A Gigabit Ethernet Expansion Card is on our roadmap, though it is going to look a little goofy compared to the other cards, since it won't fit entirely in the current envelope.
I'll second the parent's request for an RJ45 Ethernet port. It can't possibly look any goofier than an Expresscard Ethernet adapter!
One easy way to get it to fit would be to make the module thicker. To avoid the whole thing sitting at an angle in the existing envelope, you'd want to replace the little adhesive-secured feet with taller, screw-secured feet to give it clearance.
I'm a controls engineer and am constantly connecting to PLCs and robots in environments that don't do wireless networking. I have to deal with all kinds of legacy hardware manufacturer's IDEs and real-time protocols that work poorly with USB dongles. Of course, your expansion cards are really USB dongles, and appear to allow tool-less hot-plugging (https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/expan...). I'd love to see an optional screw to retain the card, and wouldn't mind shutting the laptop down and rebooting it, especially if it meant it showed up in /etc/network/interfaces all the time and never needed to be kicked out of sleep with `ip link set dev eth0 up`.
Other desirable expansion cards would be a VGA port or DB9 serial port; would those fit?
I fear that your efforts to reach beige-box compatibility are really hamstrung by the obsession with thin and light laptops; there's no way (for example) that you'll fit my preferred keyboard (Lenovo 45N2211, out of a T420) and still have the hinges close because the enclosure is so thin. I hope you succeed, but I especially hope you produce a 15" workstation version that's 10mm thicker.
I wouldn't want it to be too thick, but I have to agree that a quality keyboard is SUPER important. At the very least, 2mm travel is much nicer than 1.5mm.
And because it's modular, they might as well add a programmable ortholinear option! It would be a first in the laptop world, and may actually be successful due to the rising popularity of ergonomics.
Maybe the 2mm ortho could have standard qwerty labels printed on the side of the keycaps, so it's not as obnoxious when people bind different layouts or macros.
If I were to buy one, I would also buy the 15" version. Old thinkpads are awesome.
If they do a 15" laptop, please make the keyboard configurable. I mean, no number pad for people like me and number pad for people that need it and tolerates an off center touchpad and space bar.
