If you make something that's obviously shoddy, nobody confuses it for a serious product. Nobody is telling grandma that her knitting isn't as practical as a waterproof jacket from J. Random Outdoorswear Company. Nobody is telling the electronics newbie that a blinking LED isn't actually of any use to anyone. Everybody has nothing but positive encouragement.
But if you start to make actually really good stuff, requiring an enormous amount of skill and experience, you instead get "cool, but actually not quite as good as the nearest commercial competitor".
If you're so good at your hobby that people are comparing you to the literal state of the art, you're doing something right.
In the late 2000s (pre iPhone), it just so happens I was lucky enough to work for OQO -- the "Rolls-Royce of Handheld Computing". This project is a DIY attempt at building an OQO, and I'm IMPRESSED.
You must making pretty good stuff for someone like me, who did this professionally, to think "Oh, our product is obviously still better, but wow, this comes closer than I thought!"
Things have come a long way in 15 years!
This thing is great to show vision and usability, and I'm more excited by this than a lot of dead-end things I've seen presented as a bunch of requirements and if you're lucky, renderings made by a lot more than one person and 3 weeks.
And think about the software world, it's understood that framework X makes a great example but needs to be replaced by microservices Y, and also understood that people exist to make that happen.
It's not like grandma's knitting, but it could be something like MVP software to get a cofounder and an angel investor.
Ignoring the fun DIY aspect, this project's main advantage would be:
- extensibility and modularity: hardware wise it could fit a PS2 port if it needed to, software wise you can put any OS that runs on arm.
- repairability and upgradability
- the actual physical keyboard. If your goal is to be typing at a CLI prompt 80% of the time, and you want it handheld, that's a pretty sweet form factor, better than a tablet with a flipping keyboard.
I've even tried shimmying in an order with an 'educational supplier' here in the UK who apparently have 'some', but only for schools, so they won't let me have one, despite how much material I buy from them each month for my non-educational purposes. I don't blame them, of course, but I do find it weird how there's apparently a heckload of demand and no uptick in production.
Some alternatives:
https://banana-pi.org/en/core-board-and-kit/
https://pine64.com/product-category/compute-and-ai-modules/
etc.
With less cables in the way, they might get better airflow in the case as well.
Edit: I guesstimated the size and think that they could get five pieces of such a board for less than 20€, including delivery.
Is it really safe to connect two 18650 cells in series like this?
I've read that you should manage each cell individually to reduce wear and/or risk of fire.
https://www.aliexpress.com/i/1005004814091297.html
Anybody care to have a look and comment?
I would find it awesome to get work done while in nature.
Edit: ok it's a CM4? on the back of the display...
For others searching for the secret sauce: BigTreeTech Pad 5
