Hacker News Reader

Comment by jlebrech | Hacker News Reader

why not something like this https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gpd-pocket-7-0-umpc-lapto...

those 14" would be better served with a better cpu

That's also 4.5x as expensive.

I wouldn't mind something like the original 1999(?) Sony Viao which had a really awesome half-width form factor: https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/CPmuEiWzAXOiJxBRD98rJ_86x1Y...

This design actually continued for quite a while. The last model came out around 2010: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Vaio_P_series

Unfortunately, it's saddled with probably the worst series of atom intel made, the original Z(with the awful powerVR gpu).

They still go for quite a bit on ebay, because people love the 1600x768 form factor. I had one for a while, but ended up selling it because i couldn't get over how bad the performance was(720p youtube was a no go, for example). The GPD is sort of a replacement in spirit, but i liked that form factor a lot.

Yeah - I don't get that. People are still reselling your computers on ebay for far more than they should and no one at Sony / any other computer company thinks that maybe it might be a good idea to investigate why.

What I particularly remember about that computer was that it slipped perfectly into the inside pocket of my jacket (remember this is a full featured circa-1999 laptop running Linux!)

Wow, I've been pondering gutting a Toshiba Libretto and putting a Raspberry Pi inside so I can have a modern(ish) hardware in that form factor. I am so the target market for this!

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of faith in crowdfunded hardware projects.. :/

How about something mote established then, like the Pocket CHIP[0]?

[0] https://getchip.com/pages/pocketchip

I do like the chip's game library

I have the same misgivings with crowdfunding hardware, but I ended up backing this project. The same group has shipped two other similar portables in the past, and have some working prototypes. Seems like they know what they're doing.

Edit: I think a big part of it is that they've had prototypes since the campaign launched, but filled the promo page with mostly renders for some reason. If you look at the Updates section, you can see some photos and videos of it in action.

It's an established manufacturer, but they seem to use indiegogo for some reason as a launch platform.

they are in china so maybe that the best way they do it, create a few prototypes and then have the assembly lines to allocate later.

While those look interesting, they seem to be in a completely different market. 14" vs 7" and $100 vs $459, not really comparable.

This is an interesting product. I like the form factor, but it would be tough to get used to the keyboard. Reaching over the pointing stick/mouse buttons for the space bar could be doable--I managed to type on a Toshiba Libretto which had a similar problem because the case was higher than the keyboard so I had to hold my thumb sideways. I also use Dvorak so the small ,.? keys would be wvz instead. The touch screen looks way nicer than the mouse.

> GamePad Digital introduces our 7-inch PC that fits in your pocket! 8GB RAM and 128GB ROM

...doesn't ROM stand for "Read-Only Memory"?

A throwback from the old Pocket PC days. This seems to be written by a nostalgic.

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/2005/08/19/ra...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com