I made a blog post a few days ago when I received my Slimbook Essential 16 and basically I was not happy with it. Now things have changed, some of them 180 degrees. But still not enough to keep it.

Why? How?

First of all, I need to take into account a few external factors:
1. I am in the middle finishing the TROM II documentary. I did not want to distract myself from it until April or so. I need to finish until May. The only reason I bought this laptop was because of a limited 150 Euros discount.
2. I work on many things, servers, stuff, including WebApe and I may have to take 2 new WebApe projects this month. Not a great idea to be distracted by a new laptop now.
3. I have TB of data and hundreds upon hundreds of packages and custom config files....moving them over to the new laptop will take me many many days.

Ok. What's up with the Slimbook.

The build quality I am still not 100% liking it.

I got used to it. It still feels more like plastic than metal to me, feels super light and all of that, however using it for the past days I realized it is very well built (put together). Not bending, no flexing....really good. I opened it up after they allowed me to, and that made me like it much more. Inside, everything is well organized and very well put together. Feels more like a metal build now to me that I opened it up.

Despite this, I am concerned that being so light and plasticy-feel, it will easily be damaged in time. But being so light is fantastic in terms of portability. Speaking of that, the charger is massive and will annoy you if you want this to be portable, which kinda makes it being so light, less relevant. If this had an AMD processor it would have made a lot more sense since right now the battery is not that great. Overall will last some 4-5h and I've been using the Slimbook app that allows you to switch to an energy saving profile. If you use the Nvidia card, even a bit, it drops down to half. Considering that batteries degrade quite fast, this is not a great beginning.

That keyboard...

I type a lot (I write books) and I need a decent keyboard. The keys are a bit too shallow for me, it feels a bit weird to type, but the worst part is that some key symbols are not centered as mentioned previously. After a few days of use I still did not get used to this. It looks weird especially at night when they are lighten-up. Looks like the laptop is tilted one side. The keys feel a bit "cheap" and not that "fun" to type on. Plus I HATE the numpad...I'd love a normal keyboard...big keys...centered....

The camera is usable or bad, like it is the case with most laptops. But probably no one uses them since all laptops have shitty cameras. And the speakers are ok.

That touchpad!

What about that screen?

In any case I ended up LOVING the screen. 16'' and a 16:10 aspect ratio, with those thin bezels makes the perfect screen for me. For video editing, designing books, websites, you name it. Awesome. I can't go back to any screen after this experience. So much so that this will be the first thing I'll look for in a laptop.

A beast. But does it matter?

The core i7-12700H + Nvidia 3050ti make up for a great (on paper) hardware. However for the day to day use, even for me doing so many things at once, it makes exactly ZERO difference. Even on my laptop I can have hundreds of tabs opened, watch stuff, edit, whatever. Could make a difference in terms of video editing and code compilation. Unfortunately in Linux the GPU is almost never used. All in all, great hardware, but unless you do heavy video editing, code compilation, or game, you don't need this.

Speaking of hardware....from my tests there is almost zero difference between a normal SSD that has like 1GB speeds r/w and these new M2 that have many GB speeds. Unless you posses hundreds of GB of media and copy them frequently....there is no difference. Just marketing.

Actually I'd say I have confirmed, for me at least, that fullhd screens are almost identical to any K screen for a 16'' screen. M2 SSDs are as good as SSDs for pretty much most uses. And the difference in power (GPU and CPU wise) only matters for specific tasks. The vast majority of those are ok for the vast majority of people.

Marketing....

Summary.

The Slimbook Executive 16 - things I like:
- lightweight, easy to carry around
- very well built
- great screen
- amazing touchpad
- great hardware
- perfect ports availability and slots
- easy to open and upgrade

Things I did not like:
- feels more like plastic than metal
- massive charger
- overall bad keyboard
- not a great battery life
- bad webcam in dimmer conditions
- bloody full of stickers
- extremely expensive

For 1750 Euros (1600 with the discount) I would definitely want a fully aluminum build, a good keyboard, and a decent battery. Maybe even a fingerprint reader....could be cool to have that and super useful.

I want to mention something unique and special about Slimbook: their support. You can talk to humans there, and they are super friendly. Many thanks for putting up with my many questions and helping me out. Stellar support.

Where from here?

I would like to see other laptops too. Lately I found 2 candidates but of course I will look for more. For example I found the Dell Inspiron 16 to be a great choice:

The downside, max 34GB of RAM and I think max 3TB of SSD....fuckers...You can change these yourself but what I realized is that the vast majority of these well-built laptops have the RAM and storage soldered into the motherboard. No way to upgrade them. Such a fuckery.

Anyway, the second exciting choice is the Dell Inspiron 16 2 in 1:

Not as powerful as the Slimbook, but a lot more than mine. Can transform into a tablet and has a touchscreen. Although I may not use any, it is likely more solid since it is built for this. Sasha's is similar to this, but at 13'', and I love it.

This one too has a 32GB RAM and 2TB SSD limit...

I can find these on ebay from 800 Euros to like 1.400 Euros. Much cheaper than the Slimbook. Even new are not more expensive than the Slimbook Executive 16.

Anyway, I will package the Slimbook and send it back. Then I'll focus on TROM II and these next few months I'll look to see if I can find better alternatives. There is a slim-chance I will buy the slim-book again :) . It was very interesting to have it around to test, and i went from "I won't keep it" to "I'll keep it" a day after another. Last night I was almost sure I'll keep it. But I do not want to rush with this since it is an extremely expensive thing for me to buy. I don't want to regret my decision.

Honestly if this Slimbook had a powerful AMD and was around 1k Euros, I would not have thought twice.

Quick background: I want to buy a laptop that is really well built, easy to upgrade and repair, and portable. Has at least a 16inch screen and a decent battery, plus a good keyboard.

Some 2 weeks ago, after spending many weeks searching for a good laptop, I finally decided to order the extremely expensive Slimbook Executive 16. I was at first more inclined to buy the twin from Tuxedo because it was black and I could buy it without Nvidia, so much cheaper.

BUT.

The Tuxedo people told me that although on their website it says:

Now, because TUxedo and Slimbook provide laptops that are honestly almost, if not entirely, identical (just check all of their models - chassis, hardware, sizes, etc.) I asked the Slimbook people if theirs are also plastic with coated magnesium alloy. They confirmed at least 10 times I think, that this is not true. Theirs are purely metal: aluminium+magnesium alloy, as stated on their website.

I decided. Slimbook.

It arrived:

First impressions were that it does not feel like a sturdy laptop. I have 2 to compare it with. First is my plastic laptop. Slimbook feels sturdier than my laptop. Second is Sasha's laptop which is a 13inch fully aluminium laptop. Slimbook feels like plastic compared to that one. I can beat you with Sasha's laptop for sure, and I could even kill you with it, then I am quite sure it will probably still work. But I can't do that with Slimbook. Yes magnesium alloy is lighter than aluminium, but idk...it feels like a well built plastic laptop to me. Which is not a good thing for me since I want a very s sturdy one.

So, the way it is built, for me, is not what I was looking for. I am inclined to believe this is "a plastic laptop with magnesium alloy steamed onto it", like the Tuxedo folks were saying. Call me crazy but I won't be shocked if the Slimbook people willingly or not misinformed me about their build quality.

Funny that they have a sticker that says "Protected by Magnesium". Protected...hm....

The keyboard is a bit odd. Some key symbols are not centered yet others are...

The charged is a fat-charger for a slim-book :)

The worst part: the screen colors are washed out. Look:

And this is awful because I checked the documentary I just edited the colors for, and on my screen and Sasha's looks great, on Slimbook looks not that great....what is it happening? Maybe this model has a fucked-up screen!? IDK...but this is the worst thing for me, something that if not fixed I will return the laptop. I can maybe put up with the rest, but not with this for sure.

Speaking of screens. You know I've been saying that 2k 3k 4k screens are a BS marketing unless we talk about very large screens and content to match that screen. Well...Slimbook has a 16inch 3k screen. If I switch between 3k and fullhd I can't really tell any difference. Maybe my eyes are not the best, but I feel like this is just a BS marketing thing.

Now...the screen size is perfect for me. I love the 16:10 aspect ratio. I love how light it is. I like how it looks and I despise those many stickers. The webcam is decent, the speakers are great. I can't open it to look inside because they added a sticker to one of the screws to stop you from doing that and I am concerned I can't return it if I open it up. Speaking of that, the bottom part of the chassis feels like pure plastic to me. Quite flimsy even when it is attached to the laptop.

Overall this laptop is a monster in terms of hardware. That's fantastic. But the build quality, although not bad at all, is not at all a sturdy one in my view. I would feel concerned to carry this laptop around for long. The battery is not great at all and if you leave it on the bed for example, the laptop gets super hot super fast.

I will test it for longer but so far idk what to say....because on one hand I LOVE the screen size and the overall size and weight of the laptop. But at the gigantic price of 1750 Euros....(sure I got it 150 euros cheaper), but at that price you expect a fantastically well built laptop that will last you for a decade. At least that's how I think.

Maybe that's how laptops are built nowadays....light, seem fragile....maybe I will keep it eventually. But idk...if not I will return it and search for a new one next year after TROM II is done. I may be inclined to go for a good Thinkpad or older models that were better built.

Let's see if Slimbook will convince me to keep it....I kinda doubt....

It horrifies me when I hear stories from americans about their experience with the healthcare system. It is awful. You are a client there, not a patient. And even when you have a great healthcare insurance you still have to pay tons of money, even for going to the emergency room. And stories about how bad of a job doctors are doing there - of course, not all.

In any case, I am so grateful for the Spanish healthcare system where I am a patient. Not a client. I go there, they take care of me. Yes, sometimes it is slow and annoying because the GP does not give you enough attention at times, but hey it is entirely free (and side note: it is even slower I've heard in the USA....). Anyway, I feel safe and relaxed because of the healthcare system in Spain. So happy that I get access to this system. Everyone should have access to healthcare as trade-free. No need to give anything in return for that service. The fact that this is not the case, says a lot about our society.

And America....dear fuck, what's the point of all of that "wealth", the weapons, the cockyness, the money, the popularity, the fame and all that, when you treat your own citizens as intruders who do not deserve to be helped when they are in pain and suffering. Imagine having a terminal disease and dealing with two worries in America: 1 that you will die, and 2 how much would the medical expenses be and what's the impact on you and your family. Terrible!

I ordered the TROM Laptop :D - finally. After weeks of research and days or discussions with the Slimbook and Tuxedo people I have decided to go for the Executive 16 Slimbook. Basically I wanted to buy a laptop around April next year after am done with TROM 2, but Slimbook had a 150 Euros discount so I said I might as well buy it now. I have a donation campaign for it where I explain it all.

This is the laptop:

Why buy this?

• Unlike Tuxedo that has plastic chassis with magnesium alloy steamed onto it, Slimbook is only magnesium and aluminium alloy. I want a "metal" laptop. No more plastic please!
• It has a 16'' screen with a 16:10 aspect ratio. As tall as my 17.3'' laptop and only a bit less wide. Speaking of the screen seems like a great one, and almost no bezels.
  

  

  
  Thus it is smaller in size than a normal 15'' laptop.
• It is light and thin. Just 1.5kg light and 2cm max thin when closed. That's very portable.
• Good selection of ports. All I need!
• The power of it! The i7-12700H has 14 cores and 20 threads. My current one has 4 cores and 8 threads. Big difference. This laptop also has an NVIDIA RTX 3050Ti 4GB DDR6 - yes I do not game at all, but I do a lot of video editing and other tasks like live-streaming for TROMcast that could take a great deal of advantage of this nvidia GPU. All in all this laptop is a beast. Hardware wise should last me for at least a decade.
• Slimbook is designed for Linux and the folks behind it seem to be very open-source driven. They are also super friendly. I talked to them over email almost daily for the past days. Funny enough they know about TROM and TROMjaro haha. And even consider adding TROMjaro as one of the OS selections when people buy a Slimbook.
• They are from Spain, where I live, and I get 3 year warranty. Plus they have a bunch of spare parts on their website so I can repair mine in case I need to.
• The laptop has 2 m2 slots and that's super useful since I need a lot of diskspace.

On paper all looks great. The battery probably is not going to be great (nvidia!) and the keyboard....I hate that numpad thing and I never use it. I feel like it is a waste of space....but well.

Let's see when it arrives how good it is. But yeah, I am happy I finally did this. My current laptop is some 6-7 years old and I think I can for sure keep a laptop for a decade if it is well built.

Thanks to @Roma for making this possible!

Oh look "leaders" are still meeting to talk about climate change - news.un.org/en/story/2022/11/1… how cute!

They have also started to ban all advertising because they rightly say that this is only going to create more needless consumption. I am so happy about that. Online or offline, ads are illegal.

They are working with all governments around the world to make a global transportation system that is trade-free, so that we phase out cars entirely. Universal healthcare is also on the agenda together with trade-free education. Two meals a day for everyone, trade-free access to the Internet, investing a lot of resources in non-meat food alternatives, and kick-starting a massive sharing platform (online/offline) so that we can all share the vast amounts of wasted and unused stuff that we have around. Even sharing a room/place to stay. How amazing! This, they hope, will incentivize people to re-use, rather than buy useless shit all the time.

Lastly, they realize that laws and rules do not work, so their overall approach is to create a better society from within the current one. One that does not rely on trade but on share. This way we can make companies and profiteers obsolete, with time. The focus will be on how to protect us and the nature, using renewable energies, less polluting practices, and so forth, since there is no incentive to do otherwise. All, while decoupling ourselves from the need for trade. Have a lot more free time, get more educated, get involved.

GO UNITED NATIONS! Let's do it folks! #tromlive

Oh look this guy raises awareness about children dying....from war, poverty, abuse.... ->> ugurgallenkus.com/

Please buy his 60 dollars book that's full of such facts about dead kids.

Even @Greta Thunberg sells her book The Climate Book theclimatebook.org - a totally needless use of trees, to print words on them, when you can share a book digitally everywhere in the world at almost no resource impact at all. Such an irony....

Heck yeah Amazon is full of books about why deforestation is bad, sold as printed books:

I wrote over 30 books, and published around 40. I released a 14h documentary a decade ago and will release another huge one in a few months time. On top of this I run over 20 free services at trom.tf and created a custom Linux distro: TROMjaro. VideoNeat and TROMnews are also projects of mine. Same is the trade-free.org website.

And I never ever traded any of these! I asked for support and I have received it. At least I am not a hypocrite telling people how fucked up this society is and talking about solutions, while using the same exact rules of this society, pushing for more trades.

If you appreciate this work please also consider a donation of course - but that's optional and on a volunteer basis.

Anyway....weird world we live in....

I found another candidate for my future laptop TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 16 - Gen7

Still super expensive but maybe I'll manage to save some money and I may do a donation campaign since 90% of my computer use is for TROM anyway :P - and a new one will help me be "mobile" and when I'll move next year. Anyway, I will stop with this obsession for now, and will get back to TROM II.

Basically so far it is either:
- Framework: very expensive for what hardware provides, the screen is too small for me, but the repairability and upgradeability is amazing.
- Slimbook Executive 16: well built, from Spain, 3 year warranty, a beast overall, perfect screen size, but damn expensive.
- TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 16 - Gen7: overall a beast, well built, and can get it cheaper. Only 2 year warranty tho. Perfect screen size. So far this one is the most tempting.

Ok ok, TROM II..... :D

Although the framework laptop is amazing in terms of how it is designed (so easy to repair and upgrade), it is really expensive for what it provides. For example the Slimbook Executive 16 is a beast. The CPU and dedicated GPU are far superior to even the most expensive (over 2k) Framework. And a much bigger screen.

I was thinking these days about this idea of the Framebook. I love it, but let's be honest about some things. For laptops most of the time what you need to upgrade are the RAM and storage space. Most of the time, by far. And most laptops allow you to do that quite easily.

Battery? Yeah, after a few years of use is good to be able to renew it. Many laptops still allow for that. The Slimbook sells batteries too so likely it is not that hard to replace.

What else? CPU/GPU? Framework is the only one that allows you to upgrade the CPU with the integrated GPU, HOWEVER you basically replace the entire motherboard for a massive price.

What else? Webcam? Maybe if Framework will provide better webcams in the future can be worth upgrading. However personally I do not use the webcam of the laptop. The rest are not really important unless something breaks.

So in terms of real upgradability, at least for my case, it makes no difference if I were to buy a Slimbook. How many times one wants to replace a monitor hinge? The screen? .... and if you really need a new screen it is likely yours broke so it is already an issue and takes time to replace. I bet is not that hard with the Slimbook.

The expansion cards of the Framework.

OK.

A 16inch super powerful laptop like the Slimbook Executive 16 seems to be the perfect one for me in all regards. But to buy it with all I need, it would be around 2k Euros. This is an enormous amount of money for me. Maybe next year close to when TROM II will be released or after, I can make a donation campaign to maybe get some help :D - my goal is to move all of my work for TROM and all of the children projects, from a bulky and poorly built laptop, and a shoe-box full of HDDs, to a portable and powerful laptop. For example a powerful CPU allows me to more quickly make ISOs for TROMjaro. Now I have to wait around 40-50 minutes for one to be done and I normally make several a month to test stuff.

And ofc, doing videos, books-design, so many files that I have, server management and moving of files, and testing stuff in VMs for TROMjaro, takes a lot of power.

I would love to take all of the mess I have right now in terms of hardware, and squeeze it into a well built laptop that I can take with me anywhere.

Let's see....but it is good to do a lot of research before buying such super expensive devices. And mind you, I would not buy anything if it were not for managing so much stuff/projects and having so many files and the need for a powerful computer + me moving at the end of the next year, hopefully in a motorhome. Most tech is still BS in my view. I do not need a 2k or 4k screen since it makes no difference for a 16inch monitor. I also do not need a beefy computer that is well beyond my use. Or fancy shit.

Ok. Done. :)

On the front page of the BBC website I see an article about Mastodon:

It is fantastic that more people are joining the fediverse, but I am concerned and annoyed about a couple of things:

A. Popularity gets polluted

In a world where trade is the main activity for humans (jobs, money, data collection, all that crap), the more people will join, the more of these charlatans will, who want to promote their own shit on the platform. After all a lot of accounts on Twitter/Facebook are made for companies and to sell shit. They will start to do that on the Fediverse. Watch out!

B. Musk should not be the reason

If people move to the fediverse because of Musk, this is not ok. If they were not put off by Twitter's ads, control, data collection, and centralization in the first place, then they have no clue what really fucks things up in this world. Is not just billionaires, it is the system making them and all of the above fuckery. So if platforms are trade-based: they ask you something in return (money, data, other currencies, attention, etc.) then this platform is a dangerous one. But I doubt most people understand that.

C. Misunderstanding about Mastodon/Fediverse

It is a great shame that people who write about this network only focus on Mastodon and do not understand how this works. That BBC article does make it look like the network is Mastodon. But that's gravely wrong. There are plenty of networks, some a lot more feature-rich than Mastodon. I understand, for newcomers can be confusing, but for one the more you talk about it the less confusing it becomes, and second if you do not talk about this then you completely dismiss the power of the federated network and its decentralized nature.

For example, if they were to recommend Friendica (which I use and provide a public instance of) then they could have mentioned that Friendica connects with Twitter too, and you can bring all of your friends in a second to Friendica, from Twitter. Get their posts in Friendica, reply to them, get notifications and all that. MUCH easier to come from Twitter to Friendica! Also Friendica is so feature-rich...and works with any Mastodon app....

D. Concentration is bad for federation

Speaking of promoting only Mastodon, they basically talk about 2-3 instances when they make these articles. Now people flock there, and we have a situation in which very few instances have most users...these instances are so powerful now. @Eugen 💀 and others should have not accepted more than say 100.000 users or less on their instances. This is so bad I can't explain. It means ONE single human can destroy connections and fuck things up for hundreds of thousands on the fediverse. Terrible!

Also this fuckery from the BBC article:

So, BBC:

• If I have a Mastoton instance and say "You pay me 10$ a month and then you can join" then that's not free. You have to trade 10$ in order to join the network.
• If I say "You join but you need to watch these ads that you cannot disable" then it is not free. I want your attention. So you trade your attention in order to join the network.
• If I say "You can join the network but I collect data about you to make a profit off of it"....you guessed it, it is not freee. You traded your data for accessing the network.

However: if I say "You can join my network. I do not want anything from you. But if you want to donate you can." Then it is FREE. No trade. You can or cannot donate. And you can still join the network.

K? :D

Now welcome to the fediverse, not mastodon!

I was so impressed by that Fujitsu laptop that I convinced my parents to replace their shitty full-on plastic and hard-to-open and upgrade laptops with those Fujitsu ones. My father will have that 100 Euro model I was writing about. And my mother a similar model but with 8GB of RAM, 180 GB SSD and a core i5-4a. For 200 Euros. So almost double the power. In the same format. We should get it this week.

Overall, and so far, I love these laptops. Super easy to upgrade, fix, and clean. Took me some 10 minutes to access the Disk and RAMs from my father's old computer, but around 20 seconds for the new one. That's the difference. Not only they are easy to fix, repair, and upgrade or clean, but they are sturdy enough. Top lid and top part where the keyboard is are metal.

They are also very Linux friendly. Everything works out of the box. The screen is decent. No webcam tho. Perhaps that's better for privacy, they don't use webcams anyway.

Anyhow, I love these laptops for the package: good build quality, easy to deal with them, linux friendly, and cheap as hell. 300 Euros for 2 laptops + 1 year warranty is not at all bad,

3 days ago I was writing about a laptop I bought for 100 Euros that impressed me. How well it was design making it so easy to upgrade and repair. This post social.trom.tf/display/dbc8dc4…

Well now I have an exact opposite example. A few years ago we bought a very cheap laptop for my father. 2 core processor (intel), 4GB of RAM, some 500 GB HDD. 200 Euros or so. And the build quality is awful. Plus the way you open it up....

For example you have to open the entire back plastic panel to access anything. The screws are black on a black panel, the plastic quality is terrible, and then you have to somehow know that this:

Then how do I put those rubber legs back? Glue them back? Awful!

After you struggle to open it, you find this:

Actually this was the reason I opened it again tonight, to only find out about this stupid thing.

The worst part is that the hinges are metal screwed into the plastic case and because it is so difficult to open, I broke both hinges....the plastic they were screwed into broke completely. And trust me I opened many laptops this never happened to me before. But this build quality is complete shit.

This happened 2 years ago when I first opened it. And made it so difficult when I reopened it again because I was afraid I will completely destroy it....I tried to glue them but in vain. Basically you can still close the lid, but it is a shitstorm and it will break completely sooner than later.

All in all, it is a complete fuckery this laptop. Poorly made out of shitty plastic. Difficult to open up to the point where you will break it. You only have 1 RAM slot. Not worth it.

I found a newer version of the same Fujitsu laptop, same model. Double the hardware power. Core i5, 8GB of RAM, 180 GB SSD. Same ebay seller. 200 Euros with 1 year warranty. I will tell my parents to perhaps buy that one. And this laptop we can sell for 16 Euros or give it to someone who won't be able to do much with it...

Will see but this is the exact opposite example of my previous one.