting. You’d think they’d make that obvious somewhere.
FWIW, my daily driver is a Lenovo Yoga with Ubuntu and the active pen works just fine with that. That support is definitely there.
it wouldn’t be hard at all you just buy a stylus that works like a finger
With the catch that it works like a finger meaning fat and imprecise. A stylus like the surface has is more like a pen and needs hardware in the tablet to function.
Did you ever use the Nvidia Shield Tablet stylus? It was a very thin and precise passive stylus that worked on any touch screen. It was pretty nice. They probably only sold a handful of them, so there was no gen 2. I happen to know someone who was working on that project, so they let me play with it.
maybe 10 years ago
Not really. I’ve got a cheap stylus for my phone that acts like a pen, down to drawing fine lines too. It can’t adjust the thickness of the line based on pressure, like my Wacom pad and pen for the PC, but for most things it works brilliantly :)
My thoughts exactly.
I have a surface and I love it. At the same time, I hardly use the stylus.
I’m sure it’s the reason many get it, but I also think there’s a large audience for a tablet without one.
I genuinely dont see the reason for a windows tablet without a stylus. Note-taking is nice with a stylus but for just holding it and watching videos or browsing a surface is honestly too unwieldly and the windows touch interface is also not great.
They do have a generic MPP active pen as a configuration option though
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I’m not sure on Starlab’s background or people’s stance on them, but I think this looks pretty nice.
Coreboot, 3:2 aspect ratio, magnetic keyboard, aluminium finish, I’d say makes this a pretty compelling alternative to a surface. Specs aren’t super beefy, but I don’t think they need to be in this form factor. Introductory price on this seems nice, too.
I’d say makes this a pretty compelling alternative to a surface.
And like a Surface, it puts a desktop OS onto a tablet, basically repeating Microsoft’s mistake.
Specs aren’t super beefy, but I don’t think they need to be in this form factor.
There’s a difference between “not beefy” and a super crappy 1.00GHz Intel N200. A hardware OEM just needs to go to AMD and pick off the shelf whatever is the closest thing to Steam Deck’s CPU.
Desktop OS on a tablet is fine and even preferred depending on what you want it for.
I have a surface and don’t mind using full windows that way.
Desktop OS on a tablet is fine and even preferred depending on what you want it for.
If the use case is to use a tablet as a tablet, then a desktop OS is not fine. Source: Me and my Surface Pro 7 which is unusable without the type cover.
Gnome shell works well on my vivo as either a tablet or with the keyboard.
Well, presumably the Linux apps are a feature for the target audience. In terms of the OS UX itself, if you had never seen GNOME before, would you call it a desktop or a tablet UI?
Well the desktop OS is what made me choose a Surface Go 1 as my main computer. And now that I’ve switched to Linux (Fedora), I’m even more thankful that you could apply every tutorial you found on the web for that tablet.
I’d definitely prefer to have gone the AMD route for these, but N200 isn’t that awful, no? At least comparable to some Skylake gens? Not that that’s amazing in the modern day, but I’d say still capable enough with the included specs to not be too bogged down by some of the lighter distros.
Better off with a Chromebook 10/10 times if you need something low powered, but I think it’s an interesting entry to the hardware space.
I’d definitely prefer to have gone the AMD route for these, but N200 isn’t that awful, no?
I doubt it’s powerful enough to play back 4k videos smoothly and 1080p stretched to the native resolution doesn’t look super great. If AMD didn’t offer a vastly better alternative at similar cost, fine, but Ryzen Z1 and such are available.
I have an N100 box running as my Plex server. It has no problem transcoding multiple 4k videos at once. This processor is no M2 but it isn’t really a slouch either.
I see soo many people complain about the CPU but if your CPU use too much power, your battery is going to take a big hit on battery life, unless the tablet now start at much higher prices. So the 6W form factor makes a lot of sense.
People complaining about it not being AMD. AMD just doesn’t make good 6W CPU (other then custom one but that would cost a fortune for such a little company). Intel has been really experienced in this market.
To the people scared about video decoding, Intel has really good HW decoding so 4K isn’t an issue. It’s better then AMD’s one on Linux from my own experience.
Finally this is a $600 tablet, so don’t expect a workstation to run Blender. Linux runs well on weaker CPU. My school computer runs KDE Plasma with a few apps open without much trouble and it has a Intel Celeron N5100 and 4GB of RAM.
The problem is that tablets like this generally can’t take advantage of the turbo boost on the CPU due to thermal throttling. I’ll wait and see, but I expect it to perform worse than an N5100 laptop.
Wait and see
Would absolutely get if it had a pen for drawing and notetaking, but otherwise I feel it’s just a somewhat underpowered laptop in a neat form factor.
Oh damn, I may actually get it then
The point of a tablet is to be secure to use it with a touch interface. If you install just some vanilla Linux distro, that won’t work. Is there any touch based interface for Linux that’s worth using?
Gnome has a strong touch interface. You just don’t see it when used in a desktop.
Is there any touch based interface for Linux that’s worth using?
Plasma should detect automatically when the keyboard is detached and then apply some changes to its desktop layout. There’s also Plasma Mobile but I think that would not work well on the larger screen.
If I were StarLabs, I would probably default to BlissOS which is based on Android-x86 which means all regular Linux distributions are still feasible to install.
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Android
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In the market for a new laptop or perhaps a Microsoft Surface-like tablet style system?
Well, Star Labs have turned their StarLite laptop into a tablet.
I have to admit, I love the form factor on this giving you the best of both worlds.
You get a sweet fully Linux supported tablet, and you can hook it up to a magnetic keyboard to get a full laptop experience too.
This is a proper Linux system too with open-source firmware powered by coreboot and edk II with updates via LVFS.
They support and test many different configurations, and you get a decent warranty with it too allowing you to to take your computer apart, replace parts, install an upgrade, and use any operating system and even your firmware, all without voiding the warranty.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
It seems like Star Labs is pivoting away from making superheroes and finally decided to use their technology more responsibly!
Very appealing for a travel device running a Linux kernel. On the product page, they also mention Open Warranty, which makes me believe it will be easily serviceable - this would be a big plus, especially for a travel tablet, being able to switch the disk easily.
Gnome is not so bad. It has a decent on screen keyboard that’s very useable. I occasionally use it on my Dell 2-in-1 laptop.
I feel like no desktop OS maker has nailed transition to touch screen devices, but I have only recently gotten my first x86 tablet and have only used windows on it, so my experience is limited and I’m only judging from screenshots I have seen online.
(I guess steam OS can count as decent enough, but it’s not available yet outside of steam deck and it’s gaming focused)
P.S. I honestly would be happy with an iPad if it were not so limited and more non-mobile games were available for it
I think the issue with devices like this is that apps simply aren’t optimized for use like this.
I have a Surface. Barely used it as a tablet really, there aren’t a ton of uses and Windows in tablet mode is just awful.
With the keyboard it turns into a neat and portable mini laptop, which I love.
The Starlite seems neat, but with the current specs it feels like not quite a tablet yet not quite a laptop either.
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Great to know, thanks for sharing
I am of the opinion that if we keep waiting for the “perfect” Linux tablet, it will never exist. The specs of this unit are head and shoulders above any other Linux-dedicated tablet thus far.
I plan on buying one once I see a product review, and if it’s as good as I hope it will be, I hope that Linux users will support it with their wallets so we get more and better devices like this.
Wow, the price and openness of both the firmware and warranty make this a very enticing product. I’ve been casually looking for a new laptop, something to just watch youtube, browsing and manage my home lab with.
I checked out the actual product page, and it’s a bit confusing in the configurator. Seems like the default power adaptor is non-us by default. Easy enough to change, no cost variance. But the keyboard section is confusing. Additional layout options for +~$110. Does that mean a secondary keyboard? What’s the default?
EDIT: Any keyboard is not included, after finally finding the “what’s in the box” in the specifications section. So, factor in an extra $100 in the price if ya need it.
I didn’t see anything in the article, but will it have stylus support?
I wish I would have known about this before buying the Pinetab2. I didn’t realize (completely my fault) that the Pinetab2 was a development unit without working wifi, bluetooth, camera and other issues. Once again, my fault, not Pine64’s.
Always wanted to try a star labs product. What always stops me are the specs. Not enough ram or storage or CPU to justify the price. Even though I know the premium is there because they aren’t just white labeled clevos like every other Linux focused PC company
