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Ask Slashdot: Instead of a Laptop, a Tiny Computer and Projector?
rover42 writes "I travel a lot, usually on a tight budget and often on airlines with tight luggage weight restrictions and high fees for going over, so traveling light is very important to me. So is connecting to the net when traveling, which creates a conflict. I do not trust machines in Internet cafes and my laptop adds significant weight & bulk to my luggage. I could buy a small netbook or a MacBook Air, but is there another choice? There are quite a few tiny computers available, Raspberry Pi and the like. Alone, they don't solve my problem because you need a screen and that is at least as heavy as a laptop. However, there are also quite a few tiny projectors. Would a tiny computer plus a tiny projector do the trick? Which ones? All I need for software is some open source Unix (any *BSD or Linux distro should be fine, or even Minix), a browser and an editor. I don't need large storage or a fast CPU. Has anyone done something like this? Does anyone have a recommendation for either the computer or the projector?"
A computer is more than a cpu and a screen. It's also a keyboard, and mouse. Do you plan to cart those around? If you want a projector, just buy the Air or other ultrabook, and buy a projector.
For once, a great Ask /. question.
For extra bonus points: any way we can do this off a currently available phone? For discussion purposes, I'll scale back the reqs to merely a browser and a text editor.
It'll break, you won't be able to fix it, the ergonomics will be terrible, you'll get hassled in airport security. This is a recipe for you getting pissed. Just get a MacBook air: built to last, lightweight and usable.
Nothing sucks like a Vax, nothing blows like a PowerMac G4
It also comes with android, you all your requirements are satisfied
Pico projectors peak out at about 800x600 resolution, poor brightness and contrast, and limited battery life. Go with a laptop.
I can't see how it would be worth it. You'd have to carry a mouse and a keyboard, as well as the tiny PC and projector. That's a lot of things to have to take. Additionally, it would be underpowered and you'd have to find a place to project whenever you wanted to use it. Just get a small macbook air or similar windows ultrabook (netbooks are okay, but I've never liked on i've used). Even a kindle fire or iPad would get you online. Heck - you can even browse on a smartphone in a pinch. It'd go with a simpler solution and save yourself the headache.
It sounds more like this would be a hobby solution. The amount of effort you'll spend getting it to work as well as a netbook isn't going to be a good payout
Does not sound very compact or light. Just get a very light weight laptop like a Let's Note (Toughbook). Leave the battery at home if it makes that much difference.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
There also keyboards that can attach to them in case you don't want to use that touch screen "keyboard". A bunch of road warriors I know use that and a cell phone and they've been happier.
http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ-VjUKAsao#t=2m30s
Note that you may have problems boarding the plane with such gear :).
Get one of these ------ http://usa.asus.com/Eee/Eee_PC/Eee_PC_1001PX_Seashell/#overview ------- its cheap, light (1300 grams), 9 hour battery life. I have one that I use to write a 400 page book when I'm on the go. Its very usable. As for your Raspberry + Project idea... It will give you nothing but problems, problems, problems... ----
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
It's going to be a pain, I promise. Don't waste your time. Get an Air or Chromebook and save yourself loads of trouble.
You aren't going to come close to the ergomonics of a laptop so lets assume you are thinking hobby solution. I have long wanted to combine a Cube Laser Virtual Keyboard, Pico Projector, Raspberry pi like computer to make some sort of laser cube of awesomeness. So do it and post about that because I would like to see results without spending the $600 myself.
I used to lug a laptop on business trips but now I can get by with just my Blackberry and Playbook. The Playbook has HDMI out so I can use a big screen TV at the other end to show my presentations and videos using my blackberry as a remote. The Playbook fits in my inside jacket pocket so it is ideal for these kind of trips.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
A tablet will probably do most of what you want in a small enough form factor. That said, I've been looking into building a computer such as you describe but more to get great performance, knowing that I will have a screen and keyboard at the other end. I work for an overseas company. When I get there I have an office. When I am at home I have an office. But I don't like the performance on my laptop, so I was looking into building a small box that has SSD drive for boot, lots of RAM, good sized HD..knowing that would have a screen on the other end. The idea isn't as far fetched as some are indicating. In the pre-9/11 days I used to travel with a full computer/keyboard/monitor that fit into a roll-on bag. That's back when laptops were VERY expensive to get any performance. I did get to have lots of nice conversations with the security guys, but I'm not sure it'd be taken as well now.
My brain is overly lubricated
If this is truly important to you, why don't you see if you can get by using a phone? Get a phone that has HDMI out and then get a cable so you can plug it into the TV at your hotel, or maybe carry on of those small pico projectors (the projector idea sounds annoying.) Maybe get one of these keyboard projectors? http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/cellphone/e722/
----- obSig
Get the Asus Zenbook. Better specs than a Macbook Air, at the same price and with a bit better build quality, to boot.
Otherwise, ThinkPad ultrabook. Aluminum's the worst material to use in a laptop, anyway.
I manage to do fairly well with a mid-level tablet (in my case a Toshiba Thrive) and a logitech bluetooth keyboard. Both fit in a pocket on my carry-on.
I use Galaxy Nexus for such stuff. GN has pretty large screen for on the go, but when i get at home, GN dock + Bluetooth Keyboard + mouse + 24" monitor gives me decent working environment.
you can carry all (except monitor) anywhere where you go and then use dock with hotel room TV (if it has hdmi port).
I'm happy with my Galaxy Nexus :)
Alex
I'm not sure I'd use it as my primary phone, but since it's GSM you can always swap SIMs as needed. Hook up a Bluetooth pointing device or keyboard and you've got a decent soup-to-nuts solution:
Samsung Galaxy Beam
If you get a tiny computer and a projector, you basically can't do anything without a power outlet. Just get a small laptop. I'm not a huge fan of Apple, but I've found my Macbook Air to be pretty rugged and portable.
You seem to be a perfect fit for any android phone that supports a mini-HDMI connection or one of those new-fangled MHL connection. The Samsung Galaxy s3 does this, has a quadcore 1.4Ghz ARM, a gig of ram. You can wireless connect a keyboard and mouse to the bluetooth if you want. Data will go on the 3g/4g connection, which will perfectly accompany you if you have an unlimited verizon plan still.
don't the put the laptop in checkered bags easy way for it to get lost, broken, or stolen
at $550 usd it's not 'cheap' if you buy it without a contract... but with a contract but only $99 for new customers. it's got a qwerty physical keyboard 16 gb stock with a sdmicro supporting 32 gb add on (in the battery housing) and debian supports the hardware just fine. the screen is a bit small but it has a micro hdmi output that will mirror the screen for use with projectors. just a small list of feature, wifi connection to avoid wasting plan gbs, ability to connect to 5 wifi devices to act as a mobile hotspot. full support of google play apps as well as carrier apps, dual core 1.2ghz processor, 1 gb of ram, 8 megapixel camera on rear and 1.4 megapixel cam on front (for skype, etc)
depending on how many apps you have running the battery lasts all day, and will charge from usb ports. if it's supported in debian the micro hdmi out means ethernet over hdmi support..
netflix works great on it, though i output to a hdtv to netflix since the screen is not the top grade. it will record video clips in 1080p not sure how many minutes, as i haven't needed to test that yet. it plays back mp3s but i had troubles with mp3 identification when i tried to sync (only on the carriers os) it is a 4g lte phone but works fine on 3g and voice protocols.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
The ergonomics may be less than desirable, and it will be more inconvenient than a good NetBook or MacBook Air. However the idea of combining a Raspberry Pi with a Pico Projector is really fascinating. I might even build a little Lego case that would hold the Raspberry Pi and the projector. The only major problem is what to do for a keyboard and mouse. That could be cumbersome. But it'd be fun to try. Maybe use a projected keyboard as well. Again, the ergonomics would be terrible, but it's be interesting to try.
~theCzar
Its silly to mess with anything else -- a tablet will be terrible for software development and *product*ivity, its good for consumpion not production....
You could build something out of rpi, a displaying device, a keyboard etc. Or you could by a damn netbook for 300 bucks with 6-8 hours battery live. I bought myself an Samsung nc10 plus. And I am very happy with it. Why waste time on a patched together device?
I travel a lot and I know the baggage limit stuff on planes. But there is also no space for a big screen device. The same applies to trains. So go and get a netbook. They were designed for those purposes. They are cheap and my Ubuntu runs perfectly on my Samsung device.
A rooted android device or even an ipad + 3g (possibly rooted) would fulfil this with a keyboard case.
Motorola atrix is also another option, but your main concern when traveling is room and you cant fit an ultralight laptop (thinkpad x series, macbook air, netbook, etc.) you probably need a bigger bag or to talk to other business travelers on how they're packing (cause you're doing it wrong)
Or a tablet. What do you need the computer for??
A projector as a substitute for the screen? Jeez... Well, at least I guess you don't watch porn at the airports...
The Eee Keyboard comes first to mind for this - it's an all-in-one except for the screen (except it does have a screen, it's just really small). You don't gain anything though by going this route, the keyboard isn't significantly smaller or lighter than a small laptop and it's a little more awkward and, most of all, there are more pieces to juggle.
Don't underestimate the importance of having everything in a single package for portability - I've been really disappointed with the route that Apple has been going with this, offloading more and more things to a myriad of dongles. I'm hoping they don't get too many imitators in that respect. Like everyone else in this thread, I would recommend a traditional laptop.
I have tried out the PicoProjectors and did not find the results to be worthwhile. Low resolution, a very faint image, requiring darkened surroundings, and the need to have a space to project the image make this a very limited solution. I know someone who pairs a PicoProjector with a 13" Mac when he teaches internationally in remote areas, but that is for a very specific purpose. Your needs sound more general.
To that end I recommend a Motorola Atrix and the docking station. I personally have one and use it on the go for moderate computing, using Google docs as my office suite. I don't know what the current specials are, but I picked up an Atrix 4g (1st gen) and the dock for $300 at an AT&T store. The dock is thin, light, and fits easily into a small backpack or large purse. Battery life is advertised at 8 hours and after a year of usage I'm can still get 6+hrs of use including mixed internet browsing including video, around 7 if I'm just plugging away on some documents. As my wife and I have the same phones, we swap the doc back and forth as a portable solution. Include a 32GB SD card in your phone and you have over 40gb of on the go storage as well. The dock also includes 2 usb ports so you can plug in some accessories as needed.
Hope this helps.
If you go the laptop route and you need a physical keyboard, I'd recommend a Sony Vaio P. It is a netbook, but it is very small and light (it weights like an ipad at about 650 g.), and has a reasonably good keyboard for its size, along with with a 1600x768 8" screen. Usually a tablet+keyboard weight the same or more, and are more cumbersome to use. Even cheap and tiny 7" 800x480 ARM mini laptops, which also come with a keyboard, are heavier. Plus it's easier to install linux in the vaio than in ARM tablets or mini laptops, which usually come with Android.
The screen is quite small if you compare it with a projector, but you have everything (battery, computer, screen) in a very light and compact package.
Cons: It's quite expensive, and you might not like the fact that Sony sells it.
Downsides: - you still need a keyboard, mouse - you'll likely need ac power outlet nearby at all times - the tiny projectors typically have horrible brightness, meaning you'll need a darkened room to use it - you'll need a flat projection surface, which either meqns lugging around a screen, or having a hard time finding a suitable wall. Overall, it would be a MUCH more flexible approach to simply get a netbook, or even a tablet like the iPad or Samsung galaxy Tab...
I like the idea of Raspberry Pi just as much as the next geek, but think about the times you use a laptop. For me, a lot of it is on public transit, or waiting for my plane, or even these days with the in-flight wifi, on the plane itself. In these instances, how the hell are you going to use a projector? The fact that a laptop is an all-in-one package with a keyboard, mouse, and LCD really pays off in these circumstances.
Why not use a smartphone? Get a Mini-HDMI to HDMI cable, as well as a bluetooth mouse and keyboard. Use the built-in wifi connector, and use a 'Remote Desktop' client to connect to a machine with more power.
Sure, it limits your options to hotels with LCD screens and WiFi Hotspots, but that shouldn't be too much of a burden.
I am John Hurt.
Unless you plan everything perfectly, at some point you're going to need a keyboard; and carrying a keyboard eliminates all the advantages of having a smaller PC. Use an ultraslim laptop or netbook.
Alternatively, make someone at the presentation site provide a PC or laptop, and carry all the data and an installer for the display prog on a USB key.
I've been traveling overseas for a decade. My job demands a computer for connectivity, but not for much real-work. It is a surfing, email, entertainment and remote access device for me.
I've carried a 10lb IBM laptop to Japan.
I've carried a half lb Nokia N800 to South America.
I've carried a 15", 5.6lb laptop all around the USA.
I've carried a 10" dual-Atom Netbook all around the USA and on cruise ships.
I've carried a 10" Acer A500 Android tablet all over Europe.
I have both bluetooth and USB keyboards. Bluetooth looses keystrokes, USB doesn't.
The Android tablet could be ideal - it is light, supports a USB keyboard, and has most of the necessary functions, but I've learned that it lacks universal compatibility. It doesn't have an ethernet port, so you'll need a travel wifi router with you - I was amazed at the number of hotels that still only offer wired ethernet in the rooms, but wifi in the lobby. Android wifi connections don't always work with hotel networks either. I don't know why, just that out of the last 7 hotels I've stayed at - some in the USA, some in Europe - only 2 worked with android.
I tried to get Debian ARM to work on my tablet, but didn't have time to try more dangerous methods. I was able to get a BT5 Ubuntu-based chroot running under Android on a rooted tablet, but it was a huge paid to get started up, then using VNC to connect to a local GUI running inside the same device. As you can imagine, this worked, but is less than ideal.
So, I'm tired to traveling and having not internet.
* When I drive, I take a 15" Core i5 laptop. It is my daily driver and works fantastic.
* When I fly, I'll take a dual-core Atom Netbook - an Asus Eee. It is about 3 lbs and runs both Ubuntu and WinXP (tho XP hasn't been booted in over a year). At home, this same netbook is a full time XBMC device for non-HiDef content. That means it is a fun entertainment device when traveling.
Basically that was the idea of that project: cpu, projector and a camera for input. Check here
Forget the projector. Does anyone make glasses with a suitable HUD?
I Googled and found Vuzix. These appear to be designed mainly for video use, so the resolution might not be great. But if you are going to be projecting an image on any old surface, how much worse can these be?
Have gnu, will travel.
Something like this is what I was thinking as well. As long as you have a way to stand your tablet, the ergonomics are probably better than a laptop or netbook anyway.
Let's face it: despite claims here to the contrary, the ergonomics of most laptops leaves much to be desired. Even though my main machine is a laptop with a full-sized keyboard, I use a bluetooth keyboard so that I can put the screen at the proper distance.
You sound like you need a tablet.
What about the Pandora Handheld? http://openpandora.org/
I've been using that combo more often for conferences and business meetings. If you want more screen, an iPad or galaxy tablet would work.
I like the iPhone approach since it limits me to a single device for everything (except coding). Keynote works great for presenting (I usually author in PowerPoint).
-Chris
The Galaxy Note is a nice and practical phone, large enough so you can even type on it, great high-res screen, relatively big battery, stylus.
But, typing on a touchscreen is not as comfortable and quick as on a bigger mechanical keyboard. Looking at a 5.3" screen is not as comfortable as a 13.3" one, etc. - therefore i would not want it as my only computing device. I use a Thinkpad X300 for doing real work (the "Thinkpad Air", haha).
I bought an Asus Zenbook, as it's all the advantages of a macbook air sized device, but half the price. If travelling very light, I take a Xoom tablet or just my smart phone. There's plenty of choices before you go nuts on pico projectors etc!
Pro Coffee Drinker
Use an iPhone or iPod Touch of cource which checks all your boxes and has a vast ecosystem of projectors available from full size to portable.
http://www.projectorpeople.com
http://www.google.com/search?q=iphone+projector&hl=en&safe=off&prmd=imvns
http://www.google.com/search?q=iphone+projector&hl=en&safe=on&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=vzPeT9i-Icex6wG5wvC0Cw&ved=0CKUBELAE&biw=1231&bih=618
JJ
If you're cheap or on a serious budget, get an atom powered netbook, preferrably used, for about $50-$200 off eBay.
If you want a device that meets your criteria and is actually really nice to use, get a Macbook Air. Fantastic display, great keyboard, great trackpad, awesome battery life, super light and very durable. Plus OS X is actually really nice if you prefer a unix-ish environment.
For as much dislike as I've seen for them here on /., a Chromebook w/ 3G is ideal for your scenario.
I was on a very tight budget last summer, had been relegated to only using my Android phone for a computer for a few weeks, and finally picked up a first generation Samsung Series 5. (It came with 2 years of minimal 3G connectivity; if you factored that into the price it was cheaper than anything else I could find.) It's tiny, light, the battery lasts longer than anything I've had, and you have a real keyboard and screen. It has been the perfect travel computing device: because it's so small and light it's not just easy to carry but easy to use (even while standing in line), and because it's based on the concept of remote storage the wireless connectivity is a focus of the OS. It's cheap enough that its destruction or theft won't completely wipe you out; the secure computing chip and remote storage focus mean you won't risk losing critical data just because you lose the hardware. Get an USB ethernet adapter for when a wireless network isn't available.
A few years before I picked up the Chromebook I tried using an Asus EEE Netbook for the same scenario, and I've found the Chromebook is much more suited to being an on-the-go travel device.
If you look hard enough, there are perfect travel laptops.
Get yourself a second hand Sony VPCX laptop - they seem to tick your boxes:
1. Light - it's 600 grams with the battery included, and the battery lasts for 6 hours.
2. Cheap - I just got a second one for 200EU
3. Form - they're very slim - less than 1cm thick, and are a perfect rectangle - slips into any briefcase, etc
4. Strong - some models have a carbon shell, so they're pretty strong.
They're not super powerful, but enough for basic photoshop and net, etc.
I am currently writing from mine from Iran - riding across the world on motorbike. Had two spills on the bike, and the laptop bag has gone flying, but the laptop is still going strong..
If you did travel 'a lot', you'd be an elite frequent flyer and get at least one bag checked free. I don't even travel that much compared to someone who claims to 'travel a lot', and I have free baggage privileges with two major airlines on an ongoing basis for the past 5 years.
Furthermore, I travel for a week or two at a time and I manage to carry not only my full size 15.4" Dell Latitude, but also a external USB screen. And I don't check luggage. Fairly small laptop bag + carry on sized luggage = All my computer hardware, cables, chargers, clothes, toiletries, beard trimmer, second pair of shoes, and paperwork. I do laundry at the hotel/get drycleaning done locally. And buy a lot of toiletries when I get there, rather than carrying all of them around (though I can fit everything I need to be completely self sufficient.)
So basically, you're approaching this problem all wrong.
Projection requires a bulb. Do you plan to lug a big lead acid battery around?
Some kind of high resolution LCD goggles might be better.
If the availability of internet cafes is sufficient to cover your needs, then you could reduce the need for carrying equipment significantly, if you could find a way to make use of a computer without having to trust it.
If you did all of the computing on a stationary machine that you trust (located in your home or in a data center), then you have reduced the task to solve to handling input and output. Would you trust a machine in an internet cafe to send what is on the screen from your own machine to the monitor you are located at? For the rest of my suggestion, I'll assume the answer to that question is yes.
First solution would then be to carry your own keyboard and mouse plus a device that can securely get input from those input devices to your computer. A quite simple task in comparison with the task of handling general purpose computing. The device could be something with a SIM card and use data roaming to get data back to your computer. It is only a tiny amount of data, so no worry about data usage.
Now what you do is sit down at a public untrusted computer. You open a webbrowser and go to your own homepage with an applet (flash, java, whatever, depending on what the browser supports). The applet will show a pairingcode, you type that code on your trusted keyboard, and all input will happen using your trusted keyboard and mouse.
Things could be simplified a little bit if you can plug your own USB unit into the public computer. Then your unit could type in the webaddress, such that you don't have to do it yourself. And the pairing code could be send the other way around from your device through the applet. But the best part is that your device could pull power from the computer such that it wouldn't need a battery, and the encrypted and authenticated stream of keyboard and mouse input could be send as keypresses into the applet instead of over the mobile network. Then you won't need a SIM either.
You still need to carry around one tiny computing device to do the encryption with one USB connection to the public computer and two USB connectors for keyboard and mouse. Do you really need to carry around keyboard and mouse? Would you trust the keyboard and mouse in the webcafe? If you unplug those two units from the public computer and plug them into your little device, then you have reduced the equipment to carry to one tiny unit with three USB connectors.
Of course this is not 100% secure. The ability to see all your video output and manipulate it makes you an easier target for phishing attacks. It is of course still not trivial, an attacker can't just get you onto a phishing page in the first place as they cannot manipulate your input stream. But it might be secure enough for you, it all depends on your needs.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
For the keyboard aspect, you could use one of those little laser keyboards, a quick Google search turned up this http://celluon.com/products.php . Not sure if they work or had any experience with them
I have yet to find an airline that weighs my carry on and chargers me based on it's weight. In addition to that, I have yet to find any tiny projector that has a resolution over 800X600. Any ultrabook made is lighter than any combo out there that would be useable.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Buy a first generation EeePC and install a modern Linux on it. It's only slightly heavier and slightly bigger than what you have in mind, but includes a keyboard that one can get used to, touchpad, loudspeakers, microphone, webcam, wifi, battery. You may or may not have to replace the battery, and you should also add an SD card for storage because 2 GB is probably not enough. No problem at all to slide this thing into your handluggage somewhere, and it might even fit somewhere into your coat (=> weight 0 for airline purposes). Oh, and it can take a *lot* of abuse. Mine survived falling out of my rucksack on a stone floor, protected only by the thin protective sleeve. Nothing broke.
Lugging around a bag full of boxes and cables hardly sounds any better than a laptop and a power supply, it sounds like you really just want a cheap tablet
Run a Live USB distro have a 3G dongle and borrow kit (laptop or PC) - store your stuff mainly in the cloud and/or on a persistent volume on the USB stick. You'll get to meet more people and practice your charm rather than fiddling with hobbyist kit and having problems! You'll be surprised how many people will lend you kit (even on a plane where most business types only use the laptop for a few minutes before settling for the paper or movie) and want to learn what a live USB does.
We're currently in a "gap" in technology where most of the functions are starting to move to phones yet phones aren't quite powerful enough or usable enough yet.
Right now your best option is the Macbook Air. I own the 11" i5. Buy it and don't look back. It has plenty of power that most netbooks lack and the smallest form factor. Also at ~2lbs, it is as light as you're going to get. The trackpad is also very usable so you don't have to drag the mouse if you don't need it. The keyboard is full size so unlike most netbooks, your hands won't cramp up.
Since I bought it I've sold/gave away pretty much all of my other PCs. It is my primary computer for development now. At home I connect it to a 32" lcd hdtv which is mounted on the wall above my desk.
It also fits into much smaller bags. So you don't need a giant bag.
I believe you meant to post your idea over here.
If you're concerned about weight, just carry an iPhone or Droid with a full-sized folding bluetooth keyboard.
Heads up display that let's varying levels of outside light in, with retinal tracking, sub vocalization recognition, stereo video and binaural audio playback and recording. Add gloves for gesture, typing, and more mouse control.
What is the technical problem with a heads up displays? Stick two little screens in front of my eyes - why is that so hard? Seems like they've been trying that for decades, but never quite pull it off.
- a smartphone, either standalon or to remote a real pc
- same with a tablet
- a netbook
- a Air thingy from Apple, or an ultrabook.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
The thing about netbooks is that since they have smaller screens and CPUs they can also work much longer on light batteries. I have a bottom of the line EEEpc (one of the last sold with XP) and it gets 4 hours on a charge, which makes it the first laptop I've ever owned that is practical for airplane use. For a bit more money I could have got a 10 hour battery.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
That sounds hideously complicated and prone to failure.
I basically never travel for work, but I haven't taken a laptop with me on vacation since I got an iPad.
I'm still on my original "iPad 1". Works fine for everything I care about. Email, web, stupid cat videos. Slashdot is painful but that doesn't really matter.
I just use the on-screen keyboard, but I could see getting one of the physical keyboards if I had a lot of typing to do.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
You could try the DoD distribution (http://www.spi.dod.mil/lipose.htm) in an internet cafe. If you can boot the machine you should be safe.
As expected, there are many voices trying to bestow the blessings of the orchard on you. Well, folks, it might be true that the fruit company makes some nice hardware but - believe it or not - they are not the only choice, nor are they the best in many cases. One of those cases is the above mentioned traveler, who would be much better off using a cheap and more or less expendable machine instead of one of those things with the shiny please-steal-me fruit on the most exposed surface. You might also have noticed that the thread starter mentioned he (assuming someone called 'rover42' is a he) is on a tight budget? That alone should be enough to rule out the fruit factory.
If I were him I'd get a cheap ultraportable machine from a few years back, like a Dell X300 or a Lenovo X300 (strange that these two used the same type number for the same type of machine...). The Dell is cheaper (I got one 'almost like new' for around $28 (200 Swedish kronor), complete with docking station w/DVD/CD-RW and two batteries), the Lenovo is faster and lasts longer on a battery charge - and it costs a lot more. These (and similar) machines are perfectly capable of running recent Linux/*BSD distributions and are made for travel. They weigh slightly more than 1 kg and are small enough to fit just about anywhere.
Make sure you have some form of backup, either online or on an SD-card (for which the Dell sports a slot, which works fine in Linux). If the thing breaks beyond repair you just get another through $your_favourite_auction_site. If it gets stolen, you're out of some pocket change instead of a large investment. If the battery goes flat you crack it open, insert some fresh 18650 Li-Ion cells and you're good to go for another few years. With ~ 1.4 GHz of Pentium M (or better) and 1+ GB of RAM these machines provide enough computing power for your needs given that you are considering using a 700 MHz ARM-powered Raspberry Pi. As an added bonus you'll be saving a perfectly good machine from the scrap heap.
--frank[at]unternet.org
The N810 is a Unix machine with keyboard, WiFi, GPS, touch screen, SD card slot that fits in your pocket. $90.
(I'm travelling this week with my 5-year-old N800 (no GPS, virtual keyboard); I can use it to run my
machines at home via VNC. It works for me.)
I use a home projector too.
I also like it, but for any kind of portable solution it would be terrible. Portable projectors would suffer greatly from reduced light, you'd have to have conditions much darker than those for a full-size projector.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The Air would have have had a keyboard connector come lose with a simple drop.
That's hardly a story to inspire one to something more repairable, which also means self-dissabemly is more possible also by the device when dropped.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you want a solution get a large-screened smartphone (the Samsung Note is nice, the Galaxy Nexus not much worse and cheaper, especially used) and a BT keyboard if you have to do lots of typing. This weights almost nothing, you can carry it on you (smaller risk of it getting lost or stolen) and you can get software for almost everything you'll ever need. Battery life is good and charging via USB won't be a problem anywhere. And you'll have a camera and a phone, too! Most mobile solution ever, and it will basically work out of the box while giving you still enough room to tinker if you want to.
If you want an interesting problem, go the RPI and projector route. It will be much more more work to set up, it will be more portable than mobile, it will weight much more, the risk of some important component to break or get lost is much higher and it very probably won't even be much cheaper, all in all.
Seriously, when I'm traveling light I often just carry my iPhone and the Apple BT keyboard (which is very nice really). Many things are more comfortable with a real computer, but a smartphone covers the most important things easily and even lots of writing works quite trouble-free with a good keyboard. If you want to have a more open/unixy environment, there are more than enough Android phones and apps around. Hell, if you want to, pack a small projector too. At least you'll still able to get things done on your phone then if (when) the projector breaks.
I travelled for two years around the world and made do with a small phone-like device to get email securely and a LiveCD Linux on USB stick.
My device is a bit dated now ( although I still use it ) - it is a Nokia N800 and I really liked having the two full sized SD slots. It was very hackable and I had a super thin and light keyboard I could plug into it to type with. I could even hook up a DVD burner to it.. and yes, I burned a few DVDs in remote locations or to give friends copies of photos.
Multiple batteries is a must! Babysitting your fancy phone while charging is not fun. $5 external clip charger is the way to go ( USB powered or wall plug).
An FM transmitter with a couple dollar store FM radios would be handy to share movies on a bus or train.
Having said that.. I was shocked when a fellow traveller pulled out a 17" laptop from what seemed like a tiny backpack.. and logged into WOW to chat with his friends!
http://openpandora.org/
Seems to have everything you want, the 1ghz version is a little pricey and not available right away so maybe this suggestion wasn't all that good. Highly recommended though.
Had mine almost a year now. I've been very satisfied w/ it.
Unless Slashdot became an Apple fanbois place, you should realize that an 1.08kg 11" laptop and especially the 1.35kg 13" is nowhere near light. The Panasonic SX-1 is 12", has a higher res screen than either Air and is 1.12kg and unlike the Air it really is as close to indestructible as a business laptop can get. There are other small Panasonics, of course.
Taking a ultralight desktop to a hotel room makes a lot of sense if you ditch the pico projector you could do a Raspberry Pi. mouse and keyboard for under £100 and 300grams.... its the pico projector that boosts the cos/weightt to rival a ultra-portable laptop. I suspect the thing to do is Raspberry Pi plus rolling keyboard and mouse and take along enough AV cables to plug it into any hotel room TV
So you don't trust a cafe where someone *might* be snooping on you, and instead want to project your stuff for the whole world to see?
Check out the Motorola Android "Webtop" arrangement. you can pick up the LapDock accessory, which converts any compatible Motorola device into what is essentially a limited *nix desktop environment, but all the heavy lifting is done by the phone. The lapdock is just a shell. Webtop is also available via a dongle or desk dock.
I have often thought that the laptop as we know it is already outdated. Instead of a big power-hungry screen, all you really need is a keyboard and a wearable HUD. Tiny screen, tiny power.
....Well put 3 or 4 HUD jacks on there then. They need to bring their own damn HUD.
Retina Display is ice and all, but from a product-evolution standpoint, it's a dead-end (much like how many people refuse to pay extra for Blu-Ray movies now.
You could maybe have a VERY small, low-res black & white/LCD screen on there, for basic boot/recovery messages.
"What if somebody else wants to look?"
The most compact and versatile travel combo I found is a 7" Android tablet with HDMI output and a folding Bluetooth keyboard.
I'm not sure a pico projector adds much to that: it's not that useful for presentations, and it doesn't really give you a better picture for working than the tablet.
The Zotac Nano series are small versatile computers that can run linux. I have one as my media centre.
Don't expect to come out much smaller than a netbook, ultrabook, or Air. It's hard to shrink a keyboard down much smaller than that and still have it be pleasant to use. You can trim it SOME, but not much.
The biggest problem you're creating is wires. If you go down this road you will absolutely have to use a wireless keyboard and mouse. I suggest a Logitech Unifying pair - it will allow both together on a single tiny dongle.
Then try to combine the projector and the computer somehow. I doubt any of the tiny projectors will have enough room to stuff the computer inside, but definitely attach them to each other somehow. If you want to go classy, make a custom wooden box for the computer that can mount to the projector. Midrange, get a premade case for the computer and use some double sided tape to join them. Low end, duct tape can do anything.
Having attached them together, you can now use a very short cable to connect the two of them. Also, see if you can get a projector with a power supply beefy enough and at the proper voltage to run the computer as well. Tap the computer's power into the projector somewhere (drill a hole and solder in). Then you only have to carry one power supply, and you don't have to keep hooking things up.
While not exactly practical, it would give you a fun and unusual computer if you're up for the tinkering.
If you like the software it comes with I'd buy one of these new subnotebook/netbook AMD-based systems. Lord knows I hate ATI graphics drivers but usually the software that comes with the machine more or less works and you can get a fairly powerful machine at a ~$350 price, so you get the same peace of mind as with an atom-powered netbook with graphics my ass.
Otherwise take the advice of some others around here and drop two bills on a used atom netbook and if something bad happens to it, oh well. Most of them seem to have either a scrawny SSD or a pretty big HDD and you should be able to live with either; either take an external HDD if you need more data, or put a nice fast SD card in the machine as an SSD and boot Linux from it, or use it as a disk cache in Windows (Vista or 7, anyway.) Just make sure you get a netbook with a USB2 card reader.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense/#VIDEOS
I have a pico projector sitting a couple feet above me right now. I'm waiting on my Pi to get here so I can mount it all in a rubber cat to make a Nyan Cat media computer.
It's an Optoma, maybe a 101, maybe a 201, I forget which. Let me enumerate its problems for your intended use:
- fiddly focus. One big thumb wheel.
- no keystoning correction.
- no optics to speak of - there is a lens. You control the image size by how far away the projector is from your screen, that's it. To get it to cover most of the surface area of the iPad I'm typing this on, I had to have about 4 feet between them.
- no battery life. You'll get maybe an hour if you're lucky, I think. You'll be constantly hunting for a power plug. And the power connector on it is kinda janky, to boot - out on the road it will constantly get unplugged.
- its not that bright. You'll need some kind of reflective screen to project it on if you want to see it in much of any light.
Plus carrying a keyboard for your Pi, plus making a case for the Pi, plus powering it, plus carrying all the cables, plus a mouse or a Bluetooth trackpad... It's all gonna add up in funds, and more importantly in continued hassle. Hacking it together the first time will be fun, but it'll just suck the fortieth time your projector runs out of power when you're trying to get shit done.
Save your sanity. Get an Air if you want an ultra-portable. I have a 2010 13" and I'm probably not replacing it until it breaks, or until color e-paper is ready for prime time. Or if you hate Apple and all it stands for then find a netbook you like.
I'm sure someday soon a Smartphone + a projected interface will do what you want very well, but for now there is no technological solution that comes even close to a netbook in terms of ergonomics/power/versatility/price.
You can get a good, reliable, durable netbook with 10 hours of battery life for $400 brand new. I suggest Asus but pretty much every hardware manufacturer has one that and you might have a favorite brand. If you're a millionaire you can buy a MBA I hear they are nice. Personnaly I don't see any reason to trade a netbook + $500 for a MBA, given you will do exactly the same thing with it, and with the same ease, but YMMV. I mean $500 is a lot. that's at least 10 blowjobs.. ^^
For this price you get a fully-fledged PC on which you can install whatever version of BSD or Linux you want, that runs x86 and weights around 1 kilograms.
And the Raspberry Pi, for all the awesomeness that it brings is far from optimal for the use you want.
I have both a Samsung Series 7 Slate (running Windows 8) and a Mac Book Air (running Windows 7) which together take up almost no space. I use the slate for the slide show part of presentations where having a pen to mark up the slides is just awesome. I use the air for running Visual Studio, putty and GNS3 for typing C++ and teaching Cisco.
I also have owned pico projectors.... they suck... 300 lumens is the absolute bare minimum useful level of light for a projector and eventually I ended up with a Casio XJ-240 which is a 2000 Lumen projector which is thin and is LED and Laser based so no changing of light bulbs. In one backpack, I can pack clothes for a week (thin t-shirts, underwear, socks, one extra pair of pants... slacks not jeans), toiletries (toothbrush and razor.. use the hotel shampoo and soap), carry a presentation system and a Cisco lab.
The only thing I really need to make this work is to get a VGA or HDMI switch that is small enough to manage.
am wating for the phone size computer with projector and keyless keyboard
Minix? Bahahah!
I'll simplify it for you, even though it will then be longer...
Anything built to take apart also comes apart with less force under other circumstances.
RAM that can be removed by the user means that over time it can slowly become unseated and have a poor connection to the motherboard.
Keyboards meant to be easily removed for service mean they have a connector a bit more likely to come free than something meant to sit in place for years without being touched.
They guy would not have had to find a special screwdriver and spent time on his vacation re-connecting things if he had a Macbook Air.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
the smart phone laptop/ tablet uses a smart phone as the guts of the laptop... I also use a ASUS slider... it is truly a netbook and a tablet in one.
Ted
Or other such device. You're looking for a solution for a problem that does not exist - there is significant power in computers of ever decreasing size these days. If you want to keep your phone separate from your computer, go for a netbook.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Just get a small USB mouse & keyboard and one of the smart phones/tablets that supports USB-on-the-go. As a bonus, many of these have micro or mini-HDMI out, so you can browse by connecting up to any unoccupied screen you find with an HDMI input.
A 7" Galaxy Tab 2 is screen enough, has 3G support and USB OTG.
Problem solved.
tiny projects are costly or have low resolution, or both. If you stay in nice hotels then there is a 'chance' that the TV take HDMI and some small PC-on-a-stick would do, but with some basic low cost tablets around it's hard to go past them if all that you need is some editing and browsing. Smartphones are OK to, just with smaller screens, or get a smartphone that can output video to a hotel HDTV.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
You could be over-analyzing the problem.
Since your requirements are quite specific (FOSS *nix OS + Editor) I suggest you go for a netbook. Don't under estimate the hassle with various devices. A single device is easyer to handle in cramped situations and you have less small parts that you can lose.
If you are travelling a lot your main concern will be universal power supply/recharging and battery time - aside from weight, which you mentioned already. It's for this reason you should consider a custom configuration of an android netbook or a tablet with attachable KB. I'm thinking about the Asus EEE Transformer Prime or a simular thing. If you can get some hacked version of Android running on there or maybe even a special linux build you're all set. It costs 500 Euros and has 15hrs of battery time. That's what I'd expect of a devbox for travelling. The further upside of the android tablet/netbook hybrids is that you can charge them with regular USB power which means you could theoretically save the wallwart/power supply.
An alternative would be some thin low-power lightweight netbook like the Asus EEE X101 and an extra battery pack for extended battery time. Maybe some off-the-beaten-track solution like the Pandora Open Gaming device with some Linux on it or so is what you'd like - after all the one shown behind the link is running Linux with XFCE ... sounds good to me. Definitely also take a look at those expert devices. With most of them you'll probably get the USB power advantage aswell - if they are 'low power' enough that is.
Bottom line: Put your efforts into customizing the netbook / android device option and don't fiddle with microprojectors and such. AFAICT they are to much of fiddling and simply not ready for primetime yet.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
why not check out one of these? http://openpandora.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=91&Itemid=6&lang=en Angstrom Linux, and only 335 grams with a 10 hour battery, touch screen, gaming controls, keyboard, usb etc...
Save yourself the hassle and get a MacBook Air or an Ultrabook. Done.
This is a great way to look like a moron on a plane when you are trying to use the mouse on your knee, the keyboard keeps falling through your legs, the projector doesnt work on the back of the seat in front of you, you have some crazy battery contraption burning a hole in your carry on, and then a TSA agent walks up and arrests you, since this entire thing looks like you are setting up some sort of bomb. Shut up and buy a Macbook Air already. It meets all of your requirements 10 times better than a perfectly implemented version of your half-baked idea.
The answer to this question is boiler plate:
Should I use "commonly agreed upon standard" vs "some idea I whipped up while drunk"?
Answer is obvious.
Seriously though, if carrying about 5+ pieces of equipment (mini computer, projector, keyboard, mouse, external data storage, power brick) seems better for you, then do it, but you will most likely come back to a standard laptop solution out of convenience sake.
The problem with computers today is there are a LOT of options that offer MOST of the functionality of a typical desktop or laptop, but they are not a perfect replacement and you will have to accept some compromise. Abandoning a laptop for a tablet might make sense for a lot of people, but if you type frequently (and there is NO on screen keyboard that works well for long term typing) then you will be carrying around a tablet and external keyboard, which is stupid compared to carrying around a laptop. Now abandoning a laptop for 4 or 5 separate piece of equipment?
The same goes for abandoning some standard OS and going with some distro of the month option. The distro may do a lot of what the standard OS does, but not a perfect replacement and for many people the compromise is too great and they come back to the standard eventually.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Setting aside the impractical nature of this setup, If given the task, I would likely build from scratch modifying a Rasberry Pi in a small case glued/bolted onto a Casio XJ-A250 DLP Projector with a small wireless keyboard and travel mouse..
or
Same projector/mouse/keyboard with a MACMini
Not a good solution IMO for travel, but if you need to toss up presentations on the fly, this could be a nice integrated system
A mentor of mine did this as a hobby project in 2009:
http://fl0rian.wordpress.com/2009/03/29/a-smart-beaglebrick/
Beagleboard + TI pico projector + laser keyboard
Stop travelling so fucking much. Whatever you're doing is probably technical, or at least remotely technical, so why get on airplanes frequently? What's the value of being there in person?
Or get an Asus Eee. Every time I see/use one, I think "I want that".
A Pi is good for inexpensive HTPC or similar use as it has no battery, but requires USB power.
I'm going to stop now. Ask slashdot questions are obviously all written by clueless attention whores.
but it's a bit large to be ultra portable. I have a 13", the 11" might work for you. I've seen a lot of people using iPads with bluetooth keyboards, seems like a slick and simple solution. I'm not an apple fanboi, but they do make nice hardware.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
If your company is making you do this traveling, then let them pay for the luggage and computer.
Not if you're only projecting a 1 foot screen.
From a device with 10x the amount of light being output - yes, even then.
Have you USED any of the portable projectors? I have, they require use where the ambient light is pretty low.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Does anyone have a link to a more recent portable projector comparison list?
Thanks
There's a chance you could be going somewhere and staying for a while. in this scenario you could carry a normal keyboard and mouse, smallish computer and even USB display.
We need to know the factors. Also security. A MacBook Air is great to use but I'd be worried of it all the time.
Remote desktop and rolling passwords from a USB key and portable apps sounds great til you see how variable the systems are you'll be using.
Phone solutions... hmm...
if so then I'd recommend a separate phone for when the battery runs out. Tablet and Transformer... well its nice not to need power but hang on, you still need to plug in a some point.
Why not bite the bullet and go tethered as that's what you often need for serious work anyway? I can see the OP finding Pico computers and thinking is there not a way to make something useful from this? If you have office space at your destination, or somewhere comfortable like a hotel room then why not go with this route? Its lighter and could be better than an Asus Transformer, separate to your phone, could be a bit more serious potentially, yet is lighter than carrying a x86 tower. HDMI out on a pi like thing wouldn't be good enough for me... yeah I can see the point of a projector.
Haven't seen a solution in the thread that is readable in bright sunlight though...
So I think there is merit.in what the OP is enquiring about. I just wish I had a projector.and Pico computer to try it out
A blog I run for the wealth
I always thought the idea of this looks rather neat for doing presentations on the run
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i8530_galaxy_beam-4566.php. Perhaps with a bluetooth mouse and vitual laser keyboard, this could make you look quite cool.
Well Laser-based projectors (like MicroVision's Showwx+) don't require a flat surface, nor any focusing at all (laser light being coherent and all).
But they still fail in the brightness department (although they already do have much better brightness that LED-based microprojectors) (and this will probably continue to improve easily as the laser technologies improves over time. The hard part in such projectors is the scanning system. Once that technology has been developed, it's just trivial to pick whatever is the latest best compromise point in the ouput-power/price/form-factor/battery-drain equilibrium).
For Keyboard, the 4-part foldable like Stowaway made popular during the Palm / PDA era are IMHO still the best thing at that level of mobility. And the Bluetooth powered ones can still be used with modern hardware.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I understand the pain, the hack, and the creativity -- but using a projector like this is hopeless. You're gonna have more luck using a candlelight and some cut-out paper 1s and 0s reflecting a shadow than a projector, regardless of size.
Couple of reasons: ... ???
0. People will complain about the light/noise/absurdity, and airport/-craft staff will prolly ask you to turn it off. Sort of like writing a document on the bus using only voice to text..
1. You're not actually solving any problems here, that aren't solved using an lcd, you're creating them
n. Profit!
The Raspberry Pi has HDMI out. Get a cheap touch surface and glue them all together. Voilà!
Also, I really like the idea. It's just more of a hackaday post than /. Hobbyist-friendly. Come to the dark side.
Any projector that works well enough to be used in even a moderately lit room will weigh at least as much as an ultrabook and has the added disadvantage of needing AC power to be of any use. Just buy an ultrabook or an iPad. I also find it kind of odd that a few pounds (the difference between an ultrabook and a laptop) would make much of a difference. My business has folks flying all over the world for 25-30 weeks out of the year and they all manage fine with full weight Dell laptops. Never had one complaint related to weight restrictions. Some do complain that it's a pain to carry a laptop, but that's a different issue.