The big picture: MNT is billing the Pocket Reform as a compact yet fully featured mini laptop capable of handling a variety of tasks including taking notes, writing and responding to e-mails, watching videos, light gaming and listening to music. These are all tasks that a smartphone can also accomplish, but many would probably agree that they're easier and more convenient on a laptop.

MNT Research has announced a new product that takes the best elements of its Reform laptop and stuffs them into a smaller, lighter and more affordable package.

The Pocket Reform mini laptop is more or less a throwback to the days of netbooks. It features a 7-inch, full HD (1,920 x 1,080 pixels, 310 PPI) display driven by a modular CPU and memory system that can be swapped out to best fit your needs. The standard configuration packs an NXP i.MX 8M Plus comprised of four ARM Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.8GHz, your choice of 4GB of 8GB of DDR4 memory, a Vivante GC7000UL GPU and a neural processing unit.

The 60-key ortholinear keyboard employs mechanical switches (Kailh Choc White) with N-key rollover and RGB backlighting. There's also an optical 10mm trackball with four buttons, an integrated DAC with mono speaker, 802.11 ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0 and up to 128GB of eMMC flash memory that's expandable via microSD card slot or with an NVMe SSD. Two li-ion cells provide 8000mAh of total battery capacity.

The system is a bit chunky at 7.9" x 4.5" x 1.8". No word yet on how much it weighs.

The Pocket Reform mini laptop is expected to enter early beta soon. Those interested in keeping up with the latest from MNT Research are encouraged to subscribe to the company's newsletter, join their forum or reach out directly to their CEO on Twitter.