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A Psion Palmtop Successor Has Arrived and It Runs Android and Linux (pocket-lint.com)
dryriver writes: A lot of people probably remember the 1990s palmtop computers made by Psion fondly. The clamshell-design palmtops were pocketable, black and white, but had a working stylus and a fantastic tactile foldout QWERTY keyboard that you could type pretty substantial documents on or even write code with. A different company -- Planet Computers -- has now produced a spiritual successor to the old Psion palmtops called the Gemini PDA that is much like an old Psion but with the latest Android smartphone hardware in it and a virtually identical tactile keyboard. It can also dual boot to Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, Sailfish) alongside Android. The technical specs are a MediaTek deca-core processor, 4GB RAM, 64GB storage (plus microSD slot), 4G, 802.11c Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, eSIM support, and 4,220mAh battery. The screen measures in at 5.99-inches with a 2,160 x 1,080 (403ppi) resolution. The only thing missing seems to be the stylus -- but perhaps that would have complicated manufacturing of this niche-device in its first production run.
The Gemini PDA has been around for about a year - I was one of the backers. The more interesting one is this:
https://www.indiegogo.com/proj...
This will actually fully replace your phone with a Palm-style computer, unlike the Gemini, which I've since sold.
You must be new here.
Here I am with several terminal windows, an IDE, half a dozen web pages, and a file manager open only using 1.7 GiB of RAM wondering what you're smoking...
As it stands the specs are damn good, if it had a GPIO bus it would be absolutely perfect.
But if you have ever played with these niche devices, it's all on how good the software is. I have a bunch of ARM devices with Linux and Android distributions that the dreaded "Not optimized for your device" or can't even install comes up on.
GPD Win2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The GPD Win1 was definitely quirky to get working. The GPD Win2 I've only heard "it just works".
I've had mine (1st gen) working for a while, I haven't tried reinstalling since (if it ain't broken...) so I can't tell if newer xubuntu just works out of the box or still requires a lot of tweaking. But I got the GPU 3D acceleration and can use all 4 cores (turbo boost disabled), sound card, mini HDMI port, touch screen, USB-A port USB3, gamepad works.
USB-C works as a USB2 port & charger, I haven't tested hdmi out functionality of that port in Linux
uSD card slot doesn't work for me, I use a USB adapter if I need to read an SD card.
And when Linux boots I have to close the lid and reopen once for the LCD to turn on after the latest kernel update (didn't use to do that, but it's a small work around)
Way back in the 90s when these kinds of PDAs were available, I debated getting a Psion, but ultimately got an HP 200LX because it ran DOS. Smartphones are the logical successor to PDAs, but until the hardware keyboard returns to phones, I'm not interested in having one: sacrificing screen real estate to emulate a primary input method isn't worth it.
It's fine for calls. I open the screen, dial, then close the screen and hold it like a damn phone. Quality isn't great, but it's okay.
I find that a smartwatch of some sort is really necessary to use it as a phone replacment. I have a Pebble Time, and that makes up for not having an easy screen for notifications.
Don't bother with the optional exterior camera. Its godawful.
Wouldn't it be better to just get a foldable bluetooth keyboard for you phone for most people, the screen is the same size as most modern mobiles, and the keyboard would be bigger if foldable. Seems to me, this is pretty redundant now. https://www.pcworld.com/articl...
You must be new here.
You must be news here. Oh, wait...
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Many (all?) browsers aren't optimized for RAM usage. They'll eat as much as you make available. And aren't great about cutting things back if you like to have tons of tabs open. Think I heard Firefox was even shifting to the one process for each tab like Chrome has been doing (pretty sure that'll eat more RAM up than a pair of rendering processes for whatever you're looking at currently like it used to do).
But in general I agree...4GB isn't tons for a power-user oriented device (who I'd picture this being marketed to). Could be much worse too...
I own GPD pocket 2 and run ubuntu on it. No issues. I used the mate version pre-made for GPD. Very fast, runs scientific simulations OK (not a beowolf cluster but OK :), runs visual stuff lie simple povray scenes well. No delays on office work or browsing. Best of all, usb-c is thunderbolt so I change and do all data shuffling including sound via one port. Bluetooth works but is a bit quirky.
Thanks for posting about Gemini, but this is really old news. It was shipped to first backers to year ago and I received mine something like 8 months ago.
It's the best phone currently available for my use. Camera is terrible and there are some HW quality issues but nothing beats a proper keyboard. I've backed Cosmo Communicator which should fix the issues.
I consider it more like successor for Nokia Communicators and N900 as it's a phone. All modern phones have PDA functionality.
He's right you know. I'm running Fedora 29 x86_64, Cinnamon Spin. Browser open with 7 tabs (4 slashdot, 3 youtube - one playing a 1080p video), music player running, VLC playing a 1080p h264 video, LibreOffice Writer is open.
Mem: 16035 (Total) 2353 (Used) 10777 (Free) 157 (Shared) 2904 (Cache) 13239 (Available)
I mean, I don't imagine running all this on this PDA at once. And I sure as hell won't be running virtual machines or compiling.
At which point is a laptop the more appropriate choice?