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Comment by pydry | Hacker News Reader

Ive looked for a 5mx form factor in the form of a phone and not been able to find it.

Planet Computers? https://www.www3.planetcom.co.uk/

One day I will find an excuse to get one of these; they induce a heavy sense of nostalgia but I just don’t know what I’d do with it

It's a superb portable writing tool, as was the Psion 5 in its day. The keyboard is better than anything available on any tablet or pocketable device in the world in any market. It's that good. No Surface or iPad addon comes even close; it is an order of magnitude better than any mainstream vendor's offering.

I found it almost useless as a phone or tablet, though. But I have several of those so I don't care.

I highly recommend against anything from these guys. The software situation was dreadful, they pumped out new nearly-identical hardware too quick without fixing gemini issues. Seems like a cash grab. My Gemini PDA sits in my closet, I consider it near-useless with its electrically buggy keyboard and old android/ubuntu images.

The PinePhone with its keyboard addon should fix most if not all issues the Gemini PDA had, but it looked so similar I still couldn't bring myself to get the keyboard for it. Plus I don't like the layout at all.

MNT Pocket Reform seems very promising (but expensive). Good layout and reprogrammable keyboard. Not stuck on an old Android version.

The pinephone would be perfect were it possible to install, e.g. android banking apps on it.

Same here. I had a gemini but beside the poor software there was also the wobbliness of the display hinge that was super annoying. It was because they made it of springy metal.

Also, the keyboard looks the exact same as the Psion 5's but the mechanism is much worse.

I could have written your comment! Though I sold mine.

I followed pocket reform closely but the thickness of it, combined with the price, put me off. It’s not the same class of device as Psion, Gemini, or the UMPCs.

Just for balance:

I have a Gemini. I love it and still use it. The keyboard remains world-class, best of breed in any pocket-sized device. The OS is dated but still works fine and connectivity to Dropbox, gDrive, OneDrive etc. is very handy and mostly missing from desktop Linux.

As a pocketable laptop replacement it is unequalled, for this writer.

Don’t get me wrong I’m very glad they built it, happy to share some risk to get a niche product to market, and used it as a daily driver for some time.

Curious though, did the whole unit bounce, with the screen wobbling back and forward, when you typed?

Nope, it's pretty firm. The design isn't as good as the Psion 5, but it's OK. I mainly place it on my lap on something like a book, or preferably, on a desk or tabletop. Then I can type on it at about 60 WPM, which is about 3/4 of my speed on a full-sized keyboard such as my preferred IBM Model M.

I occasionally can't remember where a character is, but I tell myself it's where it would be on a Psion and 20th century muscle memory kicks in and I just hit that combo.

Interesting. I've heard other reports of the hinge wobbling. I wonder if there was a production issue with the material or geometry or something.

Found this random video on youtube. You can see it wobbling at 15 seconds, though mine was more accentuated. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opmb6jbeBY4

Interesting. No, I haven't noticed that. Maybe if one particular unit's keyboard works well, you don't have to hit the keys so hard, so it doesn't push down on the hinge mechanism.

Psion's own hinge mech was far better, but PlanComp only licensed the keyboard, not the case. I proposed a fatter "pro" model with a bigger battery that was the same size, shape and form factor as the original, so it'd fit in original cases. I still have several.

I was shouted down by Americans whose internal airlines apparently have or had some stupid limit on the size of battery you can carry on board. In Europe any battery over a certain limit has to be carried in the cabin, so if it fails the crew can extinguish it.

Just tried a gemini from them this month, and the software support is awful. Highly recommend against

I found the forums in which people had provided recipes for updates to Debian and Android to be helpful but it was a lot of work and should have been supported by the vendor, I agree.

They never released fully functional Linux support

>They never released fully functional Linux support

Which is something that killed my interest dead for their hardware despite being exactly the kind of person who should fit their profile for a customer. But if they're willing to lie about Linux support, what else will they lie about? SO I continue to look...

I had a gemini, but the hinge fell apart Shame, I quite liked it.

I have an Astro Slide 5G from them (though bought via ebay) and I'm happy with my purchase, but it's kind of hard to recommend. Their track record on actually shipping pre-orders is kinda lousy (why I resorted to buying one second hand), the keyboard has some quality control issues and the software side feels a bit half-baked. For instance, there's almost always an undismissable "System Update" notification despite no updates being available. They did recently ship a system update which fixed some issues so they haven't abandoned it, but they have a ways to go still.

I really want them to succeed. It's such a cool device

Not to overly denigrate some of the more pessimistic reply here, I have to say that my Gemini was easily one of the best computers (not just phone) I ever had.

The keyboard was fantastic (better than the much larger GPD Pocket 1 that I also got at the same time), and with a fully-fleshed out termux install, I ended up coding on that thing far more than I probably should have.

Yes, Planet Computers have a very poor record on delivering machines (still waiting for my Astro Slide), but the hardware, when done right (Planet again are poor when it comes to QA, which might explain some of the other responses), is great.

I think the keyboard designer (who also did the original Psuon 5 keyboards, back in the day - I had one of those also), is really an idiot for letting his design be run into the ground by the sheer business incomptence that is Planet Computers. He should team up with a company that CAN deliver, then more could see that the great Psion5 isn't really dead

The pro1x from fxtec with lineageos plus termux is useful :-)

Looks nice, can't see pricing though. Their website https://www.fxtec.com/smartphones/pro1x shows "available March 2023" for me.

It has some issues, and no Android, pure GNU/Linux, but there's the pinephone and it's keyboard addon.

https://pine64.com/product/pinephone-pinephone-pro-keyboard-...

But I think it's more a phone to thinker with, not a Just Works phone.

Did you find the Gemini PDA and friends? It's very very similar.

Wish I had heard about these before getting my GPD Win2. Looks much closer to what I wanted but didn't know was still an option.

I've got the GPD Win 2 and it really would be the perfect little computer if it had HP 100LX style calculator keys. I know people disagree with me on this, but it's the one style of tiny keyboard that I have been able to achieve a relatively fast typing speed with.

I like the form factor. There's a couple quirks with the screen and some apps/games but I can work around those. The real thing that keeps me from using it more is the heat/fan noise.

I can't use it anywhere quiet because of the whizzing sound it generates even just at idle, let alone when I do something. With games on the go it's not a problem, but any kind of productivity work like editing code isn't possible.

I saw there were some mods for cooling but I don't believe they're available anymore. Best I've been able to do is under-volt it to lower CPU performance, but that only gets me so far. I'm open to suggestions, though!

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