Typing this from a Pocket Reform right now. The two non-work devices I use most often are this and the Reform 2, and I've upgraded both to various degrees over time. I plan to swap modules between them at some point soon so I can have the Pocket Reform be the faster of the two.
I should really write up a long-term review of this thing at some point, but overall I love it. It can be a bit rough around the edges at times, but it's also the coziest little machine I've used in a long time. (And seriously, having a mechanical keyboard in this form factor is great.)
I hope to keep using it long into the future, and the fact that it's open hardware (and that the batteries are standard off-the-shelf pouch cells, or 18650s for the full-size Reform) gives me hope that I will be able to.
I ran across their trackpad [1] last night; it uses the same Azoteq TPS65 module as the keyboard I just bought. Unfortunately the module's discontinued. [2, 3] I guess people have been going through stockpiles of these given that the last manufacturing run was 2 years ago, but I note the MNT Reform Trackpad is listed as out of stock...
I'm wondering what they'll do to replace it. You can still buy the IQS550 chip it's based on and apparently make a very similar PCB. [4] The black frosted glass seems like more of a challenge for most DIY keyboard makers, maybe not for MNT. The replacement project I saw recommended "2mm thick matte acrylic".
I would love to have one of these with a RISC-V SBC, I know there's a framework board but as good as framework is they're never be able to beat MNT in terms of hackability
I use their Pocket reform option pretty regularly, its a gorgeous device. The keyboard is a delight to use and the community is very friendly and helpful. The RK3588 is also plenty fast for the programming I like to get up to -- mostly writing things in Go or Ocaml for myself, but also for larger tasks its worked fine.
It has rough edges but its very usable , especially for somone inclined to hack on their devices. My main trouble being my yearning to use Alpine on it but not quite having the know how personally to get it up and running.
I like it enough though, that I've also got the Next ordered, which I'm very excited for. Being able to upgrade them both more or less ad-infinitum while new boards come out is a big plus too.
RK3288 was true open source. It boots with just u-boot and no blobs. DDR init was done by u-boot code and armv7 didn't require a TEE.
RK3588 is "almost" open. It boots with mainline u-boot and device tree from the Linux kernel, but needs two blobs: the DDR training blob and the trustzone blob (BL31). It can run without a TEE OS. I recently heard that the BL31 is now open source, but I didn't look into it.
Mainline kernel has support for everything, including 3d (panthor driver) and video codecs acceleration (you find it in the v4l submenu). Mainline Mesa driver (panfrost) also works, but... not great - it stutters/freezes when I move the mouse.
It's an interesting concept, but perhaps a bit financially and environmentally wasteful, when you can get a 10 year old ThinkPad for 10% of the price that will perform roughly as well as this one. We don't need to bring more low-powered laptops into this world.
Maybe https://www.ifixit.com/News/94927/how-open-hardware-empowers... helps to get how it's different than "just" getting older hardware that had good repairability scores (indeed like ThinkPabs,cf https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/laptop-repairability-sc... ) namely that the idea isn't to "hijack" a locked-down supply chain and get cheap parts assembled anywhere. Rather it's to challenge that supply chain and open it up, which is indeed going to be expensive, maybe even environmentally wasteful (to clarify IMHO) at first but then long term will radically improve the situation.
MNT is entirely open hardware and much more free-software-friendly, right? If you care about stuff like freedom and autonomy in computing, and you have the money to spend, the Reform seems like a far better product to me.
MNT publishes everything: source code, schematics, complete BOMs, mechanical design files. You could produce one of their laptops, or any part of it, yourself through normal PCB suppliers like JLC and 3d print a case.
Reproducing what they have aside, you can also modify any aspect of it by remixing their designs. The most common example of this has been custom keyboard layouts (ergo, split, etc).
Framework is perhaps well-documented, but it's not open. There are only pinouts, partial schematics and some MCAD stuff published for extension development but no ECAD designs.
On the other hand, since all the design files are available, anyone can design an upgraded motherboard for this machine and keep all the other parts out of the landfill.
That’s true. It doesn’t even have to be just „anyone” as they sell compute module upgrades themselves. The thing it though, the old ThinkPads are already here, readily available. It’s still more environmentally conscious to get one every few years instead of buying a new compute module.
I think it’s very important to have someone making new, open, upgradeable computers. Getting an old computer might be more environmentally conscious now, but it doesn’t feel sustainable in the long term. New computers will (need to) continue being made, and the Reform by far seems like the best way to go about that.
I'm not sure it's so clear. On one hand, businesses will continue to purchase computers and sell them in lots every few years. On the other, every computer purchased from some other supplier is one less made by someone else. What's important about a computer is it's suitability for purpose, which is not necessarily the same thing as fastest / latest / cheapest / whatever. If my purpose requires modular expansion, my choices are this thing and Framework. Neither of which I'm going to find inexpensive used. I can think of a lot of scientific and engineering data logging applications that would be great for. And a machine like that might serve 20 years if it works well at the task. I've seen a lot of machine controls still running Windows 98.
https://www.clockworkpi.com/home-uconsole is another great example of a machine I've seen people mod into all manner of special-purpose device that wouldn't work as well with a used business laptop.
Agree, being weaker than an N100 I would argue by large it is already ewaste compared to just getting an old thinkpad or similar.
Its over engineered in some ways and woefully under engineered in others. Any real effort in making it more performant or trying to extend it's life will just generate more additional ewaste than it will save by just reusing existing hardware.
I read this as "never buy new electronics because someones old used one is less e-waste".
The motherboard is modular and the compute part of this is replaceable, it's sort of the whole point.
The modules are mostly compatible between all of their products: MNT Reform, MNT Pocket Reform that are available now and the future MNT Reform Next (a more streamlined laptop) and the MNT Station (mini desktop pc).
Good luck reusing that existing hardware when the bespoke battery is no longer available. As far as I know this is the only laptop maker with an open-access (open source?) charging circuit, no reverse-engineering needed.
Also there's a user story out there where a laptop is a mobile terminal and the actual processing power happens remotely in the cloud. With modern agentic workflows and how fast they're changing it makes sense to optimize for longevity on the client hardware.
I've been looking into switching away from apple and try to buy more EU based services and products.
I love the concept and might just buy one to support the project, but I want something sleeker for my daily use. So I'm considering slimbook & tuxedo atm as buy-from-eu options.
They’re also working on MNT Reform Next, which is the sleeker version. It should be coming soon-ish, so if you otherwise like (and can afford) the classic Reform, you might want to keep an eye on it.
You can make things at home. However some parts will need $100 worth of your time when you can buy it - at slightly the wrong size - for $0.50. You could make the part for $0.25 instead - but it would cost several years to design the molds.
Can you fly with stuff like this? I only wonder because of the battery setup. Very cool, I would personally use a regular track pad over the ball as I prefer as little mouse interaction as possible and it would stay out of the way better.
Hi! I actually have, and have been using as my main device, an MNT Pocket Reform, and at one point was using an MNT Reform.
MNT's devices are honestly kinda incredible. I can't recommend them for everyone yet, though that will change soon. Both of them are a kind of "laptop of theseus"; you can open and change and repair them, and honestly I have. Both device's guts are dramatically different than where they started, but changes happened piecemeal.
The Pocket Reform is an incredibly cute device. I can't pull it out anywhere without people fawning over it. Not even just hackers! It's an open hardware cyberdeck you can use as your main device. What's not to love?
The MNT Reform Next will be closer to what many people want out of a laptop. It'll still be chonkier than a normal laptop. But again, these things are incredibly upgradeable and hackable.
Now for the caveats: for most people, I would wait until the MNT Quasar module comes out. The reason being is that while the current "best" module, the RK3588, is honestly pretty good with the 32gb version, it lacks one critical thing for most people and one other critical thing for me in particular. The first thing it lacks is support for suspend. Honestly, it does make working with a tiny computer like this a bit less appealing than the Pocket Reform's form factor could be, since what you really want to do is just be putting it to sleep and taking it out everywhere. The other thing is that Blender doesn't really run on the rk3588 either. You can kind of get a patched version working based on Lucie's patches, and I did, but it doesn't support the Eevee renderer, which is a must-have for me personally.
But the MNT Quasar board will be apparently fixing both of those above issues, and yes, at that point this will be a device that I can recommend generally. And I'll also note that I got the very first MNT Reform when it came out, and holy moly the state of the hardware now vs when it originally launched half a decade ago... it's hugely far between, but the amazing thing is that to get it up to the current state, I didn't need to throw things away, I could just open and tinker with things bit by bit.
In many ways, the MNT Pocket Reform reminds me of the book the main character has in the solarpunk book A Psalm for the Wild Built; a computer that is issued to you at the age of 16 and that which you carry with you for life. You can upgrade and repair it easily, but you don't need to throw it away.
So yeah, it's not for everyone. But if the idea of supporting repairable, upgradeable open hardware made by a lovely bunch of queers in Berlin sounds great? That you can hack on, that has a neat little community, that will be a conversation point amongst fellow hackers for its quirkiness? It's appealing to some, but not all.
For this kind of hobby device, I would love a different kind of approach that is more like an detachable independent tablet panel with a extended docking base both with CPUs - and hack on the smarts to make resources on the docking base seamlessly available between independent/docked states.
Curious why they went with the i.MX8M SoC specifically — was it purely about open documentation, or did the memory bandwidth also factor into the decision?
I should really write up a long-term review of this thing at some point, but overall I love it. It can be a bit rough around the edges at times, but it's also the coziest little machine I've used in a long time. (And seriously, having a mechanical keyboard in this form factor is great.)
I hope to keep using it long into the future, and the fact that it's open hardware (and that the batteries are standard off-the-shelf pouch cells, or 18650s for the full-size Reform) gives me hope that I will be able to.
I'm wondering what they'll do to replace it. You can still buy the IQS550 chip it's based on and apparently make a very similar PCB. [4] The black frosted glass seems like more of a challenge for most DIY keyboard makers, maybe not for MNT. The replacement project I saw recommended "2mm thick matte acrylic".
[1] https://shop.mntre.com/products/mnt-reform-capacitive-trackp...
[2] https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/azoteq-pty-ltd/TP...
[3] https://mm.digikey.com/Volume0/opasdata/d220001/medias/docus...
[4] https://github.com/geek-rabb1t/GR-Trackpad65
It has rough edges but its very usable , especially for somone inclined to hack on their devices. My main trouble being my yearning to use Alpine on it but not quite having the know how personally to get it up and running.
I like it enough though, that I've also got the Next ordered, which I'm very excited for. Being able to upgrade them both more or less ad-infinitum while new boards come out is a big plus too.
I'd go for a framework using the Roma or CIX boards if I wanted to go for an "open hardware but not really" goal.
RK3588 is "almost" open. It boots with mainline u-boot and device tree from the Linux kernel, but needs two blobs: the DDR training blob and the trustzone blob (BL31). It can run without a TEE OS. I recently heard that the BL31 is now open source, but I didn't look into it. Mainline kernel has support for everything, including 3d (panthor driver) and video codecs acceleration (you find it in the v4l submenu). Mainline Mesa driver (panfrost) also works, but... not great - it stutters/freezes when I move the mouse.
framework stuff is generally neither open hardware nor open software, intel and AMD don't permit it
Reproducing what they have aside, you can also modify any aspect of it by remixing their designs. The most common example of this has been custom keyboard layouts (ergo, split, etc).
Framwork is usability and performance first, openness second. MNT is the other way around.
https://www.clockworkpi.com/home-uconsole is another great example of a machine I've seen people mod into all manner of special-purpose device that wouldn't work as well with a used business laptop.
Its over engineered in some ways and woefully under engineered in others. Any real effort in making it more performant or trying to extend it's life will just generate more additional ewaste than it will save by just reusing existing hardware.
The motherboard is modular and the compute part of this is replaceable, it's sort of the whole point.
The modules are mostly compatible between all of their products: MNT Reform, MNT Pocket Reform that are available now and the future MNT Reform Next (a more streamlined laptop) and the MNT Station (mini desktop pc).
Also there's a user story out there where a laptop is a mobile terminal and the actual processing power happens remotely in the cloud. With modern agentic workflows and how fast they're changing it makes sense to optimize for longevity on the client hardware.
I love the concept and might just buy one to support the project, but I want something sleeker for my daily use. So I'm considering slimbook & tuxedo atm as buy-from-eu options.
https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/mnt-reform-next
MNT's devices are honestly kinda incredible. I can't recommend them for everyone yet, though that will change soon. Both of them are a kind of "laptop of theseus"; you can open and change and repair them, and honestly I have. Both device's guts are dramatically different than where they started, but changes happened piecemeal.
The Pocket Reform is an incredibly cute device. I can't pull it out anywhere without people fawning over it. Not even just hackers! It's an open hardware cyberdeck you can use as your main device. What's not to love?
The MNT Reform Next will be closer to what many people want out of a laptop. It'll still be chonkier than a normal laptop. But again, these things are incredibly upgradeable and hackable.
Now for the caveats: for most people, I would wait until the MNT Quasar module comes out. The reason being is that while the current "best" module, the RK3588, is honestly pretty good with the 32gb version, it lacks one critical thing for most people and one other critical thing for me in particular. The first thing it lacks is support for suspend. Honestly, it does make working with a tiny computer like this a bit less appealing than the Pocket Reform's form factor could be, since what you really want to do is just be putting it to sleep and taking it out everywhere. The other thing is that Blender doesn't really run on the rk3588 either. You can kind of get a patched version working based on Lucie's patches, and I did, but it doesn't support the Eevee renderer, which is a must-have for me personally.
But the MNT Quasar board will be apparently fixing both of those above issues, and yes, at that point this will be a device that I can recommend generally. And I'll also note that I got the very first MNT Reform when it came out, and holy moly the state of the hardware now vs when it originally launched half a decade ago... it's hugely far between, but the amazing thing is that to get it up to the current state, I didn't need to throw things away, I could just open and tinker with things bit by bit.
In many ways, the MNT Pocket Reform reminds me of the book the main character has in the solarpunk book A Psalm for the Wild Built; a computer that is issued to you at the age of 16 and that which you carry with you for life. You can upgrade and repair it easily, but you don't need to throw it away.
So yeah, it's not for everyone. But if the idea of supporting repairable, upgradeable open hardware made by a lovely bunch of queers in Berlin sounds great? That you can hack on, that has a neat little community, that will be a conversation point amongst fellow hackers for its quirkiness? It's appealing to some, but not all.