

$99 copyleft ultra-portable laptop is Arduino for linux developers - naradaellis
http://www.linux.com/news/embedded-mobile/netbooks/296251:a-review-ben-nanonote-gets-small-with-embedded-linux

======
wvenable
For $50, you could instead get the Zipit Z2.

<http://www.zipitwireless.com/default.aspx?skinid=1>

It includes wireless b/g, has more internal flash, and installing Linux is
well supported by the company:

<http://linux.zipitwireless.com/>

Seems to have a reasonably active community around it.

~~~
zck
Your link says it has 8 _MB_ of memory, while the NanoNote has 2GB. The MB may
be a typo, but I found the same spec on a review site. Whether they got it
from the same page you linked, I can't tell you.

~~~
pvdm
32MB DRAM and 8MB flash.

~~~
zck
Ah, you're right -- I meant storage space.

------
swolchok
I'm torn. I've been waiting for a $100 "netbook" for a long time, but I wasn't
expecting them to be quite so small. I seriously doubt that I could touch-type
on that keyboard.

EDIT: Yes, I know that it's not meant for "normal use", but that keyboard has
to be for something...

~~~
angusgr
You could try this: <http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.39670>

It's nowhere near as open, and nowhere near as cute, but it does have a larger
screen & keyboard, and 128Mb of RAM. A debian port appears to exist.

(I reviewed a very similar tablet device - same chipset - on my blog, here:
[http://projectgus.com/2010/06/eken-m001-android-tablet-
revie...](http://projectgus.com/2010/06/eken-m001-android-tablet-review-pt-1/)
)

~~~
daeken
Getting off into a bit of a tangent here, but you may have an idea. I'm
looking for the cheapest possible tablet with 1 or more USB host ports and
WiFi. It doesn't have to be pretty, large, or have decent software, just needs
to be open enough that I can roll a little Linux distro for it to ship some
custom software on it. I've got a SmartQ v7 on the way (for unrelated purposes
mainly), but they're upwards of $200, so they aren't a perfect fit. If you
have any ideas, I'd greatly appreciate it.

~~~
nl
The reviewed tablet may be good enough for you - it runs Android, so you can
ship a custom app on it (unsure why you need a custom Linux distro).

Apart from that, try alibaba.
<http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?SearchText=linux+tablet> is a good start.

[http://www.alibaba.com/product-
gs/278705581/Cheapest_Linux_M...](http://www.alibaba.com/product-
gs/278705581/Cheapest_Linux_MID_UMPC_Tablet_PC.html) looked pretty decent.
They say the min order is 100, but a lot of vendors are flexible on that.

Often you can find some on ebay, too.

Edit: This is $88 and is currently running WinCE on ARM. If you are lucky, the
vendor might know if Linux will run: [http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-7-Mini-Netbook-
Laptop-Notebook-WIFI-...](http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-7-Mini-Netbook-Laptop-
Notebook-WIFI-Windows-2GB-
HD-/140413130622?cmd=ViewItem&pt=Laptops_Nov05&hash=item20b146577e#ht_6082wt_1042)

~~~
silasb
[http://www.alibaba.com/product-
gs/296708176/3G_tablet_pc_Wit...](http://www.alibaba.com/product-
gs/296708176/3G_tablet_pc_With_WIFI_Win_CE_Android_OS_E_reader_PDA_HDMI_media_Player.html)

This seems like the King sub $100 unit. Someone please buy then and test it
out!!!

Edit: Found another awesome sub $100 unit.

[http://www.alibaba.com/product-
gs/313429636/Come_here_the_An...](http://www.alibaba.com/product-
gs/313429636/Come_here_the_Android_OS_tablet_pc_hot_new_coming_.html)

------
ladyada
This project is very cool. But I wish that the person who wrote this article
would have done a bit more research before writing this article

"Copyleft hardware is not nearly as widespread as copyleft software; the Qi
Hardware cites just four other projects that follow the same approach: the
Elphel digital camera, Pandora game console, the Milkymist One visual-effects
video synthesizer, and the Arduino microcontroller. The Arduino's success in
particular is an example of what the team behind the Ben hopes to see develop
around its NanoNote project."

Make has a yearly open source hardware list that has -dozens- of true open
source hardware projects.

[http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/12/open_source_hardwar...](http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/12/open_source_hardware_2009_-_the_def.html)

There's a lot of us! Really! :)

~~~
sh1mmer
"Copyleft hardware is not nearly as widespread as copyleft software"

The core premiss is still true. And it's a huge factor difference. Even if you
can cite counter examples, or things they missed the amount of software
development happening on Github/Google Code/Sourceforge eclipses open hardware
hacking.

It's awesome that early adopters like you are there, but remember that open
programable hardware is still uncommon.

~~~
ladyada
You're misquoting my quote ;) The sentence fragment I'm addressing is "...the
Qi Hardware cites just four other projects that follow the same approach: the
Elphel digital camera, Pandora game console, the Milkymist One visual-effects
video synthesizer, and the Arduino microcontroller."

To clarify: there are more than 4 (or 3) other projects. I wish the author had
looked a bit harder instead of using only the Qi website!

~~~
sh1mmer
Sorry, didn't mean to be a jerk.

It is cool that there are more than just those four projects.

------
sireat
This NanoNote is good as a concept of open source hardware.

However, as a product it falls in the middle between a decent mobile
phone(which have better screens) and a netbook, this middle seems like a very
tiny niche, which I am yet to find anyone interested in.

Granted, it is not meant to be an end-user product, but it has to appeal to
enough people to make the whole project a success. In fact, the creators wish
for people to tinker with it and produce something useful. Ok, porting Debian
to this has been done, but what then?

Still, even if this project is a failure(too early to tell), some good may
come from it, if the open source designs are used to create something
bigger/better.

------
chipsy
I think the $99 price is a big threshold. It's the point where you can start
thinking of general-purpose computing as something that gets sold in a
convenience store, just like storage media, MP3 players, and digital cameras.
As a product, I don't think this one hits the spot, though.

The specs are hardly impressive, but they're also probably overpowered for
most conceivable tasks; it doesn't have the controls to do gaming well, the
screen real-estate is too tiny for most other graphic-intensive stuff, it
doesn't have the connectivity to be a server, and it's probably too cramped
for long-term typing.

This thing really is _too_ small.

------
pjscott
A 320x240 screen? This would be great for playing old DOS games. You'd need to
use something like Qemu to get them to play on the MIPS processor at a decent
speed, though. You _might_ be able to get DOSBox to run at a semi-reasonable
speed, but I wouldn't bet on it.

------
wazoox
Isn't the Pandora overall more interesting? The screen is so much bigger...

~~~
torpor
The Pandora is awesome .. I have two! The controls are superlative - like
nothing I've seen on any other hardware, anywhere, and the community is just
kickass!

Plus, you can put a compiler on it and use the thing to develop software for
itself. No cross-compiling required, its just a complete, awesome
games/hacking system.

~~~
wazoox
Aaaaaaah I'm horribly jealous I want one, no several ones! :) How did you get
any? They really don't seem to be available at all right now. Please let us
know :)

~~~
torpor
I pre-ordered, pre-paid, and waited very, very patiently .. ;)

------
shadowsun7
For some reason I see the image of the laptop on a person's hand, and imagine
somebody saying to him:

"What a weird looking phone!"

I won't get one of these. An EeePC-like laptop, perhaps, but the NanoNote is
so small it's ridiculous. What can one possibly do with it?

(Caveat: I'd like the EeePC to do programming, in Vim, and so I may not in the
target audience for the NanoNote ... though I _still_ can't figure out what
computing tasks it'll be good for)

------
pvdm
This is a MIPS-based system. I rather hack something that is ARM-based.

------
CamperBob
Needs a better display to be very interesting. I can't believe that 640x480
LCDs are that much more expensive than 320x240 ones.

The Chumby lineup (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chumby>) is also worth
looking at, if you're in this particular market.

~~~
pvdm
Chumby out-class all of these for me because of the open-hardware schematics.

------
volomike
They should have just stuck with making a keyboardless tablet like the iPad.

------
emehrkay
Don't know what I'd do with it, don't know what it can do, but I want it.
Maybe it can be a remote

