Mecha Comet is a modular Linux handheld coming soon to Kickstarter for $159
  • dink@lemmy.world
    4·
    1 day ago

    I feel like it’s almost too generic to be useful. All the “standard” attachments make it a thing that already exists (and those things are usually much stable and supported). If they get enough 3rd party attention prior to launch, that could change.

    I wish they would have spent the time and effort just committing to the smartphone idea. Linux and the Linux community could greatly benefit from more open source smartphone devices.

  • w3dd1e@lemm.ee
    281·
    2 days ago

    I see a lot of negativity in the comments. And yeah, this thing probably isn’t something I’m going to get, but at least they are trying something that isn’t a generic rectangle of glass like all the others. I miss the days of fun gadgets.

  • Tattorack@lemmy.world
    213·
    2 days ago

    I wonder who this is made for?

    The article calls it a “smartphone sized pocket computer”, but that describes smartphones too; they already are pocket computers. And they’ve had decades of design and development behind them.

    So… This device has a tiny touchscreen, and a keyboard, rather than having the whole thing being a touchscreen. So instead it has a modular bottom half… Which… Sounds like it’s trying to solve a problem that would’ve been a problem in like… The 90s, maybe, but has been solved by using… A touchscreen that can change the type of input it is flexibly, like smartphones do.

    It can’t call, like a smartphone, despite being a smartphone sized device. It has USB A 2.0 sockets and an Ethernet socket… Which makes it once again sound incredibly out-dated, like a device found in a time capsule, because USB C is smaller and faster than USB A 2.0, and can potentially be used for damn near anything. Which includes connecting to the Internet.

    Its battery looks very weak. Its CPU looks very weak. It has a tiny amount of RAM, and a tiny amount of storage. It is outclassed by any affordable, midrange smartphone, at nearly the same price too (if you avoid big brand names).

    • EmilieEvans@lemmy.ml
      112·
      2 days ago

      This device has a tiny touchscreen, and a keyboard, rather than having the whole thing being a touchscreen.

      That’s awesome. I still miss my Blackberry Passport (keyboard and large 1:1 screen).

      • Tattorack@lemmy.world
        28·
        2 days ago

        Tiny keyboards were a nightmare. There’s a reason why the Blackberry failed. You might like it, but then you’re part of a minority.

        • EmilieEvans@lemmy.ml
          1·
          2 days ago

          Wide display: perfect for reading A4 documents

          keyboard: nicer to type. Also, the passport was as wide as, well … , a passport so it is a pretty decently sized keyboard which isn’t comparable to the tiny Q10.

          The passport was never meant to be a generic for the masses device. It is a beautiful specialized tool.

          • Tattorack@lemmy.world
            35·
            2 days ago

            Yeah they did. It was a pretty major factor. The moment touchscreen phones began to exist, Blackberry became past-tense.

            • kadup@lemmy.world
              3·
              2 days ago

              I’d say their software limitations are the reason they failed, not the keyboard. In fact, people really liked the final BlackBerry devices with Android and a keyboard, but at that point the company was already gone.

              But while iPhones were at the boom of Fruit Ninja, Angry Birds, iBeer and using Skype, and Google’s Android looked like ass but already had ad-infested versions of the same titles, BlackBerry had… corporate messaging? A really robust email app, I guess?

    • mostlikelyaperson@lemmy.world
      61·
      2 days ago

      For people who like a concept more than practicality. There’s maybe a handful use cases that this specific device fits in that isn’t covered better by existing tech, but I guarantee if that thing actually gets kickstarted and arrives severely delayed in several years, it’ll show up in a couple YouTube videos with people sort of uncertain what to use it for, and in the vast majority of cases it’ll end up in some drawers after having been used a few hours tops.

      • Tattorack@lemmy.world
        3·
        2 days ago

        My thoughts exactly. I’ve seen several such devices already, probably the most expensive and over-designed one being the Apple VR, and it’s always the same story.

    • Michal@programming.dev
      62·
      2 days ago

      Full-size usb, Ethernet and keyboard mean you can use it as a Linux computer, install arbitrary debian packages, run shell scripts, python scripts, and you don’t need any dongles. This is the differential factor. You can’t do the same on a smartphone, and it’s not supposed to be a smartphone. Why would you need a separate sim card when you can simply tether Internet from your phone?

      I get that this device isn’t for you, but there are people who don’t want to write and maintain apps through apps stores and simply want to copy simple scripts into a small device they can have with them. It’s a niche market and good for them for trying to fill that niche.

      I wonder what they use for charging port if not usb c…

      • Tattorack@lemmy.world
        42·
        2 days ago

        You can do all that with USB C and a touch keyboard. There is no good reason under the sun to make a device that is this dated in concept.

        Whatever the market is they’re trying to fill, it’ll be so extremely niche that this product is already a failure. It’s not the first time some kind of ultra niche product from kickstarter failed before launch because except for a small handful even cared.

          • Mikina@programming.dev
            3·
            1 day ago

            I can do that and more on my Pinephone running Kali Nethunter. While it’s mostly a gimmick with awfull battery life, I’ve already used it a few times mostly in regards to wifi pentesting for my cyber-sec job, i.e when going to lunch onsite and you notice a new wifi AP you didn’t see when inside the office you’re working on.

            And since it has an USB-C, I can simply plug in a dock with two USB-As, Ethernet, PD and HDMI, to turn it into a full-fledged Kali desktop.

              • Mikina@programming.dev
                1·
                14 hours ago

                I tried it like a year ago, maybe more, and it wasn’t ready for that. The battery life was awfull (which was a SW issue of the OS not being able to stand-by properly), and accepting calls wasn’t really reliable. It’s more of a gimmick and great as a side-phone, but I wouldn’t use it as a daily driver.

                But the situation might’ve changed.

  • riodoro1@lemmy.world
    47·
    3 days ago

    Can I just send you five years worth of „we’re sorry we’re behind schedule” messages and then ghost you instead? If so send me $159

    • MIDItheKID@lemmy.world
      3·
      2 days ago

      Funny story. LG made something with a similar concept about 10 years ago and it never really took off. The LG G5 was a modular smart phone that was supposed to have a bunch of cool modules, but they never came to fruition.

      I had one, but mostly because I loved having a swappable battery. Never had to charge my phone, I would just have a spare battery charging on my desk and I would swap it out before I left the house.

  • iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee
    601·
    3 days ago

    Ooof. After having a pinephone, I know what 2 or 3GB of RAM can handle these days. Not much, really. Specially the moment you open the browser. I’m going to pass from any project that doesn’t attempt to at least get close to this decade’s standards.

    • InFerNo@lemmy.ml
      111·
      2 days ago

      My current Android phone has 4GB and it’s really smooth. I’ve got 90 Firefox tabs open and several apps. I’d love to see that level of optimization in a startup, but more RAM will just mask the bad optimization.

      • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
        3·
        1 day ago

        As an ex-Andrpid dev, all this optimization is what killed the creativity. Every feature you currently have is hyperoptimized (even with dedicated battery optimizations turned off for the most popular apps), and as a result nothing you can’t easily change is changeable anymore.

        Want a widget that self updates every couple minutes by connecting to the internet? Can’t have that, even if the user explicitly accepts it. Want to customize behavior of things in the settings? Nope. Want to hook into the phone memory and do crazy hacks? Not even with root. Want to keep running some checks to determine when to send a notification? Can’t do that either, non-push notifications are all scheduled in advance.

    • utopiah@lemmy.ml
      51·
      3 days ago

      Specially the moment you open the browser

      I’d be curious, did you profile if it’s for all pages or only some? I’d expect e.g. Facebook or Instagram to be more demanding than Lemmy or ProtonMail but to be honest I have no idea.

      • filcuk@lemmy.zip
        17·
        2 days ago

        Prefetching, prediction, media, infinite loading (gradually) or aggressive tracking can increase the usage.
        I’ve had a single jira page use 6GB on Firefox.

        • herrvogel@lemmy.world
          7·
          2 days ago

          At least with that 6gb you get the nice, streamlined, intuitive and responsive user experience that we all know and love Atlassian for.

  • Solrac@lemmy.world
    17·
    2 days ago

    3gb RAM? 32gb emmc? This feels a bit like a raspberry pi project. Up the specs at least 6gb to at least no[t look like yet another microdeck with emulators, please… I like the concept, but as is, it leaves plenty to be desired

  • toastal@lemmy.ml
    2·
    2 days ago

    What I like about this is that I could theorhetically install a non-QWERTY keyboard instead of being locked to such an inefficient layout. Yes, eventually you can learn to touch type, but learning it would be nice to have the keys since it will be a nonstandard layout at that size & when you hand it off to other folks, it’d be completely unexpected to hit q & get a '.

  • Irelephant@lemm.ee
    121·
    2 days ago

    It looks cool and all, but its probably going to have like 400mb of ram and an rp2040 like every other linux handheld device.

  • Kajika@lemmy.ml
    243·
    3 days ago

    yet an other hardware from 10+ years ago. here we have an ARM Cortex-A53 from what it seems to be 2012. Maybe it is actually compatible with OpenGL 3…

    • InFerNo@lemmy.ml
      31·
      2 days ago

      Our beloved consoles from the 80s and 90s were built with off the shelf parts, this is no different. Custom hardware in a niche market would lead nowhere.

      • 737@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        41·
        2 days ago

        this comparison is really bad. consoles built with 6502s could get away with it, since everything they ran were games crafted in assembly to fit the timings to the last clock cycle. this product is supposed to run modern graphical software.

    • Petter1@lemm.ee
      2·
      2 days ago

      I would pay more than 1000$ at this point for a modern high DPI open device with mobile internet compatibility and all drivers in mainline kernel. Just give me good hardware, I can handle the software on my on, tank you 🤭

      • TMP_NKcYUEoM7kXg4qYe@lemmy.world
        2·
        1 day ago

        If you want all drivers in the mainline kernel, you clearly cannot handle the software on your own. The reason why linux phones suck are the drivers that are either bad or don’t exist. The desktop (or palmtop I guess) environments are pretty usable if you run it on something with good drivers (like QEMU - my favorite phone).

        • Petter1@lemm.ee
          1·
          1 day ago

          Yea, I did not phrase it well enough 😂 I just don’t want to be supervised by these large phone OS giants, because they think it is more convenient

          What do you mean with QEMU? Are you running a Linux VM on your android phone?

          • TMP_NKcYUEoM7kXg4qYe@lemmy.world
            1·
            9 hours ago

            It was a joke about the fact that PostmarketOS considers only QEMU a “main” device. Every real phone is in the “community” section because they’re too buggy. So the only good device to run that OS on is a virtual one running inside your desktop.

  • Riley@lemmy.ml
    281·
    3 days ago

    A little worried that with swapping those components like that, it’s trying to be too many things for too many different groups of people instead of one exact thing.

    I think all I really want is something shaped like this with a keyboard, like an old Blackberry that could be used as a terminal.