Student can't afford tablet for girlfriend, so builds her one for $125
geek.com
geek.com
What's wrong with her personalising this? That piece of editorialising was unwarranted, I'm sure he was delighted that she fell in love with it enough to put her own mark on it.
To the critics below: it just made me sad because if my boyfriend made me something awesome like this and I wanted to decorate it, I don't want him to feel bad if others comment on it - as if it were something so girly to ruin his hard work (and I own zero rhinestones).
Tastes are different, so whatever.
As best I know, it still works to this day. And the more I have learned about computers, the less I believe it myself- among other things, there were fingerprints all over the platters!
I'm going to make a generalization here and say that most Americans have lost this kind of DIY spirit. Instead we just whip out our Visa/Mastercard and decide to just buy what we need on credit. Yes, a solution to the problem nonetheless. But the amount of learning that you gain from doing a project like this should not be underestimated.
But yes, that does lead to people just giving up if there's no solution already available.
One of the most interesting examples is CPU/RAM upgrades - I am simply amazed at how many people think that if you can't upgrade it on the manufacturer's site (where they'll rip you off like there's no tomorrow), then you can't do it at all... The same goes for car audio - I'd never leave it to some shop to do it!
For example this kind of project I wouldn't try if I'd be in the same situation, as the quality of the assembled box matters here and there are dozens of things that could go wrong, making me exceed the $125 budget (I've been in this exact situations before, several times :))
I would feel bad about giving a broken device to my girlfriend and if on a budget, old-fashioned flowers work great ;)
I disagree - most Americans in my experience are perfectly willing to DIY, just not in the same areas that you or I may DIY. When my car needs a new timing belt, control arms or brake pads, I'm perfectly happy to do the work myself. When it comes time to acquire vegetables, I'd much rather go to the local supermarket or farm stand and buy the them.
On the other hand, my mom has a mechanic do all her car work and grows her own vegetables. I could go on about my friend who makes her own pottery and stationary, my brother who does his own carpentry, a friend who makes his own beer, etc etc. We are all DIYers in our own way.
Utterly false, you are simply out of touch with DIY culture, which is growing. In audio alone (a tiny fraction of DIY), people design and build incredible tube amps, horn speakers, etc. using a combination of hand craftsmanship and cutting edge computer simulation.
Sound-wise, for under $2k, it's not that hard to surpass what you'd buy for $200k. It's a world-wide phenomenon but nonetheless huge in the US. Check out http://www.diyaudio.com for example.
Except s/need/want
For my photo frame, I used cron and set various times for it to turn off the screen.
Obviously it's a luxury in terms of power usage, but given that it pulls about as much power as a bright energy saving lightbulb, it's not really a huge issue. In terms of cost, 25W continuous costs about 6c a day, so I'd imagine the whole frame costs less than half that once you take into account the screen-off time and the reduced power draw anyway.
There is a minority that put the Apple logo on them, which is clearly illegal, but...
Beyond that the look of Apple's products are protected by design patents and the law on them is much less clear cut and varies by country (see the Samsung case for example).
There are a large number of non-iPad knock offs available for under $125, though. A quick search on DealExtreme will help..
So no.. that's not what I meant.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6TAguL2nFU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk7vO7uDjeI
Looks like this is just an old laptop wrapped into a shiny shell with a touch screen attached. Nice gift for his girlfriend but hardly worth a news story.
Wrapping old stoff up in a new packaging and then printing some expensive brand onto it is actually common in China. You can get "iPhones" here for under 100USD at everywhere.
I wonder whether they don't distinguish the fake from original or are fakes considered "cool" despite known to be fakes?
Oh, I see - it must have been included on the used laptop he purchased. Makes sense now. ;)
On a side note, is that an apple logo I see at the bottom of the tablet? Wonder how apple feels about that? :)
Epic build, I would love it if anyone could find the construction details - hackaday would probably like it too :)
Hmm...
It does look quite bulky though, but that is often the way with DIY things.
That's the spirit!
Apple sues Chinese hacker for counterfeit tablet