I have 4 1L mini PCs that I run at home and I've actually been thinking of "upgrading" to laptops. Here are my thoughts on it:
Pros of laptops:
  • Built in battery that can act as a UPS.
  • Built in KVM you can use to troubleshoot the system.
  • A lot of the used Laptops can actually be powered via USB-C PD, which means you don't need a special AC adapter, and you can run it via DC.
  • If you run the laptop via DC, you could technically power it off a LiFePO4 battery, with a solar panel hooked up that could power the whole thing if the power went down.
Cons of laptops:
  • The laptops only come in the lower powered CPU (I think they have a 'T' on the end of the model #)
  • Laptops take up a bit more space than the 1L mini PCs.
  • Some laptops don't cool properly if the lid is closed, although you could just make sure to get ones that don't have this design flaw, or take the screen off.
In general I've thought about moving to the laptops because I'd like to experiment with running a BTC node off of a LiFePO4 battery + solar, mainly to see if I could do it.
Informative post. I like the idea of running off of DC power. I have a 1TB ssd I could use with an old Dell XPS.
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