* Used regular batteries, no charging, easily obtainable, lasts quite a bit
* Keyboard was awesome
* Retro look & feel
* Size
What I didn't like:
* 8 line display is tiny!
* Would prefer a bit smaller
* Getting data off is a pain (ether are many workarounds but you have to fiddle with it)
So, assuming a $200 price point and using the 5x rule of thumb for HW products, BOM should be $40. Problem is eInk displays are kind of expensive. Putting $15-ish for a 7-inch+ display, rest seems bearable doable. (I've never developed a consumer HW product, so these are wild guesses.)
A monochrome transreflective LCD (without a backlight) would consume fractions of a milliwatt, can be a high resolution graphical display or character-based display, and would look plenty sharp under direct sunlight. Also widely available and inexpensive.
It can't have such a high contrast as e-ink though.
e-ink is fast enough to be usable for word processing because the updates are small and incremental and, most importantly, can tolerate some ghosting
I doubt that there's anything like a commercial product here, but I find it a really fascinating design space.
If something like that TRS had e-ink, it might be what I'd had in mind. If you're familiar with the idea of the OLPC hardware[2], like that except:
* More durable
* Lower power
* E-ink
* Not effectively vaporware
On a related note, I heard Pixel Qi[3] displays were interesting. However, the company folded. Some panels seem to pop up for sale now and then, but my understanding is they're effectively obsolete.
> The recent Clockwork-PI evokes it - but the keyboard is a toy
That's a shame.
> it’s just a Linux laptop with all the distractions therein
After taking a look at the device, this seems like an understatement. The Clockwork-PI[4] looks like it's mostly an emulation machine. For anyone who doesn't want to click through, it's a Game Boy form factor with a few extra buttons and a keyboard below the D-pad.
To be fair to the device, I think it's different class of device. It also fills some very specific niches:
1. Prototyping for GB/GBC games on higher-power hardware and higher-level languages
2. A decent front-end attached sensors if you can use USB
As example of #2: Mapping WiFi signal strength. Walking around a building holding a clunky laptop while someone else held the antenna wasn't fun. It was what we had to work with given the deadline, but if I had to do it often, I might want something like the Clockwork PI if someone could source better keyboards.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC_XO