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Grassroots, Forum Designed, Open Source Tablet?

J

jonhrbell

Junior Member
I've been tossing around an idea for the past few weeks, and before deciding to move forward, I figured I'd gather some opinions.

The goal is to create a slate-stlye tablet pc. The physical description would be so:
Touchscreen, around 10" size.
Solid state hard drive
Processor/Hardware capable of running Ubuntu
No physical keyboard, only onscreen or external.
Bluetooth, WIFI
multiple usb ports (4 enough?)
webcam (facing user), speaker, mic.
Battery powered.

It would be a great netbook/webtablet to have around the house. The small size makes it great to watch hulu/movies. you can chat/txt with the onscreen controls.
Being able to run full ubuntu makes it capable of doing nearly all my day-to-day tasks.
This means i can bring it to work, prop it up... pull out my BT keyboard and mouse and do everything like normal.

a thought i had was to shape the unit like a 7. with the short "leg" being the protruding battery pack.
the battery as the leg would allow it to stand with the weight as the base, standing the unit up, much like a typical laptop orientation. great for webcam chats, using external kybd/mouse, etc.
flipping the computer 180 degrees and laying it down would now make it like a raised keyboard, perfect for using the on-screen controls when sitting it on a desk or your lap.
obviously the display on screen would have to rotate.

sticking with the theme of open source, ideally the hdd and any other components would be easily upgradable.

for hardware- i'm particularly interested in the ARM Cortex A8, but haven't looked for too much info yet.

the price goal would be around $500. (seeing how the pandora is $330, should be doable)

What I'd like to do is gather input from users, make this a community-designed piece of hardware. not meant to compete with anyone or anything in particular, but be exactly what everyone who is involved wants.
Let you guys share drawings, ideas for hardware, what MUST be there, etc.


-before anyone jumps in-
yes. i know apple is making something like this.
yes. i know they will sell MILLIONS of them.
i don't want to compete. this would just be a gadget, created from the ideas for forum users, and most likely sold to people who <3 linux and </3 apple, haha.

oh, and yes, i know about the crunchpad. IMO, hardware is lacking, and no bluetooth.
and waaay too big for what i'm thinking.

Thoughts?
 
Clevo makes a netbook/tablet with a 7" touchscreen that is probably close to what you want (except smaller screen and has a keyboard under the touch screen).

http://www.tabletpcreview.com/default.asp?newsID=1194

Intel Atom processor
Intel US15W chipset
Integrated graphics
7-inch WSVGA (1024x600) display with touch support
802.11b/g wireless
2.0 megapixel webcam
Fingerprint reader
ExpressCard slot
Click to expand...

Of note are the few features not found in other netbook-style devices, which are the touch panel (which can be rotated to cover the keyboard), the fingerprint reader, ExpressCard slot (I think only the smaller one). Bluetooth can be added with one of those micro USB adapters for $3.

Clevo specifies that this device can only use 1GB RAM. Maybe it is a chipset limitation because this doesn't use the 945GC variant of all other netbooks. It has a single SODIMM slot. It also uses a 1.8" PATA drive.

One thing I didn't like about it was that the plastic exterior was really glossy like some of those Asus Eee PCs, meaning it picks up fingerprints like crazy.
 
Yep something like this needs to be made. Sure rumor has it Apple is makeing something similar but i doubt it will have all the features it should have. Also it won't be as open source as it should be.

Personally i wouldn't want a device like this to be tied down to PC standards and be forced to run Unbuntu, Windows or MacOS. Something like this needs to be made with good hardware not limited to the CPUs used in PCs. It should offer more power and more flexability. I also think it needs to have its own custum OS to take full advantage of the hardware. Sure a linix distro would be familiar but with an all touch system like this it shouldn't be limited buy the OS. If the OS is designed for the hardware it has it will be more capable and stable.

Considering this would be a media device for the most part it needs to have a card reader built in. It also needs to be using an OLED screen.

While this may sound primative i think it needs to have an IR transmiter and receiver on it. If its going to be a media device it may as well have the ability to be a universal remote. I'm sure programers will find all sorts of other uses for it as well.

Heck the card reader and IR are 2 of the features i'd like to see Apple include into the nex gen iTouch.

With tech going the way it is it won't be long before we have this tablet sized computer replcing laptops. Just like in Star Treck next gen.
 
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