Ling Long mini PC in a foldable mini keyboard - laptop alternative without display

[13:11 Mon,8.July 2024 by Rudi Schmidts]

The Chinese PC manufacturer Ling Long presented a new portable PC yesterday that appeals to us personally. In the spirit of the home computers of the 1980s, all the electronics are concealed under the keyboard. But unlike the "old boxes", the keyboard in this one is even foldable and even fits into some trouser pockets when folded to a size of 15 x 10 cm.

The keyboard PC has an integrated battery and an integrated trackpad, so that an additional mouse is not absolutely necessary. However, you still need an additional display, of course. Mobile displays are now a dime a dozen and what we particularly like about such an external solution is the freely selectable distance between the bottom edge of the display and the keyboard. This distance is always a little too small for our taste in terms of ergonomics on typical, smaller laptops.

Ling Long Mini-PC in a foldable mini keyboard

Interestingly, the company itself suggests perhaps even dispensing with a display altogether and pairing AR or VR glasses with the keyboard. A large smartphone/tablet with corresponding input functionality or even the hotel TV could also be used.

The keyboard is said to offer a battery life of 10 hours for light office work (and up to six hours when playing films). Under high load, e.g. during continuous gaming, around four hours should still be possible. If the external display also needs to be supplied with power via USB-C, the battery life is likely to be halved again. However, powerful GaN power supplies are fortunately now also very small and light and a 100W GaN device is supposedly already included in the scope of delivery. The currently listed weight of 800 grams for the keyboard is probably due to the built-in battery and still seems a little heavy for such a solution. After all, there are already laptops with displays weighing less than 1kg.

Ling Long Mini-PC in a foldable mini keyboard

The built-in AMD Ryzen 7 8840U APU should also be suitable for light editing tasks thanks to the unified memory. The keyboard is to be delivered in two variants (16GB/512 GB and 32GB/1TB) for the equivalent of around 400/500 US dollars.

However, only 200 units were produced for a beta test at the time of the product presentation, which have not yet been planned for sale. It is still unclear when and where (China or worldwide) the foldable mini PC keyboard will be available. Nevertheless, we already find the concept extremely exciting.

more infos at bei www.tomshardware.com

deutsche Version dieser Seite: Ling Long Mini-PC in einer faltbaren Mini-Tastatur – Laptop-Alternative ohne Display