Live data from Hacker News

Open Source PC That Fits in Your Pocket

spectrum.ieee.org

61–70 of 299 posts

Re: Open Source PC That Fits in Your Pocket

#61
post #54

What stops them from reducing the huge bezels and fitting an 8" or even 9" display in there? Is it just that 7" displays are far more common and thus cheaper?

I think it's because this form factor can be 3D printed; smaller bezels and you need more specialist design and materials that can't easily be reproduced and need to be built in minimum size batches in factories.

Re: Open Source PC That Fits in Your Pocket

#62
A current generation cheap subnotebook would be useful, for when you want a complete system, not a Raspberry Pi with wires all over the place.

If it actually existed and didn't cost too much, it would be interesting.

If it's 3 years out and costs $2500, forget it.

Re: Open Source PC That Fits in Your Pocket

#63
I tried this form factor around 2011 during the netbook craze. It's pretty unusable. It was only convenient for Skype call when skype was still the go to video call application. Writing programs on it is unbearable. I am not sure about writers, maybe it's usable for them.

Re: Open Source PC That Fits in Your Pocket

#65

Can we stop with this absolute fantasy about PCs that "fit in your pocket"? The medium is the message, the form is the functionality. Smartphones have been "pocketable PCs" for more than a decade already, but are dumbed down because their inputs and outputs are limited. You can't type effectively, your screen is small, your battery is limited. Would you want a command line interface on your Smart TV using only a remo…

My whole family uses essentially a TV with GNOME running on an attached micropc. We use something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Android-Gimibox-Wireless-Keyboard-Pro... Works like a Wiimote. We don't have to limit functionality, we just launch a web browser and have the streaming services on the bookmark toolbar. None of our visitors have ever had problems operating this system, even ones who have never heard of linux or GNOME or Wiimotes. You just flip the remote over to type text into the search box. When the keyboard side is "up," the motion pointer and the "bottom side" is disabled. Flip the remote and the keyboard is disabled and the motion control resumes. Intuitive as hell, works great.

My point is that minor adaptations can lead to surprisingly pleasant functionality. Past failures are not reasons to stop trying new things; they're reasons to try other new things.

Re: Open Source PC That Fits in Your Pocket

#66
post #54

What stops them from reducing the huge bezels and fitting an 8" or even 9" display in there? Is it just that 7" displays are far more common and thus cheaper?

MNT's production runs are not big enough to drive novel display formats. They use off-the-shelf displays. Their other laptop, the Reform, has a list of about four models of LCD that will work.

Re: Open Source PC That Fits in Your Pocket

#67
post #29
post #3

I love seeing these projects but can't imagine what in the world I'd do with one of these devices. Small computers that don't benefit from the mobile UX tradeoffs and don't quite have keyboards or screens or a hinge to support putting it down and typing on it. They're cute though. If you had one, what would you be doing with it?

when traveling i want something small and portable that does not get in the way, especially when backpacking. sure, you could argue that i should leave electronic devices at home and unhook from this dependency to be connected, but that would remove the ability to back up my photos, or write a diary too. there is a case for the responsible use of electronic devices outdoors. and for that i like that device to be as s…

You could buy an SD card adapter + bluetooth keyboard. Smaller and lighter than bringing 2 devices.

Re: Open Source PC That Fits in Your Pocket

#68
post #56
post #3

I love seeing these projects but can't imagine what in the world I'd do with one of these devices. Small computers that don't benefit from the mobile UX tradeoffs and don't quite have keyboards or screens or a hinge to support putting it down and typing on it. They're cute though. If you had one, what would you be doing with it?

I remember looking forward to getting a Pandora[0], eventually I gave up on what are gimmick devices, most of them only sell a couple of hundreds, are yet another form factor to run MAME, and are gone afterwards just like several 8 and 16 bit devices that hardly anyone remembers. [0] - https://openpandora.org/

I agonized over getting one of these when I was a kid. I was completely in love with the idea of having a real PC in my pocket.

Now as an adult it just seems silly. of course i never would have expected to be able to do so much with just a phone or tablet

Re: Open Source PC That Fits in Your Pocket

#69
post #65

Can we stop with this absolute fantasy about PCs that "fit in your pocket"? The medium is the message, the form is the functionality. Smartphones have been "pocketable PCs" for more than a decade already, but are dumbed down because their inputs and outputs are limited. You can't type effectively, your screen is small, your battery is limited. Would you want a command line interface on your Smart TV using only a remo…

My whole family uses essentially a TV with GNOME running on an attached micropc. We use something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Android-Gimibox-Wireless-Keyboard-Pro... Works like a Wiimote. We don't have to limit functionality, we just launch a web browser and have the streaming services on the bookmark toolbar. None of our visitors have ever had problems operating this system, even ones who have never heard of…

Your set up works because you tailored both the hardware and the software to make up for the shortcomings of the devices. Normally a TV remote doesn't have a full fledged keyboard attached to it, so many applications become borderline unusable. What you did is enhance the inputs of your device and this opened up many more possibilities. You also tweaked the software from its ootb configuration to make operations smoother.

None of these devices attempt doing something similar. They offer less options than normal computers and their desktop is left unchanged.

Lastly, what you wrote actually proves my point. You are not using your linux system to do everything a computer does. Your set of functionalities is limited to media consumption and as such you just had to find a workaround for your use case. Could you browse (or even write) your emails on your TV? Sure, but you'd have to use a heavily customized UI and UX if you don't want people to squint their eyes and take ages to navigate everything. And who's going to write such a program? And what about all the other applications that we expect a complete system to have such as a general purpose web browser, a video player, a file browser, etc.? My whole point is that these "pocketable PCs" might be great for a subset of problems, but they have to be tailored for them. They are terrible general computing devices.

Re: Open Source PC That Fits in Your Pocket

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? This exists? Does it get all power from hdmi?

No, they normally require a usb power hooked up.

A small Powerbank could help in that case, if no power socket is available. But generally power sockets aren't far away from HDMI ports, at least in my experience.
Post reply on HN