• Riley@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    A little worried that with swapping those components like that, it’s trying to be too many things for too many different groups of people instead of one exact thing.

    I think all I really want is something shaped like this with a keyboard, like an old Blackberry that could be used as a terminal.

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 months ago

      A little worried that with swapping those components like that, it’s trying to be too many things for too many different groups of people instead of one exact thing.

      Isn’t that exactly what made Raspberry Pis a massive hit? Being able to be so many different things for so many different groups of people, at a reasonable price point, maximizing the groups it appealed to?

    • dadarobot@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 months ago

      I agree that id like a nice handheld terminal, but dont a lot of people like handheld emulation consoles? Hell both of those sound great to me. I would totally get both the game pad and keyboard if i went for it.

      My real concern is that it would be garbage and/or the company would fold and support would become non existent.

      Maybe i just got burned by pocketchip

      • ZycroNeXuS@lemmy.sdf.org
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        2 months ago

        Still have my Pocket CHIP. I look at it sometimes and sigh, thinking about what could have been.

        There are a couple resources around to bring it up to something approaching working on the internet, but not much, and not complete, last I checked.

        Thing was great for playing terminal roguelikes, though.

      • mesamune@lemmy.worldOP
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        2 months ago

        Yep its one of the bigger issues. I wanted to get a uconsole, but ive heard the support is not the greatest. And the wait times are horrendous for the hardware.

  • als@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 months ago

    I’ve learned not to get my hopes up with kickstarters but I’ll keep an eye on this one

    • phanto@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      I’m still too dumb to learn… Ask me about my OKPad! In fact, ask me for my OKPad. Please, take the god awful thing off my hands!

      • Sturgist@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        Ok… I’ll bite…but for me to take it off your hands I’ll need to get a $50 deposit, and another $100 due after it’s arrived to me, you can pay shipping and duties as well…

        • phanto@lemmy.ca
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          2 months ago

          Oh, it’s awful! I mean, I knew it was going to be a bit heavier, with the dual screens, but I figured for media and stuff I could use it like a laptop. What I didn’t know? No keyboard on the e-ink. If you have it in landscape, you have a giant, unusable keyboard on the LCD part. No backlight on the e-ink. No way to move apps from one screen to the other without closing them out completely. But this is the part that really bakes my bacon… No portrait mode on the e-ink side. None. The good eReader review seems to have missed that it’s absolutely, 100%, stuck in landscape! Also, the battery is awful. I listened to a podcast for 10 minutes, display off, and burnt 10% of the battery. I have 10-year-old laptops with better battery life. I asked for a return/refund, but of course, crickets. Their only support is apparently on a Facebook page. I won’t be getting Facebook any time soon, but I am told that they are ignoring support requests anyways.

  • mesamune@lemmy.worldOP
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    2 months ago

    I like the form factor, but seeing the issues with supply on hackberrypi and uconsole, im hoping they dont have the same issue. Lots of people like that form factor (including myself).

  • plm00@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    I’m intrigued. And although I read the article, I’m not entirely sure who or what this is for. It’s cool, but… what?

      • Petter1@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        I’m thinking about crafting a phone out if a raspberry compute module (so I can upgrade my device easy with new computing modules released)

        I want to add a battery, a modem, a touchscreen and a usb-PD port with video out compatibility

        Maybe a little cam to scan documents as well…

    • treadful@lemmy.zip
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      2 months ago

      I feel like this would fit in some unexpected areas of mobile computing. Music, interfacing with other equipment (e.g. industrial computing), or other places where people might normally take a full laptop where that’s kind of overkill.

      I’m not really sure, and I kind of wish I had a need for one.

  • heavy@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    Sorry, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. If you can’t make this stuff at scale, no way you could sell it at $160 a unit.

    • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 months ago

      While I hope I’m wrong, I agree this thing will go the way of most Kickstarters. It is interesting, but it will never have appeal outside of the hobby space, and the cash needed to get this thing off the ground will be immense.

    • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 months ago

      It’s just a matter of time as so many corporate products and services enshittify. That, plus FOSS’ main issue is the average person not having any idea what it is or what it means.

  • iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    Ooof. After having a pinephone, I know what 2 or 3GB of RAM can handle these days. Not much, really. Specially the moment you open the browser. I’m going to pass from any project that doesn’t attempt to at least get close to this decade’s standards.

    • utopiah@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      Specially the moment you open the browser

      I’d be curious, did you profile if it’s for all pages or only some? I’d expect e.g. Facebook or Instagram to be more demanding than Lemmy or ProtonMail but to be honest I have no idea.

      • Fonzie!@ttrpg.network
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        2 months ago

        I had a Windows Phone with 2GB of memory before, even (old) Reddit was horrendous, let alone Proton Mail with all its JavaScript and images.

      • filcuk@lemmy.zip
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        2 months ago

        Prefetching, prediction, media, infinite loading (gradually) or aggressive tracking can increase the usage.
        I’ve had a single jira page use 6GB on Firefox.

        • herrvogel@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          At least with that 6gb you get the nice, streamlined, intuitive and responsive user experience that we all know and love Atlassian for.

    • InFerNo@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      My current Android phone has 4GB and it’s really smooth. I’ve got 90 Firefox tabs open and several apps. I’d love to see that level of optimization in a startup, but more RAM will just mask the bad optimization.

      • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        As an ex-Andrpid dev, all this optimization is what killed the creativity. Every feature you currently have is hyperoptimized (even with dedicated battery optimizations turned off for the most popular apps), and as a result nothing you can’t easily change is changeable anymore.

        Want a widget that self updates every couple minutes by connecting to the internet? Can’t have that, even if the user explicitly accepts it. Want to customize behavior of things in the settings? Nope. Want to hook into the phone memory and do crazy hacks? Not even with root. Want to keep running some checks to determine when to send a notification? Can’t do that either, non-push notifications are all scheduled in advance.

      • iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        I think you’re checking the Pro model. This one has a more powerful CPU and more RAM, and would have been a better option, except it had miserable failures to get it to boot or control the battery on launch, and development has been much slower than on the normal Pinephone, which although is woefully underpowered, it launched earlier and had a bigger support base. Pinephone Pro, while on paper being more powerful, stayed unusuable for rather long. I actually have both, and I haven’t checked recently to see if the Pro is any better these days. The normal one while having a much better compatibility (a lot of things worked with very little troubleshooting), RAM was seriously an Achilles heel, and you’d notice it the moment you opened Firefox or attempted to launch waydroid.

  • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I’m intrigued simply because it’s not Android but the keyboard and gamepad are better done with existing products like the click keyboard and Gamesir.

  • w3dd1e@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    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.

    • humble peat digger@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      I like the generic rectangle block of glass.
      Don’t understand why they insist on a physical keyboard.

      • DeaDvey@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        I much prefer physical keyboards and find it difficult to use touchscreen, so a mobile, qwerty keyboard sounds great to me.

      • TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com
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        2 months ago

        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.

        • porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml
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          2 months ago

          Cars’ buttons need to be used while preferably not looking at them, that’s a pretty different situation to a smartphone

          • netvor@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Being able to use a keyboard without looking at it is a good thing.

            Only thing that makes it “different situation” for smartphone is that they just don’t have the keyboards. (And some of us kinda accepted that…)

          • Cysioland@lemmygrad.ml
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            2 months ago

            Also, I can somewhat type eyes-free on a smartphone keyboard because of the combination of autocorrect and my fingers remembering where the touch points are relative to the screen

  • ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com
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    2 months ago

    This is super cool! I’ve wondered what sort of device can I use to essentially have a phone but only interact with my own services and guarantee to some degree it isn’t calling home. This seems like a good choice for this problem :)

  • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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    2 months ago

    If that keyboard module isn’t extremely securely attached on there, I can 100% guarantee it is breaking in my pocket.

    Would have much preferred if they were going to have just one base unit with keyboard. Other modules could fit over that.

  • dink@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I feel like it’s almost too generic to be useful. All the “standard” attachments make it a thing that already exists (and those things are usually much stable and supported). If they get enough 3rd party attention prior to launch, that could change.

    I wish they would have spent the time and effort just committing to the smartphone idea. Linux and the Linux community could greatly benefit from more open source smartphone devices.

  • niucllos@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    Would love something like this for field notes, though for my uses a eink screen would be preferable. Hopefully this or the equivalent takes off and we can start getting fun variables in the future!