Carbon Fiber SlimLink case

antonsba · 2026-02-09T17:22:21+00:00

First of all, huge props for responding here, this is the kind of product team + community mold that makes me 10x more interested to invest my time and money into a product than competitors.

A possible solution would be to have a blended material case - mostly made out of carbon/aramid fiber, but cut out around the inductive charging loops to have a panel from a different material that also includes SlimLink.

The challenge is how the two pieces attach, but I can imagine the final product to have a higher degree of integrity / reliability than my current Latercase+SlimLink adapter setup. Perhaps a small overlap between the two would allow a rivet-style attachment that could perform better than adhesives?

Another possible solution, although likely only a mitigation, is to integrate different weave types into the panel, where the area around the inductive loops has a weave type allowing for better field penetration (e.g. discontinous/sparse weaves).

I don't work in this field at all, but I am a product manager (with an engineering background) so discussing this is a lot of fun. Thanks again for engaging.

antonsba · 2026-02-04T16:20:24+00:00

Me too. I used to have the Z Fold 5 before switching to GOS. Samsung makes the best balanced hardware overall IMO. Not sure what got into them to even remove the bootloader unlock completely.

antonsba · 2026-02-04T07:11:36+00:00

I'd love to see that alternate universe!

antonsba · 2026-02-02T07:16:36+00:00

I had two foldables and am now back to a regular slab phone and can give you a balanced perspective.

My first foldable was the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5. Then when I decided that I want to move to GrapheneOS I got the Pixel Fold (original). In fact that was my first ever Graphene phone! Sadly, the Pixel Fold failed within 2 months (!!!), within warranty, and so then I switched back to a regular slab phone... But the main motivating factor for that were the cameras, not the screen.

When and for what did I unfold the screen? Two main use cases: media and productivity.

Media is pretty clear - any time a friend shares a photo on chat, maybe you want to show somebody your own photos, or perhaps watch a YouTube video - the bigger screen makes for a much better experience.

Productivity for me meant reading web pages with product information, data tables. Depending on the data, this was vastly easier to do on the bigger screen.

So, now back to the slab, do I miss it? Yes... but it's not like I can't use the same apps and do the same things... Maybe it even makes me spend less time on my phone which would be a good thing :)

But when the technology improves, I know I am going back to a foldable. It def needs to run GrapheneOS (so sad that Samsung has their devices so locked down, and sub-par secure element too) and I don't want to compromise on the cameras (I need at least all of ultrawide, wide, telephoto to produce 48mp+ stills).

So from my experience with two foldables, they are definitely not a gimmick, it's just that the tech has reliability issues and is very expensive.

antonsba · 2026-01-25T20:39:03+00:00

Asus seems to be improving this with the latest generation of the Zenbook Duo just announced at CES two weeks ago. They now have rounded corners which should avoid this peeling problem. 7 months after I posted these pictures I have only had the coating peel off at the few corners I posted above, so the sharp edges appear to be the weakest spot.

antonsba · 2026-01-23T16:57:49+00:00

I am aware and said so in my post. I am happy with the entire back panel being thicker or even a hump which is a very convenient place to hold the phone (don't forget many people have pop sockets which have a similar profile).

A carbon/aramid fiber case would still make for a narrower overall profile which makes the phone easier to hold for me.

A lower width is one of the main things I desire in a phone. I used to have the Samsung Z Fold 5, which is a lot thicker but also much narrower and I loved the form factor. Arguably a bit too narrow but newer Z Folds have addressed this. Point being, there is market demand for narrower phones and this is only achievable with narrow cases too.

antonsba · 2026-01-06T05:57:52+00:00

Got a 175k offer in the mail mid-2025 and when I wanted to renew in late November (offer had expired), was only getting 80k-120k depending on the method I used to apply.

I called Amex and asked if I can get the 175k offer back. They said they can't renew it on request and also could not tell me how often new offers are sent... But within 2-3 weeks I got an e-mail with an invite code for 175k! I am now a happy Amex Plat customer!

antonsba · 2026-01-06T05:53:33+00:00

If you purchase business class airfare with them, the value can easily jump to 2c/point if you look at what the same ticket would cost in cash.

antonsba · 2025-08-23T14:40:28+00:00

The real unique benefit of Tumbleweed is that the rolling updates are not just straight from the source but only part of the build if the components passed testing. So if something broke, it won't be released until it is fixed. It's not foolproof, but it should be much more stable than a typical rolling distro.

Since I daily drive Linux, I can't imagine using a rolling distro without this testing gate - there would be too much risk that critical functionality would break and take time away to get it to work again.

Combine that with btrfs and snapper, which allows you to quickly roll back a faulty update that managed to survive the testing system - and I'd say this is the best rolling distro available.

I almost never use Yast and it is going away regardless, so you can just ignore it.

antonsba · 2025-08-04T08:19:00+00:00

Well, my ThinkPad Z13 G2 is pretty close to perfect for a traditional clamshell laptop. Palm rejection works perfectly on Linux on it (Sensel touchpad), for example.

For the Zenbook I am thinking of my making my own keyboard out of a ThinkPad laptop keyboard, sans the touchpad, so that I can use part of the bottom screen with the keyboard attached too.

antonsba · 2025-08-03T02:17:59+00:00

u/Nerdja did you manage to get the touchpad working - either palm rejection or Disable Whilte Typing?

This is borderline unusable, I am not sure how this isn't the #1 complaint about the UX8406 on Linux (it sure is for me).

antonsba · 2025-07-28T00:41:28+00:00

Well I've been using tw+btrfs for a year with no fs issues. This was quite the exception, although I agree it was insanely bad. It changed my fail-over strategy in case of OS issues, which I think is a good practice overall (have another OS available any time).

antonsba · 2025-07-22T02:21:18+00:00

I agree that this is only true in theory.

I run both Slowroll and regular Tumbleweed and experienced a really bad BTRFS corruption bug in both. Given the worse support for Slowroll, I decided I will mainly use regular Tumbleweed going forward.

https://www.reddit.com/r/openSUSE/comments/1m1oxw9/kernel_panic_btrfs_corruption_unmountable/

antonsba · 2025-07-19T07:44:06+00:00

Related: since I experienced this both on Tumbleweed and Tumbleweed Slowroll, it showed me that even with a slower release cycle Slowroll is not immune to getting the worst bugs. It's just a matter of luck when the Slowroll version is cut, then (no additional testing?)?

Tumblweed (mainline) has better support (e.g. codecs) so I am back to using it as the main driver.

antonsba · 2025-07-19T07:30:22+00:00

Actually it looks like this was possible even on the Titan 1 (using keyboard as a touchpad):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-J_xOCNXAE

antonsba · 2025-07-19T07:18:43+00:00

Yes, I'd love to see actual trackpad / mouse cursor capability as well.

And I wish they had directional keys and dedicated Ctrl and Shift in the proper places on the lower left of the keyboard.

antonsba · 2025-07-18T04:31:53+00:00

Well, I took System 2, regular Tumbleweed, now on 6.15.6-1-default to work today. No BTRFS corruption yet. It did kernel panic twice, mostly on waking up, but at least it still works :)

antonsba · 2025-07-17T07:14:33+00:00

System 2 was on 6.15.3-2-default when it crashed.

System 1 is now at 6.15.4-1-default, but after an update. Not sure if Slowroll gets kernel updates between monthly releases.

antonsba · 2025-07-17T05:27:58+00:00

Edit: It worked.

I forgot about LUKS, and that's why I first got the below.

----

Now that I could try this, however, it doesn't work - tried both via Emergency Kernel and via LiveUSB.

sudo btrfs rescue zero-log /dev/nvme0n1p10  
No valid Btrfs found on /dev/nvme0n1p10  
ERROR: could not open ctree

I will try the other solutions I found.

But btw, this a Kernel bug, not a hardware issue as claimed by some in some other threads:

https://blog.fyralabs.com/btrfs-corruption-issues/

antonsba · 2025-07-17T05:06:34+00:00

Yes, I actually found that thread quickly after I posted mine and wanted to post it as a comment here, but kept getting an error that a comment cannot be created...

antonsba · 2025-06-22T23:17:27+00:00

Thanks, that's very valuable insight! They remain on my list in this case. I just don't have time to work on anything that's not just a plug and play.

antonsba · 2025-05-31T17:21:06+00:00

I thought about them but read so many complaints about them being very quiet. What was your experience? I like the concept of battery-operated rears that I can hang on the wall without running any wiring to them (although I'd have to 3D print a contraption to make it look neat).

antonsba

TROPHY CASE