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Although it is not a tablet, the OpenPandora complies with all the other conditions you listed. It is quite a unique device and the fact it can be folded and fit in a pocket is an advantage over the tablet form factor. The project has taken a couple of years to take off, but you can receive your device in 7 days now, if you pay $500.

I was looking forward to the Atari Flashback Portable that sadly never materialized. I really don't have a need or desire for a high-powered latest-generation portable console, but retro portable gaming I would pay for.

What about the Pandora?

What can you do with it?

Pandora's app site

Emulators

Loads more apps, including emulators and games

FWIW, I'm going to give Sony a chance to sell me a PSP2/NGP/whatever, but I'm already looking at alternatives. I don't really need all the gyros and accelerometers and multitouch surfaces and GPS and whatnot, and I think those things will jack up the price a lot. What I really want is a portable system on which I can watch videos (the PSP was good enough at that for me) and play sports games (especially soccer) and shooters. And I want two thumbsticks for the shooters so the controls can be consistent. I hate switching between PSP shooters, because each one has its own control scheme with its own ways of getting around the lack of a second thumbstick, and I get confused.

I was looking forward to the Atari Flashback Portable that sadly never materialized. I really don't have a need or desire for a high-powered latest-generation portable console, but retro portable gaming I would pay for.

What about the Pandora?

What can you do with it?

Pandora's app site

Emulators

Loads more apps, including emulators and games

FWIW, I'm going to give Sony a chance to sell me a PSP2/NGP/whatever, but I'm already looking at alternatives. I don't really need all the gyros and accelerometers and multitouch surfaces and GPS and whatnot, and I think those things will jack up the price a lot. What I really want is a portable system on which I can watch videos (the PSP was good enough at that for me) and play sports games (especially soccer) and shooters. And I want two thumbsticks for the shooters so the controls can be consistent. I hate switching between PSP shooters, because each one has its own control scheme with its own ways of getting around the lack of a second thumbstick, and I get confused.

One big strike against Pandora: You can't actually get one.

Since the Pandora is a project started by only a few people (and it isn't even out yet), you can't buy it at any online stores! As the first batch is currently produced and shipped, pre-orders will be available at www.gbax.com, shop.gp2x.de or www.gp2xtr.com soon.

Please check back regularly to find out when preordering for the second batch starts.

Other than that </snarky> it does sincerely look pretty cool. What do Pandoras cost? $99 for the new one is cool, and the lack of WiFi is made up for (at least to me) by ready acceptance of WiFi cards. But the Pandora does have a much better screen.

Something like this?

Now shipping, but still be prepared to wait a long time before you get yours if you order now.

What about http://www.open-pandora.org/? It's a much better device than this one, has all of the stuff mentioned, and more.

Looks like Gruso's blog got slashdotted pretty quickly.

Here's some more links to keep people occupied:

Official Site: http://www.open-pandora.org/
Wikipedia Page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_(console)
Pandora forums on GP32X: http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?/forum/61-pandora/
Craig Rothwell's Twitter feed (all kids of pics there): http://twitter.com/craigix

How much do you think it costs to develop games for the PS3 or XBox 360?

How much do you think it costs to develop games for the Aspire Revo, a console based on the PC architecture?

everyone is really happy with it, other than a few geeks who just can't grasp that it's not designed to be a really really small laptop.

It's not that as much as the fact that the geeks want a really small laptop, and they're frustrated with a year and a half of delays on the next best thing.

I haven't bricked the Pandora yet, but that may simply be because I haven't gotten my hands on it yet. On the other hand, it's a community effort and it runs Linux and you are invited to contribute to it, so your chances of staying in control of the machine that you bought seem to be a lot better than with the PlayStation and Xbox.

That would require quite a breakthrough, either in battery or processor tech.

It's already here.

I've seen it go 10 hours running an emulator (which is actually more stressful than the DSP's efforts to do HD video would be...) and this was with a single 13.5 watt-hour battery attached to the device.

In the end, any Cortex-A8 or Sheeva based SoC with a DSP chip will do this out of box because of the power/performance profile they have.

I don't think I'm alone in wishing for an OMAP4-based Linux netbook.

While a bit smaller then a netbook, the http://www.open-pandora.org/ is as close as you can get it for an OMAP4 based linux netbook right now (well, in 2 months, when it gets released)

I used an OQO for a while... after it died on me, I bought a Zipit Z2, and that is my current carry computing device. I'm awaiting release of the Pandora, which should be the spiritual successor and technological superior to the Zaurus line of devices in every way. Oddly enough, my Zaurus still works, but it finally began showing its age a few years back, hence the succession of other machines.

What I should really do is go back to having a separate phone and PDA, and put up with the hassle of sharing data between them manually. (With a PAYG plan, I'd probably save $50/month.) Except nobody makes a decent PDA any more...

I've considered this the only sound strategy for years... I currently, desperately, await the release of the Pandora to meet my needs, while I get by with a hacked Zipit Z2. Those meet my needs, but even previous generation PDAs were decent at PDA stuff... I just need a small Linux machine in addition to a phone. Works great for me since I switched from a Palm to a Zaurus many years back. Whatever you use, you can usually boil contacts, notes, and calendar sync down to a one or two click operation between your handheld, phone, and desktop PIM software... "manual" but not troublesome.

why don't you vote with your money and buy a SmartQ V5?

Because it didn't exist in the fourth quarter of 2005 when I bought my DS. PassMe + GBA Movie Player did exist. I was going to buy a Pandora PDA instead, but after it got delayed so much, I bought an Asus Eee PC and put Ubuntu on it instead.

I can't wait to try E out on my new Pandora!
http://www.open-pandora.org/

The Pandora can run off of USB power. Whether it counts as a netbook or not is up to your definition, as it's basically a handheld computer.

Or, put differently, if YouTube and Hulu gave users a choice between h.264 and Theora, everyone (except the freetards {...}) would choose h.264.

Yes, and ? Your point being ?
At least, we freetards would get something to run on opensource such as Firefox, on other Theora-browsers such as Opera, and on our hobbyist and community projects. One bad solution (even more if it is only bad in 10% of situations in fact) is better than no solution at all.

Freetards running Firefox, Opera or other Theora supporting web-browser (F/LOSS version of Chromium) will have something, in a dual H.264/Theora world. In a h264-only world, they would be forced to switch to the binary Google Chrome and Internet Explorer, or go back to using BLOBs such as Flash or system codecs.

Say, I'm a freetard. Say that I happen to work on a community project. Like developing the OpenPandora, the TouchBook, or the Beagleboard - well just about anything which is not a x86 device.
Such project use rather custom hardware for which no software exist. Using open-source solution is the only way to go. (these examples use derivative of Angstrom Linux).

In a world were h264 is the only solution, users in jurisdictions where MPEG-LA's patent can be enforced are left in the mud.
Using ffmpeg would be considered illegal (and a community project might be big enough to attract the wrath of a patent troll). Packing Flash or some other binary software is not an option, for lack of support from vendors.

In a world were Theora is also available, the users of such device would be happy to at least have this, even if in 10% of situation the quality is worse.

By luck, the 3 devices I mentioned have hardware for decoding h264 inside their OMAPs, so they won't probably suffer from this problem (is there a VA-API or whatever released to that chip ?).
Other community project might not have this chance.

I figured netbooks were positioned between handhelds and notebooks... but if you're going to include the DSi, perhaps the Pandora would be a better answer for that. They may actually start shipping sometime this year... ;)

They're working with their contractor to perfect the case moulds right now, and the rest of the components are supposedly together, ready for assembly. I'm not qualified to judge, but it sounds like they aren't far off. Too bad ordering is a snafu.

I wish they would list battery life under "Heavy Use".

I remember reading a Netbook review where it pointed out how bogus the 10 hour claims are. Can't find the exact one, but this one is similar.

10 hours? No. 6 hours if you're doing something. Listening to an MP3 while you work in Office and browse the web? That's CPU, speakers, Wifi, possibly Flash(GPU/CPU), and the HDD. 6 hours is expected under fairly normal use for anyone that visits slashdot.

And yet devices like the Pandora handheld make real heavy use claims. Why must it be a small insignificant company to avoid being lied to?

Wikipedia says the Nexus One phone's display is 800x480 (not 800x400) pixels when rotated to landscape, just like the display of the Pandora PDA. In a 720x480 pixel widescreen video following industry standards for SDTV and EDTV, the center 704x480 pixels (not counting the Nominal Analog Blanking area) have a 16:9 display aspect ratio, which implies a 40:33 pixel aspect ratio. To restore square pixels, the player ideally stretches the center 660 pixels of this image to cover the 800-pixel width of the screen. This cuts off 22 pixels (27 square pixels) from each side, but SDTV and EDTV are framed in a safe area: displays are allowed to cut off a bit of the edge.

It's not a phone, but...