Also that they can be run on more modest hardware.

Damn. I should've learned Chinese

Never too late, I started a couple of years ago and now I'm conversational.

Woah, can you suggest any resources for it? I did checked out prolewiki

I found this app was really helpful getting started https://www.superchinese.com/

It breaks things up into short lessons, and it has voice recognition so you can practice speaking and see whether you're pronouncing things correctly. After you get comfortable listening and reciting the phrases a bit, I also recommend watching youtube channels like Lazy Chinese. They break things up by comprehension level, so you can start with beginner, and work your way up. Eventually, it really helps to practice with a native speaker. If you have any classes offered in town or know anybody who speaks Mandarin that'd be willing to help you practice, that's ultimately how you get to the point where you can really talk to people.

My advice is not to worry about writing characters to start, and don't worry too much about tones. They are important, but people will understand you from context most of the time if you get some wrong. It's also easier to learn tones in the context of a sentence. I still have trouble with tones if I just pronounce an individual word, but when I speak a sentence, I've learned to recognize the cadence, so I get them right most of the time now.