Raspberry pi zero as a secondary computing device?

[Anshul333]

I am having an i5 6th gen PC at home and it gets all work done for me. But as you might have gessed a PC is not much portable. Sometimes when I out, I have no computing device except for my smartphone(but it can't be used for programming and such).
So, following my deep passion of DIY I am thinking to make a 9" laptop using raspberry pi zero with large battery. I just need it for editing my code on the go(only editing, processing will be done on my PC) and nothing else. So, is it possible to use a raspberry pi zero for this purpose considering I rarely go outside my house.
Also I was thinking of using raspberry pi 3 A+ instead of zero but I think it would be an overkill for such low usage.
What do you think of this idea?

[bomblord]

I've used a raspberry pi zero for various things but for a desktop/laptop environment I would never recommend it. The only desktop things I've done on a zero at an acceptable performs is running sudo update and writing few paragraphs in libre office even google.com chokes the poor thing with the built in web browser.

I would say a 2/3 is a minimum even for purely running an IDE and compiling your program. If you're using a secondary device as a programming laptop I have a hard time believing you wouldn't at least need to google something at some point.

[wildfire]

If you're "only editing" then yep the Zero can handle the job however, you should consider a cheap 2nd hand laptop, it could work out cheaper and more suitable for your needs.

[W. H. Heydt]

It takes a bit of setup and isn't terribly compact, what with the keyboard and all... My portable rig is an RPF 7" screen with a Pi2Bv1.1 attached powered by a 10Ah "powerbank". It will run for about 5 hours at a time. I think the Pi2B (either version) is a good compromise between power requirements and enough CPU grunt to be useful.

[rin67630]

You will be better off with a used netbook from which you remove the HDD and run Raspberry Pi desktop from a SD card/USB Stick.
You get them for peanuts and have got a screen, a battery, a keyboard, a mouse/pad and everything nicely cased.

IMHO a Raspberry Pi is not designed to be the heart of of a notebook, it is much more conceived to be a stationary, always-on device to which one makes remote access from everywhere over the network.

[ProDigit]

I'm currently in the process to see if this is a viable option.
While it's possible to load Raspbian desktop on a zero, it is pretty slow.
Loading times are slow, response time is slow.
It's like 286-kind of slow (if you know what I mean?).

Overclocking

The only way to make the pi zero less laggy, is find a good overclock.
Both CPU, GPU, Ram and Core can be overclocked by an additional 100Mhz easily (some even 125-150Mhz), and that makes some difference.
It makes it usable, despite the slightly slow loading times.
Overclocking might make the Zero unstable, so there's that as well.. I currently am struggling with a bug that sporadically logs me out of the desktop without cause (can be during peak workload or idle); an issue also recorded on Debian, Ubuntu, and Mint; without any real solution.
I might just need to reinstall the OS back on the card.

Optimizing

So I've tried simplifying the OS. Uninstalling a bunch that I don't need, micro optimizing it (by reducing the V-RAM to 28-30MB, as you can't really use the device for video streaming and browsing anyway; remove desktop background picture; find programs that are low in footprint...)
The browser (chrome) on the Pi zero is a no-go. Totally not! Any full fledged browser won't be advisable (1 minute page loading times or more).
Links2 works in a pinch as a browser, but there's no real web formatting. So it's ok to view pages, download an occasional driver; but not really to edit pages, or interact with them. That or text based browsers...

Code editing works on some programs. Code OSS doesn't work on the zero (and won't work, as there's no support for a single core a9 at this time). But the included programs (Wolfram, Thonny, Greenfoot, Geany, and code::blocks) all work fine.

Coding can be done, though compiling and debugging can take a while on the single core. Especially for larger programs.

Emulation, from what I read (haven't tried), only the most basic emulators; like Atari, commodore, gameboy, gameboy color, NES.
Some SNES games, but that's about it.
I don't think the N64, Gamecube, Sega Mega Drive/Saturn, PS1 or any higher will work well on the zero (correct me if I'm wrong here).

Office programs (LibreOffice) doesn't work well. It frequently hangs, probably too bloated for the Zero.
I'm currently looking for an alternative.

But for coding it works well.
If I could only overclock and not have the logout bug.. The zero would be sufficient.
I've been asking for a Zero alternative, but the Pi organization (and some forum members) aren't very friendly on requests.
But we can dream.

Bottleneck

The main bottleneck of the Zero is the slow single core 1Ghz CPU.
This for graphics (GLX gears maxes out the CPU, and I'm sure the same GPU would work a lot better had it had an extra core), file copying (again CPU maxes out to 100% utilization copying files at just 3-5MB/s, without fully utilizing the full USB 2.0 bandwidth) and Wifi (same here, wifi is limited to about 3MB/s due to CPU being taxed 100%).
I'm sure if the Zero had just a dual core CPU, or a 1,4-1,8Ghz core instead, it would work well for about anything you'd want it to do; Meaning, it could unlock the potential of the GPU, Wifi, SD card, and USB 2.0 connection already built in.
But as is, you probably want to get a Pi 3A+ (slightly cheaper than a 3B+), or the 2B; or look online for another board manufacturer alternative, like the Banana pi, Orange Pi, or other...