The StarLite 5 Linux tablet might have just killed the iPad for me

[gpat]

I've been looking for current hardware running CoreBoot since forever.

Thank you, I'll be watching this very closely.

Still, it shouldn't even be put in the same sentence as the iPad. Totally different concept, everybody that loves one will hate the other and vice versa.

 

[Basic75]

Installing programs on Linux is a PITA.

What's wrong with

./configure && make && make install

?
JK

 

[BanjoDudeAhoy]

I have been so disappointed in seeing no linux phones come to market, but I will keep an eye out for this in the coming weeks.

There are some, though.
I think I remember the Pine Phone being reviewed by a couple of tech YouTubers, too, although I can't remember if those reviews were particularly great.

 

[BanjoDudeAhoy]

StarLite 12.5-inch

Its fanless design ensures your StarLite will never make more than a whisper - unless you want it to. The Mk V supports coreboot open source firmware which you can effortlessly configure to your preferences via our coreboot configurator.

us.starlabs.systems

This looks kinda neat - the Linux Surface in a way.

That's what makes me a little skeptical, though. The last non-iPad tablet I used was a Surface 3 and that experience was quite lacking. It wasn't a proper laptop but it was also not a tablet.
With resolution scaling set to something that made screen elements legible enough for me, the standard Windows desktop felt super cramped and not conducive to productivity at all, whereas at 100% everything was too small on screen. And that's not taking into account software that just outright wouldn't work properly with resolution scaling.

Of course, this isn't a Windows device and I have no idea what Linux does in this regard. It'd be interesting to try it out at the very least.
Just like I'd love to try a newer Surface, since they're at, what, 9 now?

 

[0423MAC]

There are some, though.
I think I remember the Pine Phone being reviewed by a couple of tech YouTubers, too, although I can't remember if those reviews were particularly great.

Hmm I remember hearing about the pinephone and it looks like the pinephone Pro can run Ubuntu 22.10. If there are no weird limitations that might be an interesting experiment for me to try.

I tried Ubuntu Touch on a galaxy s10+ and it’s severely outdated.

 

[Grey Area]

Interesting, thanks for the heads-up. I'd be interested in this mostly as a fanless Linux ultraportable laptop, that is, I would be using it with the keyboard, never as a pure tablet. As such I would have preferred a straightforward refresh of the previous StarLite, which was just that. But maybe this can be made to work.

 

[rippley5150]

I was looking at this over the weekend. I'm sort of tempted as I'm studying for the RHCE 9 exam and would like something not as big as my 15 inch MBP to practice with not that it's all that heavy to drag around.

Looking at the price after shipping, a person could get a new MBA for a little more but it does look very interesting.

 

[3166792]

That's what makes me a little skeptical, though. The last non-iPad tablet I used was a Surface 3 and that experience was quite lacking. It wasn't a proper laptop but it was also not a tablet.
With resolution scaling set to something that made screen elements legible enough for me, the standard Windows desktop felt super cramped and not conducive to productivity at all, whereas at 100% everything was too small on screen. And that's not taking into account software that just outright wouldn't work properly with resolution scaling.

This is a valid point because high PPI screens and proper scaling on Linux still sucks big time.

Interesting, thanks for the heads-up. I'd be interested in this mostly as a fanless Linux ultraportable laptop, that is, I would be using it with the keyboard, never as a pure tablet. As such I would have preferred a straightforward refresh of the previous StarLite, which was just that. But maybe this can be made to work.

It's actually unfortunate that they killed off the previous StarLite because that looked like a very nice little passive laptop akin to the 12" MacBook. Aluminum chassis, glass trackpad, stereo speakers and even a decently high PPI screen.

 

[BanjoDudeAhoy]

It's actually unfortunate that they killed off the previous StarLite because that looked like a very nice little passive laptop akin to the 12" MacBook. Aluminum chassis, glass trackpad, stereo speakers and even a decently high PPI screen.

I would love something like that. My M1 MBA is my daily driver and I could absolutely see myself getting a MBA-like Windows laptop with no fans, proper x86/64 emulation if it's ARM etc. for old games and the few occasions when I need Windows.

I had a 13" Lenovo Yoga Slim that was almost all that - except for the fan, temps and battery life.

 

[IconDRT]

No one is buying this thing without a notch. No notch. No deal.

I may grab one just for fun. Run some Zorin or Pop!_OS on it.

Just configured mine with 2TB, Keyboard, Zorin Pro, and a recovery drive for $877.

 

[3530025]

Well, let’s look at what you’re getting:
Superior speakers
Superior camera
Mini LED Display
Face ID

Yeah, the OS is a downgrade in some ways, but as you pointed out, also an upgrade based on your physical needs.

If you want to pay less, buy the smaller iPP or buy an M1 refurb off of the apple refurb store for a few hundred bucks less.

iPad's hardware is great. What drags it down is software.

If there was ability to run fully fledged macOS (it's completely imaginable when using magic keyboard with trackpad), it would be a killer device.

With iPadOS, it is however just an bigger iPhone with possibility to run two iOS apps side by side. But it's nowhere near macOS/Macbook quality of work when using iPad.

And yes, I have iPad Pro. Great HW, killed by its software. If you use it for just browsing the web and Facetime, then it's great and suits your needs - but at the same time, you really don't need iPad Pro for such task.

 

[eicca]

iPad's hardware is great. What drags it down is software.

If there was ability to run fully fledged macOS (it's completely imaginable when using magic keyboard with trackpad), it would be a killer device.

With iPadOS, it is however just an bigger iPhone with possibility to run two iOS apps side by side. But it's nowhere near macOS/Macbook quality of work when using iPad.

And yes, I have iPad Pro. Great HW, killed by its software. If you use it for just browsing the web and Facetime, then it's great and suits your needs - but at the same time, you really don't need iPad Pro for such task.

Bingo.

 

[3530025]

Installing programs on Linux is a PITA.

You mean

apt install <insert-wanted-program-here>

or

dnf install <insert-wanted-program-here>

or

pacman -S <insert-wanted-program-here>

?

Did you actually used Linux? I mean used.

Installing programs from the repository (which is the most common way) is one of the best Linux things... It automatically handles upgrades, resolves dependencies, warns you about important changelog changes. It's just great. Saying "installing programs on Linux as a PITA" just sounds like you don't know what you're talking about, sorry.

(And I'm not saying Linux [on the desktop] does not have any problems. It does have many of them actually. Fair amount. But installing programs is definitely not one of them.)

 

[rui no onna]

And yes, I have iPad Pro. Great HW, killed by its software. If you use it for just browsing the web and Facetime, then it's great and suits your needs - but at the same time, you really don't need iPad Pro for such task.

I guess for me, I’ve never thought of using iPads to completely replace my work devices (employer-issued Windows desktop and laptop).

I view the iPad Pro in the same vein as the iPhone Pro or AirPods Pro—just nicer versions of the non-Pro models.

For home use, apart from gaming, backups and some techie stuff, the iPad fits my needs 90% of the time. I want 512GB-1TB internal storage and prefer FaceID over the power button TouchID. I can’t get those features on non-Pro iPads so Pro it is.

 

[3166792]

Installing programs from the repository (which is the most common way) is one of the best Linux things... It automatically handles upgrades, resolves dependencies, warns you about important changelog changes. It's just great. Saying "installing programs on Linux as a PITA" just sounds like you don't know what you're talking about, sorry.

I don't disagree but as a long time desktop Linux user, I can say that I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times I've had software break during updates, system upgrades or system component changes. Dependency hell is still alive and well and that also doesn't speak to the reliance upon repo maintainers to keep everything up to date unless you want to build everything from source.

The proliferation of Flatpaks in the desktop space has been one of the best things that ever happened to the "normal" Linux user, IMO. It's great to have a first-class, containerized, easy to discover software source that developers want to publish at and anyone can use.

 

[MauiPa]

If that is what you want, have fun. This tablet is meh on performance and specifications. Probably good enough, but I get really tired about someone taking a meh product and comparing it to a much better product and saying, "look it is cheaper". Well no kidding.

The N200 has decent single core perfornance, but not very good multi-core, and yes, almost all software is built to take advantage of multi-cores these days, snd if it is not, do you really want to run it?

The display is 300 Nits (that is terrible, BTW, the 9th generation iPad is 500 for reference).

Overall, it seems like a decent tablet for the money, but not even close to an iPad Pro, so why compare it? A better comparison would be to the 9th generation iPad which is about the same price and yet: has a better display (although smaller), is still faster (albeit only a little bit).

Conclusion: decent for the money, meh specs, but entirely usable, so have fun

 

[HouseLannister]

Interesting. Love playing with different OSes, so would be interested if it wasn't a 2-month dispatch right now. I make a lot of impulse buys, but the wait sometimes kills my toy-lust. Only PCI3 SSD, so would want to know how the performance feels. Also wonder what kind of battery life it gets.

 

[MauiPa]

The N200 benchmarks more than twice as powerful as my 2011 MacBook Pro, and Linux Mint Cinnamon runs quite well on that ancient thing.

wow twice as powerful as a 12 year old computer. and the A13 Bionic in the 9th generation iPad is even faster than the N200

 

[3166792]

Interesting. Love playing with different OSes, so would be interested if it wasn't a 2-month dispatch right now. I make a lot of impulse buys, but the wait sometimes kills my toy-lust. Only PCI3 SSD, so would want to know how the performance feels. Also wonder what kind of battery life it gets.

They claim "up to 12 hours" but in my experience, the real world numbers are always 30-40% less than what these bespoke manufacturers claim on Linux. Linux is not particularly power efficient to begin with and a high resolution display like that will not help.

 

[Mr Magoo]

I'm with the op on this one. IPad is still an oversized iPhone. Sure it has it's use cases for professionals as well. Good alternative to Wacom and such. Other then that it's a media consumption device. The filemanager and the lack of having multiple user accounts and a lot of other things a macbook can do and at a lower price than the iPad Pro. I hope next iPadOS can fix these things. Until then i'm not buying. Especially with the price theyre asking.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

I bought my iPad Pro to be my mobile simple computer: casual web browsing, light document editing, maybe some clerical tasks, blah blah blah. I previously had a MacBook Air M1 to do these things on but laptops aggravate my carpal tunnel so it had to go.

As a result I had to pay more than the MBA cost to get an iPad Pro with an OS that is vastly inferior to the less-expensive laptop. Even though it largely works for what I'm asking it to do, it still frustrates me that the file management, multitasking, audio source management, compatibility, etc are basically just iPhone-grade. On such a large screen, those nerfed functions are painfully apparent and clunky.

Besides. It's just bad product management so sell a device with laptop-grade hardware, that costs more than a laptop, and is less versatile than a laptop. I will die on this hill, so flame away. Basic product management 101 and Apple has failed.

Star Labs just dropped their StarLite 5 tablet: 12.5" screen, CoreBoot, and runs Linux Mint (which I really really like) or a bunch of other Linux distros OR WINDOWS if you want for HALF THE PRICE OF THE IPAD PRO. It's $500! AND IT HAS A HEADPHONE JACK. AND TWO USB-C PORTS AND MINI HDMI. The more I read the more I'm drooling. This has value potential written all freaking over it.

I'm waiting for reviews to happen, but I'm having a very difficult time not pre-ordering it. It seems to be everything I'm waiting in vain for the iPad to be and has all the value that Apple refuses to provide.

StarLite 12.5-inch

Its fanless design ensures your StarLite will never make more than a whisper - unless you want it to. The Mk V supports coreboot open source firmware which you can effortlessly configure to your preferences via our coreboot configurator.

us.starlabs.systems

Good luck on your quest to solve your carpal tunnel issues, but do not blame Apple because you want an Apple tablet to provide the Mac OS that you choose not to use for your carpal tunnel reasons. I fully agree that iOS devices are limiting despite their power, but they are what they are. It seems to me that you want iOS tablets to be something that they are not.

 

[rappr]

I'm with the op on this one. IPad is still an oversized iPhone.

This is always such an odd complaint to me. The iPhone’s been a computer from day one.

 

[eicca]

Good luck on your quest to solve your carpal tunnel issues, but do not blame Apple because you want an Apple tablet to provide the Mac OS that you choose not to use for your carpal tunnel reasons. I fully agree that iOS devices are limiting despite their power, but they are what they are. It seems to me that you want iOS tablets to be something that they are not.

I want basic product development principles to give me the option of extracting the full value of the device.

If I told you I was starting a computer company, and our first device was a revolutionary tablet powered by laptop hardware, priced higher than a laptop, but running (and hobbled by) a glorified phone operating system, I’d get laughed up the street and the company wouldn’t even get off the ground.

Just because Apple says something is good doesn’t make it good.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

Just because Apple says something is good doesn’t make it good.

Sales, not Apple, are what say iPads are good. What they are good for varies for the hundreds of millions of folks who choose to use them.

Do not misunderstand. I largely agree with you about what is limiting about tablets and iOS, which is why I use Mac OS devices for most real work. I have been comparatively testing an iPad Pro and a new iPad Mini against my ancient v1 iPad Air for a month now, and it looks like the iPad Pro and iPad Mini will not make the cut for my usages. The new M2 MBP with 96 GB RAM scores 100 of 100, however, and clearly is my go to device for everything but books.

 

[eicca]

Sales, not Apple, are what say iPads are good. What they are good for varies for the hundreds of millions of folks who choose to use them.

Do not misunderstand. I largely agree with you about what is limiting about tablets and iOS, which is why I use Mac OS devices for most real work.

Sales doesn’t mean a product is good, it means consumers believe the marketing.

It only takes a short period of working in retail/product design to realize that consumers are reeeeeeally gullible.

Which is why basically every big company’s product values have plummeted while sales remain high. They’ve realized that marketing is more powerful than good products.