MNT Reform: Open‑Source Hackable Laptop Review
Key Points
- The MNT Reform laptop is deliberately designed for hackability and full hardware openness, offering schematics, 3D CAD files, and the ability to swap components like the keyboard, trackball, CPU module, or even individual battery cells.
- It comes with a relatively high price tag (~$1,200‑$1,500), featuring an A311D 6‑core processor, 4 GB RAM, a 1 TB NVMe SSD, a trackball, and a modular, metal chassis that is considerably thicker (≈40 mm) than mainstream ultrabooks.
- Its open‑source nature allows users to replace or upgrade virtually any part—including swapping the “banana” board for a Raspberry Pi or an IMX module—making it more of a developer/enthusiast platform than a mass‑market MacBook or Chromebook replacement.
- While the build quality is solid and the mechanical keyboard feels premium, the laptop’s size, cost, and niche focus mean it’s aimed at a specific audience interested in repairability and customization rather than competing on price or sleekness.
Full Transcript
# MNT Reform: Open‑Source Hackable Laptop Review **Source:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DA0Jr4WH-4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DA0Jr4WH-4) **Duration:** 00:13:12 ## Summary - The MNT Reform laptop is deliberately designed for hackability and full hardware openness, offering schematics, 3D CAD files, and the ability to swap components like the keyboard, trackball, CPU module, or even individual battery cells. - It comes with a relatively high price tag (~$1,200‑$1,500), featuring an A311D 6‑core processor, 4 GB RAM, a 1 TB NVMe SSD, a trackball, and a modular, metal chassis that is considerably thicker (≈40 mm) than mainstream ultrabooks. - Its open‑source nature allows users to replace or upgrade virtually any part—including swapping the “banana” board for a Raspberry Pi or an IMX module—making it more of a developer/enthusiast platform than a mass‑market MacBook or Chromebook replacement. - While the build quality is solid and the mechanical keyboard feels premium, the laptop’s size, cost, and niche focus mean it’s aimed at a specific audience interested in repairability and customization rather than competing on price or sleekness. ## Sections - [00:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DA0Jr4WH-4&t=0s) **MNT Reform: Open-Source Hackable Laptop** - The reviewer evaluates the costly, fully modular MNT Reform laptop—designed for open‑source customization, interchangeable parts like batteries, trackball, and CPU—and notes its appeal to tech enthusiasts rather than as a mainstream MacBook or Chromebook alternative. ## Full Transcript
this laptop was made to be hacked but
not like hackerman getting all your
secrets no this laptop's design the
components everything is open source and
if iix it did a tear down they'd
probably give it an 11 out of 10 I mean
you can replace individual battery cells
some people with these laptops hacked in
their own speakers added more internal
Ethernet or even swapped out the CPU
itself does that mean I think you should
buy it no probably not it's expensive
and it's built for a certain type of
person it's not going to replace a
Macbook or a cheap Chromebook but why
does this exist and why am I still
excited about it we'll get to that this
is the MNT reform and this unit was sent
to me for testing it's going right back
after I'm done making this video they
haven't paid me anything and they have
no input into this review and let's get
specs out of the way quickly this
version with a banana pcm4 pre-installed
costs around 1,500 bucks the base model
is closer to 1,200 but this one has a 6
core a311d S so which I've tested before
it's a bit faster than the compute mod
module 4 but a bit slower than the RK
3588 in top-of-the line armed sbcs like
the rock 5 model B it also has 4 gigs of
RAM a 1 TB nvme SSD a track ball yeah
and they sent along a few premium
add-ons like this white pinch sleeve and
a printed handbook but you can change
literally everything not only can you
pop out the keyboard and use it
separately you can also swap out the
track ball for a trackpad and you can
swap out the banana pie for a Raspberry
Pi or you can stick with a slightly
slower but more IO capable IMX instead
hackability is the name of the game I
mean even individual battery cells could
be replaced if you want but going along
with the theme of repairability
everything about this laptop from the
motherboard to the track ball module is
open-source Hardware that means there
are schematics 3D CAD files pretty much
every little detail is available for
download meaning if you don't like the
keyboard or track ball layout you could
build one of your own it's like
Frameworks laptop except it's truly open
and hackable Hardware since MNT isn't
playing in Intel s sandbox they have the
freedom to open up a lot more of their
stack including their firmware that
comes with some downsides though like
look at how thick this thing is closed
it's about 40 mm tall that's fighting
with 25-year-old laptop designs in terms
of overall thickness it's a nice metal
body though so it doesn't have much flex
and the mechanical keyboard hearkens
back to a time when laptop keyboards
actually felt nice a MacBook Air this
ain't it's just not built to compete in
that market or with things like
Chromebooks to demonstrate that and more
I'll jump right into my experience using
it to be honest this bottom is so pretty
with that clear acrylic cover I almost
don't want to touch it but touch it I
must because the first step in setting
this thing up is connecting the
batteries if you don't want to get your
hands dirty and take full ownership of
your laptop the MNT reform is not for
you one thing to note the sleeve feels
nice and premium and it should for over
100 bucks but it was a bit hard to get
on and off it's a tight fit at least
brand new and like the thickness it
hearkens back to when computers came
with nice dust jackets but honestly I
throw my laptop in a bag with a built-in
sleeve anyway so I don't know if I'd put
down the 150 bucks or so for this sleeve
MNT sent over a trackpad and a compute
module 4 Kit in separate little boxes
and I'll get to installing both of those
soon they also sent along a sticker
which will now feature on my sticker
board back here so thanks for that the
power supply they ship is a meanwell so
it's a quality adapter and it's rated at
60 WTS which is probably a bit generous
I don't think this system would ever
pull that much but better safe than
sorry there's a 4 amp fuse by the power
plug so this thing couldn't pull more
than 48 WTS for more than a few seconds
anyway one thing I found slightly
annoying was there's no indication on
the top or side that you have it plugged
in it'd be nice if there were a tiny LED
showing whether the laptop's plugged in
and charging as it is there's just this
Amber LED hanging out under the wireless
antenna you could get the information
when it's booted up but I like having a
visible indicator on the outside that's
a minor gripe though let's get this
thing boot it up and booting it up is a
little different too you press the
circle key then the little OLED above
the keyboard lights up from here you can
turn on power turn off power and get at
some other basic utilities like checking
individual battery cell voltages but I
wanted to boot it up so I chose that
option the b os the reform ships with is
already pretty complete it comes with a
ton of software built in and two
different graphical environments in my
case sway or gnome and they actually
just change things up and move to wfire
but I'll cover gnome here but before
that let's take a peek on the command
line now I already know how to do things
like install neofetch and check out the
specs or set up ierf 3 to test the
network speed but if you don't the first
thing you see after logging in is this
nice page of help topics I like how they
do that and they also have a whole
section on Linux basics in The Operators
manual doing that helps people who might
know a little bit about Linux but never
actually used it before and dumping you
into the command line kind of forces the
issue too it's not like you just boot
right into a web browser like a
Chromebook you have to learn how to do
that in Linux but gome it is I spent
some time getting used to the reform and
the little a311d chip is fast enough for
at least casual use I could play
playback YouTube videos at 1080p though
the 10 built-in speakers won't hold a
candle to my MacBook to move in and I'm
going to show you everything including
the wmount network rack I just set up in
the back but if you want to solve that
just plug in some headphones the
built-in amp sounds great on my at m20s
But there again there's a little
annoyance that's not a big deal but it
is different than most other modern
devices when I plugged in my headphones
I also had to go into the sound settings
and switch outputs I don't have to do
that on my Mac or pretty much any PC in
the past decade or two but there might
be a way to hack Linux a bit to get that
automatic output switching to work but
that's kind of the theme with this thing
it gets very close to what I'm used to
but it's just a tiny bit different you
enough to be grading the first few hours
while I'm using it like take the
keyboard it has a split space bar layout
and if you're like me and your muscle
memory has you hitting the center of
where the space bar should be you have
to either adjust your muscle memory to
hit one of the other parts or remap the
keys to use spacebar there again and the
same goes for the control key which is
moved up to where caps lock would
normally be for me I'm a weirdo and I
remap that to escape but on this
keyboard I have to remap control back
down to the bottom left to get
comfortable again I mean it's not super
hard to do but this keyboard is pretty
fussy like that I'd rather just have a
standard North American cty layout like
I'm used to otherwise though this
keyboard's mechanical switches feel
great certainly better than almost any
other laptop I've touched it needs room
for it meaning the laptop's a bit chunky
but it is nice to type on this thing and
moving down a bit you can go with either
a track ball or trackpad I tried both
and I had a couple gripes with both of
the options while I do love track balls
the old giant Kensington track ball was
pretty awesome back in the day this one
was a bit smaller and sunken down so far
it was hard to control it really well
even with the tracking speed set to Max
it took far too much work to move around
the screen with it having tons of
mechanical buttons around it was nice
too but I ultimately went for the
trackpad instead and that's not without
its quirks either though it it doesn't
have any physical buttons so you have to
use tap to click which I don't like just
because it feels a little less precise
to me also that means dragging things
around or resizing Windows requires a
little bit of a dance as you tap and
hold with one finger while the other
fingers do the moving Apple's trackpad
is still my gold standard but at least
with this built-in trackpad the tracking
speed was nicer and two finger scrolling
worked great the screen was great too
and it's not a bad size for the HD
resolution there's an external HDMI port
but at least with the banana pie cm4 you
can't use it yet it did work fine when I
swapped in a compute module 4 though and
I like that the software Demming
controls work out of the box sometimes
with these Linux laptops you can't
adjust it to lower brightness or the
power saving dimming function doesn't
work but other Hardware integration into
gome was a little wonky the battery
indicator would work sometimes and other
times it would just show as 0% whether I
was plugged in or running off battery
power there are some power commands you
can run in Linux to get that info but I
just wanted the time estimate or a
percentage to show and I did run through
one full battery cycle playing back this
fireplace live stream on YouTube full
screen and it ran for about 2 and 1/2
hours so you can probably get get a bit
more than that if you use it more
conservatively it did shut itself down
when the battery was exhausted though so
it's nice to know that the power
management is working behind the scenes
even if the UI was a little bit rough
Wi-Fi was also quirky and gnome I kept
trying to connect to my network and it
would say authentication required but it
never actually popped a password
dialogue this looks like a gnome issue
though since I found other people with
that same problem the fix was to connect
to a hidden network even though mine
isn't really hidden that got me online
and it's nice to have both wired
ethernet and Wi-Fi built into this
laptop now as far as the physical
Hardware is concerned the hinges are
great and solid and there is a little
magnet that holds the lid closed just
enough tension here that you can get one
finger to pull up the lid but I do
wonder if like my ancient PowerBook the
heavy screen will start to Sag after a
few years with all that weight on these
hinges the nice thing with the reform is
everything and I mean everything is
available on their store you can just
buy a set of hinges if yours wears out
that combined with the fact that things
in this laptop are actually big enough
to be repaired without breaking things
is one of the main draws to this laptop
what's a little less though is the
thickness I measured it at about 40 mm
for comparison my 25-year-old PowerBook
3400c is 65 so we're doing good against
that but it's more than three times
thicker than my MacBook Air a lot of
modern bags and backpacks aren't made
for thicker laptops like this it it fits
in my old Case Logic shoulder bag but
only barely the thing is if you're
spending over a th000 bucks on a laptop
with these specs you probably aren't
buying it to be an ultral light it's
much more reasonable as an open Hardware
portable computer than a Sleek go
everywhere laptop even though you could
use it that way in a pinch overall the
thing I love most about the hardware is
the quality of all the finishes the ease
of access to every part and the fact
that I can get at everything and even by
replacement parts if something breaks
and that's what will sell certain people
on this laptop not the specs and to
illustrate just how flexible this design
is I decided to swap in my own compute
module 4 for the banana pie it wasn't
hard and the printed guide that came
with the upgrade kit had all the details
and some nice illustrations you flip
over the computer remove the acrylic
bottom cover remove the heat syn unseat
the B pi cm4 and plug in the pi now
there are a couple extra things you need
to do for the pi for one there's only
one Wi-Fi antenna plug on the cm4 so you
should really tape off the other one
that's inside so it doesn't short
something out on the motherboard and you
also need to install this HDMI to
display port adapter so the internal
display works this was probably the most
delicate part of the whole operation
these tiny wires are a little fragile
and you have to pull them to full
extension to get it to plug in but I did
get it back together oh and remember to
reconnect the batteries before you put
the bottom cover back on otherwise it
won't do much it does run if you just
have Wall power and no batteries which
is nice but then it's not very portable
when I booted it up the internal display
didn't seem to be working with the
compute module I did get output through
the HDMI port but then I got this error
saying the SD card didn't initialize
correctly I tried three different micro
SD cards even a fullsize SD s d card all
with raspberry pios and got the same
error so I finally switched over to an
emmc compute module bypassing that
external SD card slot that seemed to do
the trick and to make sure it would boot
properly I also had to follow a few
steps and prep the pie with the right
Hardware settings I wrote up my
experience and exactly what I did to get
it working in this GitHub issue so if
you're trying to do the same thing go
check that out for more but with all
that out of the way I finally got
everything to boot on the p and most
things worked great the internal nvme
slot doesn't work on the py though so
you have to use a mini PCI to nvme
adapter if you want to use the SSD with
the compute module but it is cool that
that's possible the reform has actually
been around a while now and users have
been hacking away at these things for
over a year in fact some people made
completely custom setups like jacelin
with a fully custom keyboard or Autumn
Reigns so quartz build MNT also has a
pocket reform that's in final
pre-production right now and they
announced that they're working on MNT
reform next a slimmed down version of
the reform the sample unit runs an RK
3588 and it should be around 26 mm thick
which is a lot more like a modern laptop
than a brick and if Raspberry Pi manages
to make a compute module 5 in the same
form factor as the cm4 you could upgrade
your reform to be even faster it's
certainly been fun having this here for
a few weeks and I'm a little sad to see
it go it wouldn't be able to run as my
daily driver since it can't quite handle
4K video like I need and it only has 1
GB networking but it is a very cool
project and I hope MNT research can
continue getting the funing to build the
hardware they're building their entire
philosophy is open at the core and
that's extremely difficult to find in
the hardware space especially for
actually working Hardware that ships
I've seen many open Hardware startups
come and go and I thought MNT would be
too good to be true but they've been
around enough time I have faith to
launch the next and it'll be even better
in the end though do I think you should
buy one of these maybe but for most of
you watching this probably not it's a
little too expensive for the hardware
you get but there's a certain type of
person this laptop is perfect for and
for you yeah get one it's refreshing to
see Hardware like this in a sea of
impossible to repair laptops with lock
down firmware until next time I'm Jeff
Ging