• this will be more closed source than your typical android. no drivers or firmwares. you will be stuck with a single precompiled kernel version forever.

  • people were skeptic about ROMA laptop, but now it seems promising.

    Battery – Good for up to 10 hours

    so some 6 hours in regular usage? good enough.

    capable of running desktop-level applications such as Firefox browser and LibreOffice office suite on OpenAnolis open-source Linux-based operating system launched by Alibaba in 2020.

    most Linux variants are supported, but I suspect the laptop will initially ship with the OpenAnolis Linux distribution from Alibaba.

    promising

    I got a quote for $4,999 for the laptop last July. This includes 3 years of unlimited service with free SoC upgrades, lifelong limited repair, and free repairs (excluding postage/shipping not included) and “six continuous-quarter ROMA OWNER SURPRISE PACKAGE” with AI headphones, AR glasses, AI speakers, classic game console, and autonomous Robots or Racing Car, plus some NFT thingy…

    now, I can see the laptop listed on Alibaba for $1,499 and up presumably without all the perks above unless you select the Premium package. The first 100 premium versions will be delivered in Q4 2022 and the company plans to produce 1,000 more units in Q1 2023.

    hmmm…

    i wonder about its construction though… which material it uses.