I am trying so hard to not acquire more computers, but the need to test a ton
of stuff and have a good reference platform forced my hand. Rather than do any
research I took trasz@'s recommended Dell laptop as test target and picked one
up from eBay, a Dell Latitude 7280.
It was 65 quid with about a fiver in postage and there are a ton of them. So
many that I wasn't super discerning when reading the listing.
The Dell Latitude 7280 is ~12 inch Intel laptop with a 1366x768 display, it has
USB ports, will take USB-C power (vital considering how few come with power
supplies), HDMI out, Ethernet and a nice surprise a USB smart card reader
builtin (I even have some java card smart cards
somewhere
I could try, I
won't, but I could).
I let it boot windows to verify it came up and then started about installing. I
couldn't break into the bios with a key press and used the windows "reboot to
firmware" hidden menu to get into Dell's firmware.
Out of the box all of the hardware works:
Component
|
works?
|
Notes
|
Graphics
|
yes
|
drm-kmod i915
|
WiFI
|
yes
|
Intel 8265NGW with iwm or iwlwifi
|
Ethernet
|
yes
|
em(4)
|
Suspend/Resume
|
yes
|
(with default wifi adapter)
|
Camera
|
probably
|
webcamd wants it - haven't tested
|
USB
|
yes
|
USB-C data and power work
|
SD Card slot
|
yes
|
rtsx(4) - micro sd card
|
Audio
|
yes
|
speakers and headphone jack work
|
Media Keys
|
yes
|
|
The bios doesn't lock which WiFI cards you can use - the main reason for
getting this machine was that trasz@ said suspend/resume worked until he used
iwx and I needed a platform to debug iwx suspend on.
I had no issue swapping out the builtin WiFI for an iwx card and now I'm
portable for testing I could get pretty close to my attic AP and pull/push ~400
Mbit with iwx.
This computer is really well supported, but its a bit of a dog. I didn't read
the eBay listing well, it doesn't have the rubber feet, but that's fine I put it
on a silicon matt on my desk. The battery is absolutely goosed, the bios lists
battery health as 9%, this was in the listing I just, well didn't really care.
apciconf
says it should get an hour on battery, but I haven't let it run to
nothing. I got a replacement battery so I can use this thing as a test platform
for an upcoming GSoC power management project and it being a Dell part meant
getting replacement was quite easy.
I wouldn't recommend this exact laptop, maybe a Latitude 7280 with a working
battery and feet would be okay. It is slow as hell, building a kernel took 1838
seconds, 30 minutes is a long time for real development work.
The screen resolution is quite low compared to modern 2k displays, but its
probably fine for programming tasks and writing. I wouldn't want to do builds
on it.
The hardware seems quite nice apart from the rubber surface which seems to be
degrading. I don't think I got a representative laptop, if you want a test
FreeBSD machine this might be a great choice at well under 100 quid even if you
have to replace the battery.
--
Update
Working on the Latitude 7280 is a really nice experience. I have replaced the
WiFi and just after publishing this post a new battery arrived. There are 8
captive screws on the bottom which give access to quite a well laid out board.
In mine there is space for a wwan modem.
The battery replacement was excellent, a replacement was 25GBP. The battery is
held in with 2 extra screws (1 case screw also secures it), the cable has a
pull chord from the motherboard connector. The battery side for the cable is a
little harder to remove, but no challenge compared to a glued down thing. Sure
it is a plastic laptop, but it is light and thin enough. I don't really get
Apples excuse for their stuff not being this maintainable.
I have had thinkpads before and they've never been great while they have been
expensive. This 2018 computer is much nicer than any thinkpad I had.
With the new battery this looks to be a great machine for sitting in vim:
Design capacity: 7895 mAh
Last full capacity: 7895 mAh
Technology: secondary (rechargeable)
Design voltage: 7600 mV
Capacity (warn): 789 mAh
Capacity (low): 239 mAh
Low/warn granularity: 78 mAh
Warn/full granularity: 78 mAh
Model number: DELL DW3WC64
Serial number: 44280
Type: LION
OEM info: SMP
State: discharging
Remaining capacity: 100%
Remaining time: 8:17
Present rate: 953 mA (8124 mW)
Present voltage: 8525 mV
You can find a full dmesg here.