For me, the smaller the better. I'm fortunate enough to do most of my real work at a desktop setting, so I'd like the laptop to be as portable as possible.
With that in mind, in terms of pure form factor, the Asus Flip Chromebook (2015) was about as close to perfect as possible. Sure, its processor was anemic even at release. I'd want a higher quality screen. But the keyboard was very good by my standards. The 10 inch screen was the perfect size and was 16:10. Weighed around 1.8 pounds (0.82 kg). If I could have that form factor with modern tech, I'd be in heaven.
Second favorite is the current iteration of the iPad Mini. If I could get that with an M1 or M2, full MacOS, then I'd be happier than (insert metaphor here).
Third favorite was the 2015 Macbook. I'd wish for a better keyboard and more ports, but overall the form factor & weight was extremely good. Would be stellar with a modern Mac kb and Apple Silicon.
Fourth fave was a tiny Sony Vaio from 2000. Forget the model name / number. Also under 2 pounds with a 10 inch screen. Honorable mention to the Asus Eee of 2008. Screen was too small but otherwise it was a perfect size & weight.
I guess I'll have to try a GPD laptop one of these days. They seem to be among the only ones providing tiny & small laptops.
I'm of a different opinion. My current daily driver is a Lenovo Gaming laptop running Pop OS (I was running Fedora on it but due to the redhat drama I'm distro hopping to find a suitable replacement)
I like rugged, beefy laptops with fast screens and discrete graphics. There are downsides, for instance, no linux system I've found yet seem to be able to replicate the battery life optimizations that come by default with Windows, Fedora had issues properly responding to the trackpad, pop OS seems to have stuttering issues playing back youtube videos on Firefox, annoying things like that, but I like having the raw power needed to do things like running stable diffusion or koboldAI or whatever LLM client I want or play some video games or editing images and videos, doing light programming tasks, and just being an all-around do-what-you-want platform that doesn't try to opinionate me out of an option I might want to try.
I will probably give Debian 12 or SUSE a try on the next go round unless I find something better.
With that in mind, in terms of pure form factor, the Asus Flip Chromebook (2015) was about as close to perfect as possible. Sure, its processor was anemic even at release. I'd want a higher quality screen. But the keyboard was very good by my standards. The 10 inch screen was the perfect size and was 16:10. Weighed around 1.8 pounds (0.82 kg). If I could have that form factor with modern tech, I'd be in heaven.
Second favorite is the current iteration of the iPad Mini. If I could get that with an M1 or M2, full MacOS, then I'd be happier than (insert metaphor here).
Third favorite was the 2015 Macbook. I'd wish for a better keyboard and more ports, but overall the form factor & weight was extremely good. Would be stellar with a modern Mac kb and Apple Silicon.
Fourth fave was a tiny Sony Vaio from 2000. Forget the model name / number. Also under 2 pounds with a 10 inch screen. Honorable mention to the Asus Eee of 2008. Screen was too small but otherwise it was a perfect size & weight.
I guess I'll have to try a GPD laptop one of these days. They seem to be among the only ones providing tiny & small laptops.