Planet Computers demoed the Cosmo Communicator, a clamshell PDA [Personal Digital Assistant] which can run Android/Linux or GNU/Linux, at CES. It is expected to be on the market by June 2019. The device has a miniature keyboard, essential for a PDA, and many additional features including the ability to operate as a dual-SIM phone. It also features dual displays: a 2-inch AMOLED which is visible when the device is closed and a larger (5.99-inch, 2160×1080) LCD touchscreen LCD panel visible when the device is opened to access the keyboard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11 2019, @04:13PM
Well, not if keyboard is well designed.
The key itself may not be large. It may be even very small. The most important part here is the space between keys. HP 200LX has a very comfortable miniature keyboard because keys have significant spacing. Contrary, GPD Win has much smaller spacing between "hot spots" on keys thus typing on it is much slower. Some older Android devices have even smaller keyboard making typing anything except short SMS just impossible.
I think the biggest problems will come from lack of precise pointing device and a good stylus support. Capacitive stylus is not a good one if you want to precisely touch something on multi-window screen, and most Linux GUI apps are useless without pointing device as there are no keyboard shortcuts for the most popular tasks or they are just counterergonomic.
Imagine this: In Thunderbird's calendar, going from one month to another is [ and ] as I recall. These keys are hidden behind Fn in our PDA, and Fn is usually BIOS-based, not System-based so it's impossible to make it sticky with X settings. Thus, in this PDA you have to hold Fn by one hand and press 7 or 8 with another. Typing € using thumb-type technique is just impossible.