Stuff like a pretty case with slots for optical drives, a laptop with a shitton of ports and all-day battery life or anything else that seems to go against the trends.
This thread is for complaining about how you can’t find it and (maybe) finding it thanks to someone else.
This seems close enough for me to bring something that is more adjacent. I used to love tech programs, blogs, segments, what have you. Now though. Its all smartphone or ai related. I hate it.
A IP68 e-ink Linux phone with both wireless charging and induction charging (to charge other devices), no cameras at all, solar panel on the back, usb-4 and headphone jack, 1TB storage , 15’000 mAh battery, two separate WiFi cards (to allow simultaneous hotspot and client use), and finally a radio transiever for both short range comms and long range AM and FM radio.
Technically possible with current technology, but as far as I can tell, completely unavailable in the consumer market.
Price, size and weight are irrelevant for all usecasses of such a product, as far as I’m concerned.
A few things.
A laptop with 2-way HDMI, so i can plug it into a game console and use it as a small TV. Note that i’m aware that HDMI might not work like this.
A wearable soundboard with speakers and batteries hidden in my pockets, and controlled by chorded buttons in my shoes. Use cases include crickets, canned laughter, the Seinfeld theme, and audible air guitar riffs.
A handheld computer that:
- Has physical buttons instead of a touchscreen
- E-ink display for all the benefits of that – Physical light switch for a backlight for the screen (my phone is e-ink but i have the backlight turned off by default, a side effect is i can’t see the screen to turn the backlight on when i need it) – Button to refresh the screen, instead of relying on automatic refreshes (Light Phone II) or updating what’s on screen to get it to refresh (Sony PRS 505) – Solar panel, if the OS is light enough to permit it. Ereaders are totally low-power enough that if one had a small solar panel like a calculator you’d almost never need to charge it. A full handheld computer could probably also benefit from this.
A music player / DAC that:
- Has physical buttons, non-touch screen, & light switch for screen backlight like the above wish.
- Lets you mark some files as audiobooks/podcasts, so it remembers your place in those
- Isn’t just an Android phone that can’t make calls
- Has a reflective or transflective display, so you can use it outdoors without fighting the sun
- Can listen to the radio, if you unfold or plug in an antenna
- Has a headphone jack There’s more to this one because i’m planning to actually make it someday, simply because i don’t expect anyone else to make one that does what i want it to.
Somewhat ergonomic keyboards in laptops. I know split keyboards are hard because the screen has to be about as wide as the keyboard, but i’m sure there’s a way and i intend to someday prove it. I know we can do better than typewriter shaped keyboards with QWERTY by default, even ortholinear boards would be an improvement because layouts can be done in software.
An electric notebook with a touchscreen that instead of using OCR to turn handwriting into text, stores handwriting as vector graphics as a middle ground between OCR and images with huge file sizes. Probably with a slider for how much to simplify lines, and an option to select areas of a page to convert to text via OCR so you can still have diagrams and doodles alongside plain text that’s easy to export and edit.
A device like a generation I pokedex, but for real world animals and plants. This one probably won’t happen because stuff like this is only done as smartphone apps anymore, not as standalone toys.
HUD goggles that are the display of a full portable computer.
- Keyboard input could be done through a split keyboard that hooks onto your belt, with half on each thigh
- Mouse input could be done with a trackpoint / trackball on the keyboard (simple option) or with a bracelet that emits IR light from multiple points so it can be tracked by sensors on the goggles (if you don’t understand what i mean, kind of like a Wiimote and sensor bar), with a ring that goes around your middle finger attached by a wire to the bracelet. When you tug the ring down by bending your wrist or fingers down, that’s a mouse click. (complicated option)
- Two or more hot-swappable batteries, so you can change one out without the device having to lose power
- Transparent LCD over one eye, so the background of the image is just what’s actually in front of you
- Gyroscope somewhere on the head part, so you can turn your head to access different windows like it’s a VR headset. Imagine there’s a bubble around your head with program windows projected onto different parts of it. Large windows look curved around the surface of the bubble. You can drag them around with the mouse, or turn your head to move them relative to your eyes. Probably also makes this good for AR stuff.
- Headphone jack and bluetooth for audio, but not necessarily built in speakers This one might never happen, apparently making any kind of HUD is very hard and expensive and this one is asking for a lot. But it would be so cool. It would finally be a portable computer with a good input system (keyboard) and a display at the same time.
And there’s more stuff i want to exist that doesn’t fit the question. Software (why hasn’t anyone mad a 3+ D spreadsheet program?) and non-technical products.
Oh I have wanted a laptop which could act as a dumb console with video input and keyboard/touchpad out. Honestly would be great to have something like the framwork but just a dumb terminal that clicks down onto the main computer and then maybe another level that is graphics.
The HUD goggles are starting to exist, not the way you described it but the technology is starting to get there.
I’ll join the ranks asking for a perfect phone.
Mine would have:
- Unlocked bootloader
- All week battery (or at least 3 days) I don’t care if it’s super thick.
- User replaceable battery
- Headphone jack
- Very high specs (like at least 16 GB RAM and 1TB storage)
- SD card slot
- Probably more I’m not thinking of right now.
Payment with NFC without google play services.
Only thing I could figure out (except maybe looking into Chinese payments systems which… No. Just no) is Garmin Pay.
Once set up, works with the smartwatch and does not use the phone, or the internet, at all.
I know it’s not exactly what you asked, but its what I managed to do. Garmin watches also work pretty great with Gadgetbridge :-)
I don’t wear a watch but if it fixes the problem, might be worth looking in to.
Do bear in mind that not all banks and/or cards are supported. Out of my 6 payment cards, over 3 banks (I know, ridiculous), only 3 are compatible. One bank is not compatible at all, the other one supports the debit card on Garmin Pay but not the credit card.
I knew that before hand. Garmin has a list… Somewhere.
but that depends on the vendor. highest chance to do it is with Monero, even considering that basically no one knows it
i don’t even need good specs or sd card, just a good camera, foss rom and good battery
the pixel line is what you’re looking for. Sounds odd but they’re the easiest to degoogle.
i know, but i in my right mind can’t give any money to google
Then buy second hand
And then install graphene OS
Excuse me, waitress… I’ll have what SHE’S having.
I’d like to add some strength too. I don’t give a shit about the latest AI fuzzy on any phone, but if it would please last at least a year without cracking the screen or the back that would be amazing. And a record for me. Doesn’t have to be razor thin either. Just make it beefy.
Global Xperias (Xperia 1 VI [XQ-EC72]) fits most of this.
A smaller phone with flagship-level cameras and a headphone jack. I know I’ll have to charge it more often or it’ll be thicker. I’m willing to make that trade-off.
And not a slimmer phone. Make it as thick as a wallet full of business cards. I don’t give a shit. I use my phone for reading text, listening to music, and taking pictures. Just make the fucking camera top of the line and let me use my good headphones. If it’s several millimeters thicker, so be it.
rip Asus Zenfone line :( It was almost exactly what you wanted.
Perhaps an Xperia 5 V? Depends on where you are, and just keep in mind no telephoto but it has a pixel-binned 2x (48mm) zoom :)
A cheap ARM laptop.
Pinebooks have been sold out for ages, and then it’s a massive leap up to MNT Reform or Copilot+.
I just started watching eBay for used Pinebooks, but nothing has popped yet.
Edit: Actually, there are some decent options for Snapdragon 7/8 refurbs on Amazon. Mass market brands can be so hit or miss by model, so this’ll take some research, but it looks like there are 20-30 results to consider.
Cheap large e-ink android screen. Doesn’t need to do anything other than be a consistent, always on display with a long battery life.
They look neat, but way too powerful and expensive, and not big enough. I want a whiteboard size e-ink display with a processor like a potato for like <100 USD
Hmm… The one I’ve seen; hisense for example its non touch, and the monitor is 1500 bucks… I’ve seen a big white board like thing at a local library and some schools, unsure what they are called or how much they cost. A quick search revealed the below but that is crazy expensive. I would then rather get a traditional white board with a marker and then take photos with a phone or camera and store in a hard drive… Not the same I guess…
QuirkLogic Papyr - A large 42-inch E Ink display designed specifically as a digital whiteboard. Priced around $6,000-7,000.
&
RICOH eWhiteboard 4200 - A 42-inch E Ink collaborative whiteboard, similar price range to the QuirkLogic.
As someone who’s been wanting a boox tablet for a while I don’t think they fit “cheap”
A high-quality laptop without any branding.
I’m currently using a 9-year-old, woefully underpowered laptop made by Xiaomi. Full aluminium unibody, and NO logo. Not printed on, not etched in, not glistening only in the right light. NO LOGO.
I’m not a billboard. I’m not responsible for your brand recognition. Ironically though, far more people have come up to me and asked “hey, what laptop is that” than ever would have cared if there was a logo on it.
It also just looks and feels fantastic, all-aluminium-no-logo just looks so sleek.
So yeah. I will not be upgrading until I find another laptop of the same build quality, with no logo. Tuxedo has that option for most of their laptops, but for some reason not for their only current full-aluminium body -.-
Oh, and don’t come at me with stickers.
Oh, and don’t come at me with stickers.
Well then. Maybe you could wrap your heart in duc-ta-a-ape! *runs away sobbing*
A 3.5mm-to-Bluetooth adapter that can do simultaneous headphones + mic. I have a device with no Bluetooth, only a 3.5mm TRRS jack (headphones+mic). I want to connect it to a wireless Bluetooth headset but the only adapters I can find won’t do both at the same time, only one or the other.
dick sucking robot
I need an ecmascript library that demuxes mpeg when fed individual frames. Every lib just wants to take in a whole file or URL to a stream. I need to filter the websocket sending the data so I need to feed individual frames to the lib. I’m only finding commonjs libs that do this
- remember netbooks? yeah so i would love a 10"-ish laptop (with current hardware) for taking notes etc.
why not use a tablet you might ask? i love the handling of a solid, non-detachable keyboard.
- also a smartphone that reacts quickly to user input with an OS that doesn’t look like the love child of windows mobile (remember that?) and the first iphones. looking at you iOS18 settings menu (among others)
I have a GPD laptop with a tiny screen, it’s good enough to run most games. I changed the no name NVMe to a Samsung and it’s way more reliable and faster. Also runs Linux now. Built in game controller works well for most games (shows up as Xbox controller or a mouse using a switch).
last i looked at them (some time ago now) they either:
- had very out of date hardware
- were incredibly expensive for what they offered
- the only middle ground model that seemed fitting for my purposes (gaming wouldn’t be on that list but linux indeed) was nowhere to be found.
i should probably have a look at their models again in the near future, thanks for reminding me. are you happy with yours (and willing to share which model you use)
Rootable Android (or Linux) based “mp3 player”. Basically an iPod touch. No cell radio.
I might struggle to make it the size of an iPod Touch but that’s not difficult to build out of a Raspberry Pi.
That’s cool, hadn’t really thought about it. Basically looking for a wifi-only device I can install Signal on.
You’d get the desktop version of Signal doing it that way.
Nah. With an Android device, you can install the Signal app (it’s even on FDroid now). You’ll need a phone number to register it, but just to receive the code. Could be a mobile number you have, a landline, or a VoIP (ie, jmp.chat) number-- as long as you haven’t already registered for Signal with it.
A Linux device could pose some difficulty, but I think there is progress being made on running Android apps.
Edit: sorry, forgot some of the context here. Leaving it since I’m pretty sure you can install Android on a RasPi.
Yeah I usually think of the Raspberry Pi as a box for running Debian on.
Literally couldn’t fall asleep last night, thinking about how much I’d want this and how hard it’d be to neuter a cellphone to make this.
Why couldn’t you just use a custom launcher? This isn’t a hard task.
Let me preface this by saying that, compared to your average Lemmy user, I am not a technical person. What stuck in my head was removing the radio and comms tech completely - no cell radio, no wifi, no GPS. Literally just make it an average cellphone sized offline tablet, where you’re adding stuff only via the USB port or SD card slot.
Assuming this were possible/actually worth it, would probably need custom firmware to actually make it useable anyway. Just taking an off the shelf smartphone and using a custom launcher would likely be the more practical route, but I’d be more interested if it was offline only from a pure hardware perspective.
But I digress - I just thought it was funny to see this when it seriously was the “What if?” that made it hard for me to get to sleep the other day.
You’re thinking about it too hard.
Just use a launcher, sometimes called Kiosk mode/launchers, to launch one app. You can disable the other hardware if you want, but it doesn’t seem like it really helps you reach your goal.
You could probably pull it off with a Pi Zero, battery pack, and screen if you want to get into it a bit. It’s not that hard at all.
Probably - thought about it harder anyway (see: actually read stuff), and the closest you can probably get to what I was thinking about with your average smartphone is disconnecting and terminating all connections to the antennas.
Let’s be real, though - if I actually intended to use something like this, it’d for sure be something cobbled together using an SBC like the Pi Zero.
Little retro games handheld with a clamshell oled display
A small android smartphone with good software support
