I must admit while this cool, what I really want is a standard dirtcheap 8 to 10 inch Android tablet with a hackable OS and a row of gpio pins on it like the raspberry pi. $50 will get you a lot of power and convience today as these things are two a penny due to economies of
Scale. Throw a usb-c video input and output onto it too, so it can use it as a touch screen monitor for my phone too. and I'm sold
It sounds like what you're looking for is the Pocket C.H.I.P. The company went out of business, but I bought one back in the day and it was so fun to hack around with.
I don't think that is akin to an 8 to 10" Android tablet/screen. Then again, I don't see how all the other products are related to the one mentioned here. Except they're all hackable?
If you want a small device to play old games on via an emulator, I can recommend Pocketsprite [1]. You can even assemble one yourself.
FWIW, I'm looking for a small portable screen (1080p, IPS) to combine with my MBP 2015 (via TB2 or HDMI but I also want it to have USB-C for future compatibility).
If just looking for a portable display, there are plenty on amazon. I bought a Chinese brand, magedock, because they had a touch screen 1600p model that was more portable than the others (no battery though).
Yeah, Amazon is such a rain-forest though. There's a plethora of devices there, and I don't trust the reviews. I'd prefer a 14", don't require touchscreen (though if it would cost me 50 EUR, I'd go for it, but not double the price like ThinkVision M14t). Speaking of which I've seen the ThinkVision M14 for 180 EUR, that's a fair price. It has high brightness of 300 nits (better than the Asus one, of which the 16" gets recommended a lot even though its barely readable in sunlight), though reportedly also has coil whine. However, it _only_ supports USB-C. So I would need some kind of adapter I guess. A lot of the Chinese stuff has the adapters included, but even the brandnames just don't make sense. Magedok was out of stock (they didn't have Magedock). Battery I don't care for; I'd just hang a powerbank behind it with velcro.
Specifically, GP’s mention of “with a row of gpio pins on it” is what made me think of the CHIP, and I don’t think there are any tablets that have that.
The esp32-based m5stack Stick-C finger computer seems like a very inexpensive alternative, comes with a built-in bunch of sensors, a small battery and a small display for $11.
> what I really want is a standard dirtcheap 8 to 10 inch Android tablet with a hackable OS and a row of gpio pins
Sadly, most of these points are mutually exclusive. Android tablets are built for the average user who would have neither use for an hackable OS nor for exposed GPIO ports. Adding them would represent an added cost with no returns with respect to the market they're into.
Also, most if not all Android tablets - actually their manufacturers - are hostile to letting techies install their OS of choice, and implement tactics to discourage them, mainly keeping the hardware closed.
To date, the Pinetab seems the best example of a tablet designed from the ground up to be of interest both to users and tinkerers because it encourages to experiment with open operating systems. https://www.pine64.org/pinetab/
I agree this would be cool, and the good news is that systems close to meeting your wishes already exist today.
However, Precursor is more about evidence-based hardware security, and less about features and usability. To better understand the principles behind Precursor's design, please have a look at https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor/updates....
The TL;DR is that it's a development platform for applications that strongly require secure and/or trustable hardware.
The platform as usual looks great! I'd ask if you'd consider an addon board, or including an EZR32WG radio chip or similar, as it supports the open source Dash7 radio stack. I'm guessing that being able to tx wirelessly and securely would fit well with the hardware goals.
Wasn't not long ago right here on HN an article of somebody who did a phone from hacking together stuff around Raspberry Pi? Heck, you can even install Android or Windows IoT on a Raspberry Pi, if you don't like Raspberry Pi OS (former Raspbian)
Sounds like a custom PCB, requiring custom assembly, and, worse yet, a custom enclosure. With sub-million quantities, economy of scale isn't exactly there.
But if it's well-marketed to the hobbyists, and software support is adequate, then maybe.
Just like the PinePhone, Librem etc. This is the future for hackable (hardware and software) mobile devices given how locked down the mainstream consumer manufacturers are, and getting worse by the day.
Mid-to-high 5-figure to low 7-figure unit sales (for a 'wildly' successful device like the Raspberry Pi) is what it seems to be looking like for a successful open mobile(-ish) device. As long as the businesses offering them are sized appropriately, it's doable. Just need to be smart about re-using enclosure designs etc and have long production runs to help amortize things like regulatory certifications etc. For hacker devices, they can sell this stuff for several years between major revs and their customers appreciate the longer product/parts availability.
