Open {hardware} maker Lucie Lukas Hartmann has launched an upgraded CPU module for the MNT Reform and Pocket Reform households of user-upgradeable permissively-licensed laptops — delivering a giant increase in efficiency over the unique module, and partnering with Crowd Provide for easy achievement to the US.
“We’re lastly bringing the MNT RCORE processor module (with [Rockchip] RK3588 and 16/32GB RAM) to Crowd Provide,” Hartmann introduced this week, “which is a superb various to purchasing from our personal store — particularly when you’re within the US and do not need to take care of the continuing tariff drama. It is for traditional MNT Reforms in addition to for Pocket Reform, the place it allows a brand new, third M.2 slot for contemporary Wi-Fi and BT [Bluetooth].”
Hartmann and colleagues at MNT Analysis are not any strangers to Crowd Provide: each the full-size MNT Reform and the small-form-factor MNT Pocket Reform launched on the platform earlier than changing into out there to order from the corporate’s personal web site. Now, although, it is getting used as a manner of skirting tariffs that might in any other case affect the import of {hardware} from Hartmann’s native Germany — by delivery them from Crowd Provide’s US warehouses as a substitute.
The module is designed to fit in to any MNT Reform or Pocket Reform motherboard, and delivers a giant efficiency improve — addressing one of many largest criticisms we leveled in opposition to the open-hardware laptop computer in our hands-on evaluate. The Rockchip RK3588 delivers 4 Arm Cortex-A76 cores working at as much as 2.4GHz plus 4 power-efficient Cortex-A55 cores working at as much as 1.8GHz, plus a Mali-G610 MP4 graphics processor. Elsewhere on the module is a alternative of 16GB or 32GB of RAM, plus 256GB of eMMC storage.
These with an MNT Pocket Reform may also discover a shiny new M.2 slot included, bringing the machine’s complete to 3. (📷: MNT Analysis)
Put in in a basic MNT Reform, the module — and its trendy new heatsink — delivers a significant efficiency achieve; put in within the MNT Pocket Reform, it additionally provides a 3rd growth slot for M.2 E-key radio modules courtesy of a bundled growth board. In all instances, the boards — together with nearly the whole lot else that goes right into a Reform — are made out there below open {hardware} licenses, although the reminiscence controller and Arm Mali GPU depend on closed-source firmware.
The marketing campaign is now dwell on Crowd Provide, priced at $500/520 for the 16GB variant and $750/770 for the 32GB variant for the Pocket Reform and Reform respectively; all {hardware} is predicted to ship in January subsequent yr.
