this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2024
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I wrote a blog post about my experience with the Minisforum V3 AMD Tablet, focusing on how Linux/Fedora/KDE works on this device and how Linux performs on the tablet devices.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This thing really does have everything 🥲

Thank you very much for the Linux coverage for it. Does the stylus still work in external display mode? That would be the dream...

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

Sadly the stylus isn't working in external display mode. I really hope they can work on this... (I think it's achievable as they already made the keyboard working)

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Only 6 hours on battery? That's pretty low I'd have thought.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago

During my normal usage in Linux, which includes web browsing with Firefox, video playback with Haruna Media Player (with hwdec set to auto), writing in Obsidian, and lightweight coding in Visual Studio Code and Android Studio, the tablet lasts for 6 hours.

There’s no such thing as lightweight android studio lol. The battery would likely last much longer just playing a movie at low brightness, which is usually what hardware companies do to measure and advertise battery life.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

A surface pro gets 3-4 hours in my experience.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Even the surface book 3 with it's two batteries only got 7 hours for me with use.

It's all about the TDP of the chip, pixel density and refresh rate of the screen and battery capacity.

Recipe for long battery life is low power CPU, lower resolution (HD vs UHD) screen, no touch input, bigger battery.

Tablets don't usually follow that recipe.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

And lower refresh rate.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

TDP of the CPU is largely irrelevant if battery life is the goal. You can crank the power down on any Intel system, but you’re still going to get shit battery life of the CPU can’t return to idle.

Older AMD Ryzen chips got amazing battery life at any load. But they’ve been following intel’s race to idle as quickly as possible and battery life at low-mid loads has suffered dramatically. ARM cpus are much better in that regard.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

The Zen3+ Ryzens all have lower threshold power modes, it's just that the dupes tuning a lot of BIOS presets have all the settings whacked out to run them at variable settings. If you get a well tuned BIOS, you get good battery life. The Linux 6.8+ governor settings also allow all individual core engagement with governors, which had a 40-60% battery life boost for some Ryzen chips. The 8000's should perform even better.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Nice review, thanks for sharing! I was curious about how the V3 was with Linux. I've got a Minisforum UM780 mini PC with a 7840HS, which I use as a homelab box, and it's been excellent on Arch. I was tempted to get the V3 as well, but 14" is a bit too big for my use case (primarily as a tablet).

But it's nice knowing that even the fingerprint reader worked out of the box, I know that's been a sore point for many Linux users. The battery life seems a bit on the lower end though - have you tried TuneD yet? Apparently some folks have experienced better battery life with it, compared to PPD. I'm also curious what the battery life would be like if you ran a distro which used x86-64-v4 packages, such as CachyOS, in theory you should get better battery life since you'd be using more optimised instructions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Thanks for the information! I'll definitely try TuneD to see how it can improve battery life. CachyOS looks interesting and promising, I'll test it with a USB SSD.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

That's a very thorough review and interesting to read. Thank you!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

That looks like such a cool device! I've been wondering what to replace my 2017 macbook with in the next few years and it's nice to see more options to consider. Maybe it won't be a refurbished ThinkPad.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Good writeup. I wannit

[–] Secret300 4 points 4 months ago

I've been looking for a Linux tablet for a while and I think I finally found it. Well written review and I hope it gets better support once released globally.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Just a heads up for anyone in the US wanting one, if you sign up for the pre-sale alert, they'll pretty immediately send you the invite to buy one.

[–] Secret300 2 points 4 months ago

Need to get some OT soon haha

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Did I miss how many nits at full brightness? I use an old Toughpad because it's 1000nits is usable outdoors.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

500nits according to the store.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

523 nits according to multiple reviewers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

That's probably not too bad for daylight.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Dammit, I really wish I could get this in my country. I love the tablet form factor and it ticks all the boxes I want for my next laptop :(

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

So you cram all the internals into a form factor that can't breathe. Then...you slap a keyboard and trackpad on it anyway.

I really just...don't understand tablets.