I run an algo trading bot on a server. It trades 24/7, but I still need to watch it and step into trades from anywhere, so I wanted a computer small enough to carry in a jacket pocket. A MacBook Air is too large, and a tablet loses the keyboard that the chart and terminal hotkeys depend on.
The machine
An 8-inch Windows mini-laptop on Intel’s N150 (quad-core, 3.6GHz, 6W) with 12GB of RAM — plenty for a browser and a few SSH sessions, since the server does the real work. I went with the Kooforway Mini (~0.78kg, 512GB SSD, touchscreen that folds into a tablet, ~$300). Note: Kooforway, Koofan, Koosmile, and X-Plus Piccolo are the same ODM hardware with different stickers.
I wiped Windows for Lubuntu, which idles in a couple hundred MB. For “SSH in and watch charts,” the browser does all the work anyway.
Wiping Windows for Lubuntu, minimal install.
Trading from any network
The laptop roams, and every network gives it a new public IP, so locking the server’s firewall to one IP locks you out the moment you move. Tailscale fixes it: a private mesh where the laptop and server each get a stable 100.x.x.x address that travels with them. With access on the mesh, I closed public SSH off the internet entirely.
curl -fsSL https://tailscale.com/install.sh | sh
sudo tailscale up
The result
TradingView on the left, my own terminal wired to the bot on the right — bid/ask, order-book pressure, momentum, session state. The bot trades on its own. When I want to step in, the tools are already running, on whatever network the laptop is connected to.
Upright, on Wi-Fi, running the real desk.
Verdict: 8/10. It fits in a jacket pocket, and the N150 handles the workload without slowdown. Downsides: the single USB-C port, an afternoon of Linux setup (sideways panel, touch quirks, X11/Wayland), and a screen that fits one chart.
The gear
- The 8-inch N150 mini-laptop — sold as Kooforway / Koofan / Koosmile / X-Plus Piccolo; same hardware.
- A USB-C hub with power passthrough.