It’s all gotta start somewhere.

I’d recommend buying used over new. Before Iran war bolts were going for $12k

No worries. I took the easy route (TrueNAS apps) instead of straight learning docker or kubernetes or podman at the start of my self hosting journey. I’ve been slowly moving out of TrueNAS and am glad given the recent developments. We all gotta start somewhere.

I would recommend taking apart something that is already broken and ressembling it to get comfortable before self assembling something at the difficulty scale of a modern laptop. Either way that tablet looks cool, I’ll wait to see how everyone likes it. I’ve not been one to like beta testing hardware.

Looks like you can buy all the parts from Pine and assemble one yourself except for the battery and speakers. Sourcing a battery and speakers shouldn’t be too much trouble compared to a mainboard.

https://pine64.com/product-category/pinebook-pro-spare-parts/

Yeah, I’m waiting to see what the ARM based laptops can do in the role as a couch computer. If I were to bet on which laptop now would fit your needs, check out a Pinebook.

So long as there are businesses needing laptops and on regular upgrade cycles, I would believe there will still be surplus for us. Let someone else pay the new car tax. I’m buying used until prices improve.

I have used ThinkCentres for a router and Nextcloud setup, a year behind refurb ThinkPad for mobile work, and server parts deal hard drives in my NAS.