MNT Station - A modular, open hardware desktop computer and server
68 points by hawski
68 points by hawski
I love the idea. But $299 for a case just seems wild to me!
I feel this way about everything I've seen from MNT: I love the idea, but the price for what you're getting is just too high for me, esp since the devices likely wouldn't be a daily driver.
The way I see it you're not just paying for the device; you're paying more because you desperately want to live in a world where it's possible to buy a laptop made by someone who doesn't despise you.
This is why I was so excited to buy a Framework, and why now I'm lost. MNT is great but just so steep.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - Framework isn't perfect, but it's a damn site better than every single new hardware alternative I can find (unless an MNT is powerful enough for your daily driver, in which case, go for it!).
Lenovo ships spyware and is essentially owned by the Communist Party of China. Apple sent their CEO to give a gold plaque and a photo op to Trump.
Part of the reason the tech industry is so fucked right now is that the good people keep letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, which allows the bad people to keep tightening the ratchet the wrong way.
Framework regularly give a hardcore white nationalist (DHH) free hardware because he's popular. I don't want to support that - even the arbiter of of Satan's arsehole, Dell, doesn't do that.
That's (inadvertently) a great example of what I mean.
Sometimes there is no clearly good choice, but you can pick one that's less bad than the others.
I would say more often than not, there is no "good" chooce that rises above the others. Capitalism is a system that only functions by taking any advantage possible, be they good or bad, regardless if the company is headquartered in a Capitalist society or not, making it exceptionally difficult for any consumer to make a purchasing choice based on ethics.
I go with this; if I buy used, I'm not only giving my money to the previous owner instead of the company, I am also keeping it out of landfills. In the case of a laptop, why buy the latest model from a company you don't agree with when last year's model being sold by some eBay user will do? Just need to factory reset, install whatever OS you choose, and if you're super paranoid (like me) crack the case and make sure no uh, value-added services have been performed.
Leaving aside the argument about ethics and capitalism (and boy I'm sitting on my hands to not get engaged with that and get the thread nuked by mods :) ), I'm completely in agreement with you on refurbs.
I used refurbished ThinkPads for years - from an old X220 to a T470s, and my kids all used refurbed ex-corporate ThinkPads. My wife and I use new Frameworks ... although she's on one of the ThinkPads while her replacement LCD ships, after I ahem stepped on it and broke it! :/
Lenovo ships spyware and is essentially owned by the Communist Party of China.
Is this true? It’s a multinational company. Do you believe every Chinese company is run by Xi..?
Ah, I'm out of date. It used to be 100% state owned; now the number is down to 9%.
Still netted them around USD 20 million last time dividends were paid, in 2022. Larger than either Framework or Dell's donations to DHH!
That's good to know! I know the Chinese gov has a hand in big corporations not fully unlike the US gov but it used to be more centralized pre-Deng. 20 million USD is quite small for China, at least pre-COVID.
You said they have spyware—can you elaborate on this claim? All of my current servers are Lenovo so I am invested in this claim.
This is a decent rundown of the incidents I remember. The "superfish" one in particular was particularly egregious because, during that period, certain models came pre-populated with a root certificate that the computer trusted for all TLS connections.
Summary here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish#Lenovo_security_incident - I believe there may have been other incidents, but this one was enough for me to never buy another (new) Lenovo product.
My reading of what you shared is that this doesn’t matter for those not running windows, right?
In today's world you're going to have to look long and hard to find a company above a certain size that's not partly invested in by any number of organizations or countries you might find distasteful.
Yes! That's exactly my point. So people boycotting Framework because they sponsor DHH are missing the point - yes DHH is an odious fascist, but, Framework are still the less bad choice than any of the others. (With the exception of MNT, as I say ... but they don't serve the same market).
the extra bummer is even if you have the cash, the lead time is harsh :(
I had a preorder for a Reform Next but gave up waiting...
And one that's flexible enough to upgrade and modify down the line.
Case in point, I've upgraded the CPU module in my original Reform twice and my Pocket Reform once (reusing one of the modules from the bigger one), and I've added both an LTE modem and a custom-designed backplate to the Pocket.
The Pocket Reform isn't the only mini laptop out there (GPD makes a few among other things) but it's the only one I've ever found that's quite so modular!
I think it makes a lot more sense if you do actually use it as your daily driver. I do, outside work - I'm typing this from the Pocket Reform that I use both outside the house and docked at my desk at home.
Granted, it's running an RK3588 module that I ordered pre-RAMpocalypse, so it wasn't quite as expensive as the same machine would be now.
I do agree, it does make more sense if you do, but even pre-RAMpocalypse, the pricing was quite high, at least in the States. I bought my Framework 13 around the same time, and it was also around 2.2k USD for 96GB of RAM and such.
Now the pricing has certainly shifted (I think the same machine is about double now), but for the performance and where I'd use it, I likely would just get a few RPis and call it a day.
How do you find pocket reform battery life in practise?
Hard to say because I have it plugged in so often. It's definitely in the realm of "plug it in when you can" though, I'd estimate something like 3-4 hours, less if I'm really pushing it with a build. (But I'm usually plugged in if I'm doing that!) I turn off the keyboard backlighting if I really need to stretch it since that draws a surprising amount of power.
I have ordered some slightly larger cells (originally as replacements but it turns out I didn't strictly need them) to see if I can extend the runtime a bit. Haven't tried those out yet though. josch on the forums has tried much larger cells with success, but I haven't felt the need for that.
But you’re not just paying for a case, are you?
And most importantly, you’re paying someone to be sustainably passionate about something you want to exist that otherwise might not!
I don't disagree with what you're saying, although I have no insight into aluminum costs or reject rates.
This:
you’re paying someone to be sustainably passionate about something you want to exist that otherwise might not
is the part of the idea I love most. I was just very surprised by the magnitude of the difference for such a (relatively) simple case. I hope they have a large enough group of customers at this price to make it sustainable for them, because you are absolutely correct that I want this to exist.
Value isn't just the time and materials. It's the application of those and the value isn't here.
I read the comments before following the link, and was confused by this comment: good desktop cases usually land in that 200-300 USD range.
However, this case is just two small chunks of aluminum, decidedly unlike a desktop case, which has with dozens of peculiarly shaped parts in a variety of materials.
I think the price, for this and for MNT's other products, mostly has to do with the (very!) small production runs. You can get economies of scale if you're making millions of the same part; not so much at this scale.
You and I must have entirely different standards for good desktop cases, then :-)
I usually buy one from my local Microcenter. And it's been a while, but I still see several for less than $150, some for quite a bit less, that I'd happily use for a build.
Yeah. I'm still considering this but spending as much as a framework desktop for under half the capability is quite a trade
Nice hardware, but the pricing is way out of my league.... $300 case, $240 keyboard, $430 mainboard and then $300-800 for a cpu/ram module. Nope, this hardware market has completely lost me.
You can buy a used mini-desktop PC for less than $50 USD. They don't take up much space and are pretty quiet.
You can buy a new mini-PC for $400 or so.
My "main fileserver" at home is an old Chromebook (reflashed BIOS thanks to mrchromebox.tech), running Debian, which cost about $25 plus shipping. Low power, no noise (no fans), with a built-in screen and keyboard.
A handy tool for finding bargains:
https://www.lowcostminipcs.com/
Has options for US, UK, and Germany (meaning EU).
Can you elaborate which Chromebook hardware you were able to get for 25$?
This was a couple years ago, but it was an HP Chromebook G3 (14in). 4GB RAM, very low-end Intel dual-core processor, 16GB internal storage. Similar to this (though this one has a bad battery):
https://www.ebay.com/itm/407166933166
Edit: Don't buy this one, it is ARM based? Avoid those.
At the time, these models were out of support for ChromeOS, so schools were getting rid of them for cheap.
The Intel-based Chromebooks need to be opened up to re-flash the BIOS, and after that it can be a normal-ish Linux laptop. The last I tried, the Chromebook keyboard map was only supported in X11, and not in Wayland. Web surfing on modern websites is sluggish.
When shopping for something like this, make sure they include photos of the device powered on. A few scuffs and scratches are to be expected, but I would avoid any that have significant cracks to the corners or other damage. Make sure the listing says it includes a power adapter if you don't already have a compatible one.
Not all Chromebooks need to be opened these days. I learned about this handy tool recently:
https://shop.fyralabs.com/products/suzyq-board
I saw a couple talks from Fyra Labs folks at FOSSY, and the current landscape for refurbishing old Chromebooks seems better than ever!
Here is the accompanying announcement post on Mastodon.
I've been following MNT for a while now (never had money to spare to actually buy something though) - I think this case is expensive even for them. But they do have very small production runs, which probably accounts for a lot of the price (I actually wonder what the numbers for a shop like that look like...). Releasing printable files is a nice touch though, and fits their dedication to FOSS.
I think they're not doing themselves any favors by comparing to the Framework Desktop and system76 Meerkat. Both of those are much higher-spec systems with a much higher power-budget, and so the comparison kind of makes MNT look bad. I think if they compared it to other devices in the 15-20 W class (probably other ARM-based ones), they might give off a much better impression.
Framework Desktop isn't the correct comparison. Framework sells a case for the Framework Laptop 13 mainboards for $40. That's exactly the form factor MNT is selling here... for 7x more.
Big advantage with the MNT is that you can swap out the processor. Framework has lots of upgradable parts but the CPU isn't one of them. MNT also gives you ARM, which positions it more against SBCs than laptops. Framework doesn't offer an ARM mainboard, though they do offer a RISC-V Mainboard in partnership with DeepComputing.
This thing just seems really expensive though. I don't see how you get a working computer for less than $1000.