I've been considering the PineTab as an option, yes. Didn't know about the Starlite, probably because it seems to be from the other side of the Atlantic. Hmm. My problem with premade tablet devices is that they're significantly smaller than the 17" display built into that junk laptop—the small screens may be higher resolution, but as I get older, I find I get more benefit from the larger absolute size. That and I don't like touchscreens. The front-running replacement option at the moment is to cobble something together from a Pi4 or other Linux SBC, a portable display, and a few other parts, but I haven't gotten that far yet. Or just pick up another used laptop from somewhere.

Does having Gentoo help the laptop limp along? Probably to some extent, but it still has the original HDD in it, so that probably slows it down more than having bespoke binaries helps.