Don't. I got a Cosmo Communicator, the successor device.
The good: the keyboard is great (At first - see below). It can be taken apart, which is great because you'll be doing that a lot...
The bad: Everything else. The device is fragile and impractical and the build quality is questionable. The case is sheet metal held in with tiny tabs - the hinge and bottom cover often pop off spontaneously. Breakages are common and no spares are available except by emailing support and begging; and if they agree, they will charge you the earth. The cover display cracked entirely by itself - a design flaw. Most unforgivably, after a year, the keyboard has worn in such a way that it frequently misses keystrokes. And - the coup-de-gras for me - there's no overcurrent protection on the right USB port, so it will melt the first time some lint shorts it (ask me how I know!).
I love my PocketCHIP - but I wouldn't go with that form factor again - or at the very least, not with the type of physical keyboard they included. It was very unwieldy and generally not fun to use, I always connected an external keyboard.
The game controls were also garbage with that type of input sensor. It would have benefited greatly from a better keyboard, or a gamepad and doing away with the keyboard entirely.
Thanks for this, I've almost bought one of those a couple of times and your experience may help ensure I don't click "buy" in a moment of weakness in future. I absolutely love the idea of it but the implementation is insufficiently good.
Comments
The Gemini PDA from your planetcom link looks interesting.
Don't. I got a Cosmo Communicator, the successor device.
The good: the keyboard is great (At first - see below). It can be taken apart, which is great because you'll be doing that a lot...
The bad: Everything else. The device is fragile and impractical and the build quality is questionable. The case is sheet metal held in with tiny tabs - the hinge and bottom cover often pop off spontaneously. Breakages are common and no spares are available except by emailing support and begging; and if they agree, they will charge you the earth. The cover display cracked entirely by itself - a design flaw. Most unforgivably, after a year, the keyboard has worn in such a way that it frequently misses keystrokes. And - the coup-de-gras for me - there's no overcurrent protection on the right USB port, so it will melt the first time some lint shorts it (ask me how I know!).
Well, now I understand why people build their own.
;)
Thank you for the deterrent and inspiration to roll-my-own.
Adafruit and Sparkfun get ready.
Apparently Adafruit will be selling a device inspired by the PocketCHIP: https://www.hackster.io/news/diodes-delight-s-next-raspberry...
I love my PocketCHIP - but I wouldn't go with that form factor again - or at the very least, not with the type of physical keyboard they included. It was very unwieldy and generally not fun to use, I always connected an external keyboard.
The game controls were also garbage with that type of input sensor. It would have benefited greatly from a better keyboard, or a gamepad and doing away with the keyboard entirely.
Glad to see it coming back though!
Thanks for this, I've almost bought one of those a couple of times and your experience may help ensure I don't click "buy" in a moment of weakness in future. I absolutely love the idea of it but the implementation is insufficiently good.