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Comment by MrMember | Hacker News Reader

A phone form factor device that can run a full desktop OS, or something close to it. Canonical was getting close with Ubuntu Touch but that's essentially dead now. I don't want a gimped version of Windows like I'd get with Continuum, I don't want a "desktop-like" version of Android like Samsung is doing, I want a full version of Linux or Windows that can run desktop applications.

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Have you seen this? http://pgslab.com/

It's billed as a handheld gaming system but you don't have to play games on it.

Runs Windows 10 on a 5.9-inch 1920 x 1080 screen. Atom processor.

Whether it will lever get made is another matter (it's an ex-Kickstarter project now taking pre-orders), but the approach is interesting.

Dual booting isn't a perfect solution but I'm sure it's a lot easier than trying to design a UI that can adapt to screen sizes as disparate as a phone screen and a monitor. I'm a little leary of hardware pre-orders as it's easy to get burned but I'll definitely keep an eye on it.

Same here. But the price does look good....

You may be interested in the Gemini PDA (which I've funded on IndieGoGo) which provides an Android/Linux PDA.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gemini-pda-android-linux-...

That looks really interesting, I'm going to keep an eye on it.

Ah ok; I actually want something similar; a tablet that can act like a phone but only on WiFi so I don't have a phone bill. Basically; an iPad but w/ real integration & iMessages etc via a free or cheap VoIP number w/o data

You might want to look into Google Voice. Free number for texting, calls over data. I receive and send texts and calls from a browser too.

How small do you want it? The Linx tablets do this but the smallest is 7".

That's pretty close but a bit too big. It also doesn't have a cell radio so it wouldn't be very useful as a phone.

you could do small android phones, install trinux or linux deploy on it, access X through VNC or X on Android - output or cast to display through wifi or cable

Commercially it would seem unviable.

Community ROMS? Keep an eye on Halium, unifying a common base for porting sailfish/luneos/plasma mobile/ubuntu; with anbox for Android apps.

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