I tried searching and came to the conclusion this does not exist. I would like a tablet with the following features:
- Easy to install (or pre-installed) LineageOS, or some other open source OS that doesnt require any fighting with bloatware or control over updates (please give your opinion on what is best)
- Easy to open up and repair (and mod) the device hardware myself without any special tools (ie, standard electronics screwdrivers, etc)
- Matte screen with dynamic range that allows the screen to be bright enough to use in the sun but dark enough to use while falling asleep.
I don't plan on using it for anything besides basic web browsing and pdf reading, so it should be cheap. However, price is no object if it has those features. There was one other soft criteria but it sounded like an ad so I removed it... See if you can guess.
Related Stories
Google has quietly crept out of the tablet business, removing the "tablets" heading from its Android page. Perhaps it hoped no one would notice on a Friday and by Monday it would be old news, but Android Police caught them in the act. It was there yesterday, but it's gone today.
[...] Google in particular has struggled to make Android a convincing alternative to iOS in the tablet realm, and with this move has clearly indicated its preference for the Chrome OS side of things, where it has inherited the questionable (but lucrative) legacy of netbooks. They've also been working on broadening Android compatibility with that OS. So it shouldn't come as much surprise that the company is bowing out.
[...] Google's exit doesn't mean Android tablets are done for, of course. They'll still get made, primarily by Samsung, Amazon and a couple of others, and there will probably even be some nice ones. But if Google isn't selling them, it probably isn't prioritizing them as far as features and support.
Also at 9to5Google.
Related: All New Chromebooks to Support Android Apps
The first Chrome OS tablet is here
Apple Expected to Compete Against Chromebooks With Cheaper Education-Focused iPads
ChromeOS Gains the Ability to Run Linux Applications
Ask the Community: In the Market for a Modern Tablet
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @02:49PM (10 children)
During my search, I saw that how well a tablet can record your conversations is now being used as a selling point. This is specifically a feature I would not use or want:
https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/08/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon-yoga-tablet-2018-hands-on/ [engadget.com]
However, if I can remove the mic(s) (point 2) then that feature would be fine.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Grishnakh on Thursday May 10 2018, @02:52PM (7 children)
However, if I can remove the mic(s) (point 2) then that feature would be fine.
Why would they allow you to do that? That'll greatly reduce their profitability (by preventing them from snooping on you and selling that information), and only a tiny percentage of potential buyers care about this, so it's entirely in the manufacturers' interest to make sure these devices have microphones that are good at eavesdropping on you, and to prevent this feature from being disabled.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:02PM
It could just be a side effect of letting you replace the battery.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bob_super on Thursday May 10 2018, @04:34PM (5 children)
Can we please get the paranoid conspiracy mod ? Sometimes we do need the community to be able to label a statement as what it is, rather than "interesting" or other approving-sounding ones.
(note that being paranoid doesn't mean that they not out to get you, so I don't want to tag this "disagree")
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Thursday May 10 2018, @05:13PM (2 children)
I'm in favor of a Paranoid mod, but only if it's +1.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @07:47PM
It should be -1+1i (-1 real +1 imaginary).
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday May 11 2018, @09:31AM
What are you afraid of it it's +2?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Thursday May 10 2018, @06:44PM (1 child)
Is it really "paranoid" though? This is, after all, Google's entire business model, and Facebook's too. And we have "smart TVs" that really do listen in on you and send your speech to cloud servers, this has been proven.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @06:48PM
I think we found the limits of bob's cynicism. It blows my mind that people just trust these services because REASONS! So how does facebook only record tv shows / movies / songs playing in the background? /rhetorical
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @02:00PM (1 child)
Have you considered using a low-profile heaphone/microphone plug to trick the hardware into thinking there's an external microphone? It won't work on all devices, but might work on yours. https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-headset-Dust-Plug-Buttton/dp/B01LYWI6NT [amazon.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @03:56PM
Very interesting idea, thanks. Although for the tablet I have never once even used the mic or cameras (unlike my phone) so would probably just remove them. Of course it would be better to not pay for that hardware to begin with but that seems impossible these days.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @02:53PM (4 children)
Weren't these titled "Ask Soylent" [soylentnews.org] before? Any reason for the change?
(I don't know anything about tablets, so can't help there. Just wondering about the "rebranding".)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @02:58PM
I looked for that option in the topic list but didn't see it. "Ask the community" was added to the title by the editors.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday May 10 2018, @05:06PM (1 child)
The only topic option given to the editor is to select 'Answers'. I agree that we used to see 'Ask Soylent' but I was editing this at 06:30 local before I had to dash off to the hospital. I'll try to remember for next time....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @07:55PM
No worries, I was just wondering if it's a conscious change, and if so, why. Like, if that company that makes Soylent food tried to flex some trademark muscle or whatever. It'd be stupid, but sadly not unheard of.
> I was editing this at 06:30 local before I had to dash off to the hospital.
Ouch, now that's dedication. Thanks. Since you had the time for editing, I guess that at least it wasn't an emergency? In any case, take care.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @11:18PM
404 Device Not Found
(Score: 4, Informative) by DannyB on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:00PM (5 children)
Chromebook is NOT a tablet. So maybe that disqualifies right off the bat.
They are inexpensive. Modern ones run Android apps out of the box, includes play store (be sure to check before buying). (eg: LineageOS not needed)
I'm not sure what you mean about bloatware or control over updates. I like the turnkey nature of Chrome OS with it's built in Android. If you put it into developer mode, it is fully rooted (more below in link). It's a geek paradise if you put it in developer mode. You can run chrooted Ubuntu desktop (but not "installed" from an ISO). Choice of several targets you can "chroot" supported by Crouton script.
I do not know if this is helpful.
I also cannot say anything about opening or modding the hardware since I long ago forgot which end of a soldering iron to pick up.
Q. how many software developers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. none, that's a hardware problem.
(Management asks: but maybe the device driver software team can produce a patch that works around the hardware problem?)
I bought a Pixelbook last month.
See some of my posts in the recent SN article: ChromeOS Gains the Ability to Run Linux Applications [soylentnews.org]
In short:
* it might be pricier than what you're looking for (about $1000 and up, but right now $100 off)
* starting config at 128 GB SSD, and 8 GB RAM
* Chrome OS is turnkey, self updating, runs Android apps if you care to, play store built in
* It is already a glorified web browser which can read PDFs.
* It is a laptop, but it folds around 360 degrees to become a tablet.
* Excellent screen, and it is very bright, enough to use outdoors (but see YouTube videos for yourself)
Drawbacks as a tablet:
* To suspend, you re-fold it back around 360 into a closed laptop
* It's a bit heavier than a tablet
Advantages as tablet:
* nice big screen in portrait is nice for reading full page documents
Before buying a Pixelbook, I was looking real hard at an Asus C302, under $500, with 4 GB RAM and 64 GB SSD with Chrome OS + Android. I don't remember if this one folds around into a "tablet", so that might be a deal killer for you. I also can't speak to screen brightness.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:09PM (2 children)
This is actually really important so thanks. Can you comment on the minimum brightness level?
Also, I don't really like the idea of using any google developed software, and I don't consider constant auto updates to be a feature (instead of just security they are always changing my settings, the appearance and menu layouts, etc). All that stuff just makes me think the device is an adversary trying to spy on and manipulate me, when I just want to read a few webpages or documents with it. However if there are instructions to install a different OS available then it might work.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:45PM (1 child)
I do use it at night in bed to read text. (white text on black background) I do not turn it down to it's dimmest setting. That is not a very detailed description.
I understand what you are saying, which explains your preference for LineageOS.
I don't think it is spying so much as product influence coming from ill conceived poorly thought out ideas originating in a dark place of eternal suffering, torment and anguish, otherwise commonly known as Marketing.
Have you looked at whether you can re-purpose a cheap Kindle tablet?
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:59PM
See the below discussion about e-Readers. The main issue is that everything will be in black and white. I just don't know how much of an issue that would be. I see color e-ink is still not developed: https://goodereader.com/blog/e-paper/color-e-paper-will-not-be-a-reality-anytime-soon [goodereader.com]
(Score: 2) by ledow on Thursday May 10 2018, @04:18PM (1 child)
ChromeOS tablets exist. They may not be called Chromebooks, but they are sold all over the education market.
And given that they run all the Android apps now too, that means they're actually "Android tablets" + "ChromeOS" in the same tablet-form device.
Case in point: Acer Chromebook Tab 10
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday May 10 2018, @04:36PM
The reason Chromebooks are popular in education:
* They are centrally controllable (just join each device to your fleet when you first receive it)
* School district has a choice of manufacturers to negotiate volume wholesale price discounts with (the advantage of not buying Apple or Microsoft)
* Thus, they are cheap. (I hear rumor of $66 / unit)
* Easily replaced if lost, stolen or eaten
* If stolen, they can be remote-wiped (maybe even bricked)
* Once replaced, all lessons and materials in the cloud are instantly available once again. (But if you locally store Android data, it undermines this advantage)
* At end of school year, mass-remote-wipe the devices
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:01PM (1 child)
http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Features/Convert-an-Android-Device-to-Linux [linux-magazine.com] Unfortunately, he doesn't say WHICH android devices.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/here-comes-the-first-ubuntu-linux-tablet/ [zdnet.com] Two year old article, may or may not be worth reading. If the device came with Ubuntu/Unity on it, it should be pretty easy to install a different Linux.
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-devices-didnt-know-can-install-linux/ [makeuseof.com] Three year old article, may be less useful than the previous article. The author does, however, name some hardware devices that are suitable.
The Duck offered me a link to Ebay - their list of "linux tablet" includes laptops, phone sized devices, a DT398B for ~$650 bucks which seems excessive, Fujitsu Sylistic Q552. Oh, get THIS: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Industrial-Tablet-PC-10-1-Screen-Windows-7-8-Rugged-Tablet-PC-Linux-mini-PC-H/232693209885?hash=item362d989b1d:m:m2cE3T0UjFVZ78JDApaOnIA [ebay.com] Almost $3000 for a tablet showing a Windows boot screen? I'm closing Ebay . . .
Duck gave me a link to Amazon, but the link us useless. Everything with a "linux" tag shows up, with no tablets in sight. Ooooh, this looks interesting - https://www.amazon.com/ZenPad-Camera-Android-Tablet-Z300M-A2-GR/dp/B01F57BNG2/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1525964298&sr=8-3&keywords=linux+tablet [amazon.com]
Alright, I made a feeble effort. I'm sitting back to see what other people offer now!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:15PM
Thanks, this looks like a useful tip from the third link:
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-devices-didnt-know-can-install-linux/ [makeuseof.com]
(Score: 1) by ptman on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:27PM (14 children)
e-Ink screens are very readable in the sun. Do you need color for web browsing? I have a reMarkable e-Ink tablet, but I know there are android alternatives. The reMarkable does not have a web browser, but the android ones do. E.g. The Onyx ones: https://onyxboox.com/product#actual [onyxboox.com]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:33PM (1 child)
To submitter: Was the soft criteria "long battery life"?
ptman: E-ink is going to be pretty bad for both web browsing and PDFs.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:51PM
I actually don't care much about battery life since it wont really be leaving the house. The soft criteria was actually having an amd cpu, which I wanted to try out. But that isn't so important.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:43PM (8 children)
This isn't a bad idea actually... I check a couple that run android, they only have 512 MB RAM. So I don't think the web browsing experience would be very pleasant.
https://onyxboox.com/boox_darwin3 [onyxboox.com]
Perhaps something like this (2 GB RAM) would be better (a little pricey though):
https://onyxboox.com/boox_max2 [onyxboox.com]
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077GVLMJN/ref=psdc_2642129011_t1_B074DYHF4V [amazon.com]
Web browsing in black and white seems like it would be a bit strange though. Have you tried it?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:50PM (4 children)
Black and white isn't the biggest problem. It's the slow refresh rate/sluggishness. I have used the web browser on a Kindle and it was tedious.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:56PM (2 children)
You're saying that is a property of the screen? They are claiming the Onyx boox max 2 can be used as a monitor, so perhaps that problem has been overcome?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 10 2018, @04:14PM (1 child)
It's not like there was ever anything stopping a company from adding an HDMI port to their e-reader.
The "SNOW Field" they mention might improve refresh rate slightly, and the quad core + RAM could help with loading detailed PDFs (less lag). But the refresh rate is still going to be very low.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_paper#Disadvantages [wikipedia.org]
Here's a recent e-ink "monitor" [digitaltrends.com].
The low refresh rate is a property of most e-ink technologies. High refresh rate e-ink screens haven't made it out of the lab, to my knowledge, although they have been hyping them up for years [e-ink-info.com].
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday May 10 2018, @04:33PM
I recall seeing an early Kindle software-modded to play video fast enough to maintain the illusion of motion. I suppose it's possible it was actually a hardware mod posing as a software mod, but it didn't have that hoax vibe to it (and a hardware mod would have been worth boasting about in it's own right)
Of course that might "only" have been 20-30 fps, but that'd be plenty for most uses.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday May 10 2018, @04:28PM
I remember seeing an early Kindle e-ink device software-modded to play video, the problem (as I recall) being that such fast refreshes drained the battery much more rapidly - e-ink is extremely efficient at displaying a static image, not so much during the normally-infrequent updates. (There might also be some long-term endurance issues, that would be worth researching).
The point though, is that there's nothing about e-ink that makes it inherently sluggish, that's down to the software decisions made by the manufacturer. I rather wish someone would make an e-ink screen laptop for outdoor use, maybe we'll get that once they'd got color working reliably. A shame that nothing much ever came of Pixel Qi's transflective display.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:56PM (2 children)
Same story with image-heavy PDFs. Lack of color may be impediment there if you wanted to look at drawings, comics, photos, graphs, etc. in the PDFs. And they load and refresh slowly in my experience. That's something that should get slightly better on newer generations of e-readers, but the refresh rate is still fundamentally slow. Maybe we will have a display that combines the benefits of E-ink and LCD/(O|Q)LED/et al. one day, but I haven't seen it yet.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday May 10 2018, @04:15PM (1 child)
Transreflective LCDs, see fancy 90s era marine GPS units etc.
Expensive, not good color rendition, backlit trad LCDs for smartphones pretty much killed the technology. Its all about best image quality in the showroom not real world, and transreflective will always be worse for some fundamental optical reasons in a dim-ish indoor room. Its a pity because transreflective will always look better pretty much anywhere else.
You can buy small "arduino project" style LCDs that are transreflective. They'll be monochrome alphanumeric and small, not 300 DPI truecolor the size of a page, but they're available.
Most of ops list of requirements are difficult to simultaneously meet but really easy to meet a subset, so the real question about the topic is what gets thrown under the bus. You could savagely 3-d print some horrendous frankenstein that uses an arduino with 100% open source firmware and a tiny little low res screen and nightmare UI, but OP probably wants something that'll actually work and not look hideous. Or dump the open source full ness and easy to repair and just buy a kindle reader although its really slow refresh rate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @04:53PM
What is so extreme about the requirements? The only technically demanding one is a wide dynamic range for screen brightness. The others are just design decisions.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @05:26PM (1 child)
As best I'm aware, nobody has yet come out with LEDs that produce enough light to overwhelm the sun's light. If OP wants something that can be read in daylight, s/he has eliminated all of today's tablets from consideration.
What we really need is progress on the e-ink front. (I use the term generically, not as a brand name.) We need colour and we need faster refreshing. Colour has been "right around the corner" every year since at least 2012, based on some recent Googling, so I'm not holding my breath there.
Personally, I would love to see a large display (12"-13") flexible (fold-in-half-able) lightweight (non-glass) full-colour e-ink reader with adjustable front-light. The common 9.7" tablets are a little too small and 7"/8" tablets much too small for comfortable full-page document reading (*cough* comics *cough*) and the tablets are too big and heavy to comfortably slip in a pocket or purse to carry around. The current e-reader 6" standard display, slightly smaller than a paperback page, is too small. The weight is nice and the size for transportability is nice. The e-ink is much more comfortable on the eyes than LED screens, but it's only greyscale.
If someone comes out with a full-colour, fast-refreshing e-ink-like reader that's offers a display comparable in size to A4/letter size paper that can be folded (rolled?) down to the size of a Kindle or oversized pen, they'd have a license to print money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @06:28PM
I have a device that is supposedly ~220 nits and is barely visible in the sun. This should be 6x brighter so perhaps that is good enough:
https://www.androidpolice.com/2017/08/28/displaymate-analyzes-note8s-display-1200-nits-brightness-great-color/ [androidpolice.com]
However for some reason they went for the glossy display...
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday May 10 2018, @08:55PM
How is the remarkable for installing other OS's? If it's OK, are there any Linux-compatible window managers that will work sweetly with e-ink?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Thursday May 10 2018, @05:11PM (3 children)
Can't help you with tablets specifically, but I'm in the market for a new phone with similar requirements. Although I'm also looking for an SD card slot and a removable battery. So for my needs, I've decided that the best option may actually be to go back a couple generations, because they just don't make 'em like they used to... When you say "modern" you might mean a year old, you might mean five...but it definitely sounds like you shouldn't be looking at the latest and greatest flagship devices IMO.
Right now I've got a four year old Galaxy S5. It's a nice phone, meets all my requirements...might not be the easiest device to tear apart, but it does have a 5/10 repairability score on ifix it which isn't awful for a mobile phone (https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+S5+Teardown/24016). When I first put LineageOS on it there were some issues, but now that's all been worked out and it runs pretty well. Compatibility is usually going to be best on older devices, so for custom roms I'd suggest avoiding anything released within the past year -- or be ready to look very closely at the dev progress for that device. The other thing to consider is that without the bloatware, an older device is going to run just fine. In my experience, five year old hardware running LineageOS gets better performance than one year old hardware on a stock install. The biggest thing holding me back from getting a new phone right now is just that my current one, despite its age, still has literally nothing wrong with it. I'm tempted to try to repurpose it for something else, but I can't justify even $100 for a new phone when my current one is damn near flawless. And the new phone I'm looking at is an LG G5, which isn't exactly new...but the hardware is better than the S5, and the S5 *still* works well enough that I can't even find an excuse to convince myself that it doesn't.... :) So don't be afraid of buying an older device if it meets the rest of your requirements.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday May 10 2018, @05:16PM
Oh, forgot to add...as I said in my post, I quite enjoy the S5 (the default software is atrocious, but if you wipe it the hardware is pretty nice). But the brightness isn't going to quite meet your needs I'd expect. You can usually work around a screen that won't dim enough -- there's third-party apps that can dim it further although I don't think those give any power saving as I believe they just dim the image on screen rather than the backlight itself...but it's usable for night reading. The bigger issue is daylight...the S5 is usually readable, but it's a struggle, and if you've got sunglasses on it's pretty unreadable unless you find some shade. Last time I saw a device that actually performed well in daylight, it was a monochrome display where you could see each individual pixel...so if you want a big bright color display you might have issues there, although I'd expect tablets and laptops to do a bit better than phones if only because they have room for bigger lights and bigger batteries...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @05:22PM (1 child)
The original title was:
Admittedly that sounds kind of dumb, but I agree that "modern" often means crappier (more bloat, less control) in tech. I agree with the rest of the post, an older device may work just as well. Usually I get new phones because I lose/break it, but in the case of a tablet I don't really bring it anywhere so I still have one from like 5 years ago. Besides that the micro-usb port stopped working so I can no longer charge it (I ordered the part to give it one last chance), the only problem seems to be only 1 gb of ram which leads to trouble with some web browsing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @05:25PM
Oh yea, I forgot the other problem with that old tablet is the dim screen.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday May 10 2018, @06:03PM (4 children)
The best that you could do would be to spend thousands of dollars on a single prototype that you designed yourself. Good luck with that.
I did recently make a tablet purchase, though. I got a Samsung Galaxy Tab A with S-Pen. This one specifically: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LFV5SG8 [amazon.com]
The drawing functionality is a far better experience than trying to get used to a Wacom that doesn't have a built-in screen. The price was pretty decent and works well as a general purpose tablet. Even has some special kid mode with kids apps that locks your device behind a passcode. That way they don't go deleting things accidentally or accessing inappropriate content. We also got a big foam case for it and the device hasn't been broken, yet.
You want the convenience of a tablet, the Tab A is a good choice. Doesn't break the bank, isn't affected by the Spectre/Meltdown issue, and feels pretty snappy.
Tablets just don't come with those specific features. My wants were similar to yours when I was looking for a tablet. I did find something when I was looking, but I think it was a Kickstarter. Kickstarter == Gambling (Investment in the idea) 50/50 chance you might get something resembling their vision. You want to be able to upgrade, buy / build a Desktop. You want something portable, buy a Tablet. You want something portable and want to type on it, buy a Laptop.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @06:51PM
How is the tab A in sunlight?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @08:36PM (2 children)
OP literally said that price is no object. Assuming the technology actually exists (might be tough with the screen requirements), hiring a design firm and then contracting out the manufacturing of a machine meeting your exact specifications is certainly possible, no need to design or build it yourself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @01:59PM (1 child)
Know anyone who does this type of thing? I mean I have a raspberry pi Im not using for anything so in theory I could just get a screen and a case and make my own.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday May 12 2018, @12:01AM
They even make screen hats for the pi.
(Score: 1) by Deeo Kain on Sunday May 13 2018, @02:33AM (1 child)
Hopefully they will manage to release the first native Linux tablet:
https://puri.sm/shop/librem-11/ [puri.sm]
(Score: 1) by tbuskey on Sunday May 13 2018, @07:49PM
There has already been a native Linux tablet. The SmartQ7 ran Ubuntu and came out before the iPhone.
ARM, 128MB RAM, SD slot, 1024x480 color touch screen with stylus. WiFi. USB port.
It was great back in the day. The screen resolution and RAM and lack of a modern browser hinder it today.
There was a Windows CE in Chinese available at one time.