I really want a 64-bit ARM laptop, but no one is shipping them yet -- not even Vero Apparatus.
So, I've put together the next-best-thing: a portable, wireless system assembled from off-the-shelf components. The resulting system weights ~1.8 kg (4 lb), has a 5-6 hour battery life, and fits in my laptop bag. It has microSD for storage, an 8-core Cortex-A53 processor, wifi, ethernet, and bluetooth, an external HDMI output for presentations, and 1GB of RAM. The components are held between two sheets of acrylic by 3M Dual Lock fasteners so the configuration can be easily switched up.
This system runs a version of LEAP, our experimental enterprise Linux distribution for AArch64 systems loosely based on the CentOS 7 x86_64 sources, on a 96BoardsHiKey. The HiKey isn't officially supported by LEAP (yet), but we expect to support it later this year. I look forward to swapping the HiKey for a 96boards Enterprise Edition board later this year.
If you're at Linaro Connect next week, I'd be glad to give you a peek sometime during the week or on Demo Friday, and I'll blog about how the system was assembled a few weeks down the road.
