[SOLVED] I will shortly be getting a Lenovo 12.5 inch laptop which doesn't have a touch screen. I'm using Mint with Cinnamon on my desktop machine but is there a better UI for such a small screen. I'd like to know what you're own experience has been. I'd be grateful for any advice.

Maybe Enlightenment/Moksha. It's very configurable.

I use XFCE on a netbook. I make the panels always autohide to maximize screen realestate for applications.

I think this is pretty much a matter of taste. I can't say from my experience that I could make such a recommendation based on the size of the screen. With most environments, you can customize the size of icons, the width/height of panels, etc.

I pretty much use Fluxbox on everything, from my 13-inch laptop to my 26-inch desktop monitors, because I really like the flexibility of Fluxbox. But I've also used Plasma on the laptop and it works just fine.

yes, small screen is just a small screen. You cannot make it bigger, but you can have a bigger virtual desktop if you wish. Also you can have more than one workspaces. As it was mentioned it all depends on you. And also you can try to connect a better display (nowadays a smart tv can be an option too).

Size of screen/distro doesn't really matter - I use an 8" monitor at times with my regular distro, (& other distros, & O/S), plus an 11.6", a 12", or an old 15", or an old 19", & even a 24" - so just use your regular distro - if you have difficulty, just use a larger font - but then why did you buy such a small screen in the first place....

I bought a small laptop for the obvious reasons, size, weight and portability. Of course it's got limitations but I was hoping for constructive help as I'm not familiar with all the different UIs available. I'll put this as solved and accept it's just a matter of taste.

You haven't marked it as solved, you've just edited the post text; use "Thread Tools" to actually mark as solved. However "it's a matter of taste" is not a solution, it's just advancing the problem by one step. Whilst there's no "best" desktop for screen size X, that doesn't mean you have to stick with what you've got.

Nobody here knows what your taste is, and we can't provide objective feedback on what options you might prefer without that, and you can't tell us until you know yourself.

So, how do you know what your taste is? One way to begin to figure that out is to try a bunch of different options and evaluate how you feel about them. You can use a multiboot tool like Ventoy on a spare USB drive for this - add a bunch of distro ISOs with different UI, live boot them and try them out, both in their default state and after playing with settings.
(Or, if you want to experiment before you get the laptop, run some ISOs in a VM constrained to the same resolution, and see if that helps - though of course it wont be the exact same experience, but may still give some idea of what works for you.)

Doing that may be enough to give you an answer without further feedback, but otherwise if you can identify what you've tried and what you liked or disliked about them, then that provides a base for potential recommendations of others to consider.

Oh, and you don't need to worry about making the right choice immediately - whilst obviously you need to make a choice at install time, it can still be changed later.

Thank you boughtonp for the info on how to mark as solved. I didn't actually ask for the "best" but one that others might think better than Cinnamon. Pan64 I got a small laptop because of its size. It's purely for it's portability and have no desire or need to connect it to a larger screen. Thanks Hazel and Camorri for your views.

Ariel2S,

MX Linux worked fine on my old 10.1 inch Samsung N220 netbook.

https://mxlinux.org/

I am currently using MX 21.3 on a 10.1 inch ASUS T100T netbook which has a far superior IPS HD screen.

MX works a treat and is currently top of the Distrowatch charts:

https://distrowatch.com/