If you'd like to run a Coreboot/Libreboot laptop, which hardware you use, and whether you have someone do it for you, is probably influenced by how it needs to be flashed.<p>Best case: The particular hardware supports software flashing from the start, with some easily-accessible enable switch or Vulcan nerve pinch boot mode.<p>Medium case: You undo a few screws, and can get easy access with a SOIC test clip, and your ad hoc RasPi programming setup can do a good read or write within a few tries.<p>Worst case: You not only have to desolder SMT, or use a flaky SPI programmer while the flash chip is in-circuit, but you have to pretty completely disassemble and reassemble a laptop. <a href="https://www.neilvandyke.org/coreboot/" rel="nofollow">https://www.neilvandyke.org/coreboot/</a><p>All cases might be trivial for an EE technician who does this frequently, but, for software person me, the fun quickly turned to headache. Knowing that, Minifree's prices might look very good.<p>Note: After the initial flash, subsequent flashes (such as for updates, or your own experimenting) could be done purely by software, unless and until that's disabled. This might be less secure, but it could otherwise be very practical. But, even if you have easy subsequent flashes, if one of the flashes breaks the device, you might have to go back to an initial painful flash to fix it.