EDIT: Yes, I know that it's not meant for "normal use", but that keyboard has to be for something...
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... )
It is probably worth pointing out that the DealExtreme laptop & tablet both use an ARM cpu, which may not be open like the MIPS one, but probably is better supported (eg, Android runs on it)
It doesn't have any means for network connection. The only hope for network connection is mini USB, but I'm afraid it will be not easy and not practical. That's why it's more of a concept to build on than a ready netbook.
Edit: Found pricing... $330 (without VAT) which sounds good for what you get
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.
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.
"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...
There's a lot of us! Really! :)
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.
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!
The Chumby lineup (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chumby) is also worth looking at, if you're in this particular market.
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.
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.
"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)
