Computer, keyboard, and screen for $159
Could be useful for a lot of stuff, like DIY smarthome, surveillance, or monitoring sensors on an experiment.
Assuming their firmware and OS are properly open source and documented.
this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2025
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Well that looks cool. I just hope I would have use for such device.
I wonder how they plan to keep updating this Mechanix OS after initial sales slow down
It's going to be just like my pocket chip and die quickly after in terms of software support. Where I had to run my own hacks and also run archive debian repositories for the hardware itself only for the flash to die a year afterwards. I can say though it was the coolest device I had and hacking it was really neat especially with the UI and scaling apps on the device.
What I like about this is that I could theorhetically install a non-QWERTY keyboard instead of being locked to such an inefficient layout. Yes, eventually you can learn to touch type, but learning it would be nice to have the keys since it will be a nonstandard layout at that size & when you hand it off to other folks, it’d be completely unexpected to hit q & get a '.
I see a lot of negativity in the comments. And yeah, this thing probably isn’t something I’m going to get, but at least they are trying something that isn’t a generic rectangle of glass like all the others. I miss the days of fun gadgets.
Fun useful gadgets. A gadget for the sake of a gadget is just another word for "e-waste".
Yeah I’m just tired of seeing projects like this get abandoned quickly
I like the generic rectangle block of glass.
Don't understand why they insist on a physical keyboard.
I don’t mind it, but I also don’t hate that people are trying something new! Maybe it fails, but maybe it’s awesome!
i am personally sick of shiny rectangles. physical keyboards are the buttons on your cars dash instead of the shiny rectangle on your car's dash.
Cars' buttons need to be used while preferably not looking at them, that's a pretty different situation to a smartphone
I wonder who this is made for?
The article calls it a "smartphone sized pocket computer", but that describes smartphones too; they already are pocket computers. And they've had decades of design and development behind them.
So... This device has a tiny touchscreen, and a keyboard, rather than having the whole thing being a touchscreen. So instead it has a modular bottom half... Which... Sounds like it's trying to solve a problem that would've been a problem in like... The 90s, maybe, but has been solved by using... A touchscreen that can change the type of input it is flexibly, like smartphones do.
It can't call, like a smartphone, despite being a smartphone sized device. It has USB A 2.0 sockets and an Ethernet socket... Which makes it once again sound incredibly out-dated, like a device found in a time capsule, because USB C is smaller and faster than USB A 2.0, and can potentially be used for damn near anything. Which includes connecting to the Internet.
Its battery looks very weak. Its CPU looks very weak. It has a tiny amount of RAM, and a tiny amount of storage. It is outclassed by any affordable, midrange smartphone, at nearly the same price too (if you avoid big brand names).
For people who like a concept more than practicality. There’s maybe a handful use cases that this specific device fits in that isn’t covered better by existing tech, but I guarantee if that thing actually gets kickstarted and arrives severely delayed in several years, it’ll show up in a couple YouTube videos with people sort of uncertain what to use it for, and in the vast majority of cases it’ll end up in some drawers after having been used a few hours tops.
My thoughts exactly. I've seen several such devices already, probably the most expensive and over-designed one being the Apple VR, and it's always the same story.
This device has a tiny touchscreen, and a keyboard, rather than having the whole thing being a touchscreen.
That's awesome. I still miss my Blackberry Passport (keyboard and large 1:1 screen).
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Full-size usb, Ethernet and keyboard mean you can use it as a Linux computer, install arbitrary debian packages, run shell scripts, python scripts, and you don't need any dongles. This is the differential factor. You can't do the same on a smartphone, and it's not supposed to be a smartphone. Why would you need a separate sim card when you can simply tether Internet from your phone?
I get that this device isn't for you, but there are people who don't want to write and maintain apps through apps stores and simply want to copy simple scripts into a small device they can have with them. It's a niche market and good for them for trying to fill that niche.
I wonder what they use for charging port if not usb c...
You can do all that with USB C and a touch keyboard. There is no good reason under the sun to make a device that is this dated in concept.
Whatever the market is they're trying to fill, it'll be so extremely niche that this product is already a failure. It's not the first time some kind of ultra niche product from kickstarter failed before launch because except for a small handful even cared.
How do you install utilities like kubectl and azure CLI on Android?
I can do that and more on my Pinephone running Kali Nethunter. While it's mostly a gimmick with awfull battery life, I've already used it a few times mostly in regards to wifi pentesting for my cyber-sec job, i.e when going to lunch onsite and you notice a new wifi AP you didn't see when inside the office you're working on.
And since it has an USB-C, I can simply plug in a dock with two USB-As, Ethernet, PD and HDMI, to turn it into a full-fledged Kali desktop.
Pinephone looks great and the keyboard case seems very ergonomic. Fo you use it as your daily driver?
If you get a phone and install PostmarketOS on it, you could also get pretty far on it, couldn't you?
this would have been really cool 15 years ago
Funny story. LG made something with a similar concept about 10 years ago and it never really took off. The LG G5 was a modular smart phone that was supposed to have a bunch of cool modules, but they never came to fruition.
I had one, but mostly because I loved having a swappable battery. Never had to charge my phone, I would just have a spare battery charging on my desk and I would swap it out before I left the house.
Jolla had similar concept too at 2013. I had one and back then it was really, really nice phone. Maybe not in a sense that flagship models from big vendors were, but I really enjoyed the UI and modular options was a huge selling point at least for myself. Then they started to work with a tablet which failed on pretty much all fronts and the whole company practically disappeared.
Motorola had a similar phone. It was cool at the time, but just never took off. It was the Moto Z series.
3gb RAM? 32gb emmc? This feels a bit like a raspberry pi project. Up the specs at least 6gb to at least no[t look like yet another microdeck with emulators, please... I like the concept, but as is, it leaves plenty to be desired
Netbooks need to come back with modern hardware.
If I need an ultra-portable computer one in a usable form factor would be amazing.
Can I just send you five years worth of „we’re sorry we’re behind schedule” messages and then ghost you instead? If so send me $159
My first thought: If this ever ships, I'll eat an outboard motor.
one cylinder 5hp or eight cylinder 300hp? Or maybe an electric?
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It looks cool and all, but its probably going to have like 400mb of ram and an rp2040 like every other linux handheld device.
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Too bad it's packed full of features I don't care about and lacks ones I do.
These handhelds are cool but I think I'll skip this one.
Basically Android is Linux but......in weirdest way if i must say.
Now....we just need to make it modular right....????
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