Ben Nanonote

[euleberlin]

Booboo (The man who brought Linux to the Dingoo, praise him! ) mentioned this device on his Dingux-blog, and i thought, some people would be interested in this.
http://www.qi-hardwa...ts/ben-nanonote

The device looks pretty promising, but it´s of course no competition for the Pandora hardware-wise. But what do you expect at a 100$ price tag?
Looking forward to read your thoughts on this handheld.

And now i´ll shamelessly copy the specs from the website:
Technical Specifications:

• 336 MHz XBurst Jz4720 MIPS-compatible CPU
• display: 3.0" color TFT
• resolution: 320 x 240, 16.7M color
• dimension (mm): 99 x 75 x 17.5 (lid closed)
• weight: 126 g (incl. battery)
• DRAM: 32MB Synchronous DRAM
• headphone jack (3.5 mm)
• SDHC microSD
• 850mAh Li-ion battery
• 2GB NAND flash memory
• mini-USB: USB 2.0 High-Speed Device
• speaker and microphone

And look here for some pics of the internals:
http://downloads.qi-...ardware/Photos/

They plan to ship in two months TM, will they beat Pandora?

 

[craigix]

I'll have to get a few of these in stock... I'm loving the speed this weird stuff is being released lately.

After looking at the internals that thing does look very very cheap, but I guess that's a prototype.

 

[lulzfish]

It looks like a netbook.
What are the dimensions of it?

 

[mindlord]

That's adorable. Not for me though, but cute none-the-less. I take it not much has been done in the OS department since all I can find is a basic kernel, and toolchain.

 

[euleberlin]

dimension (mm): 99 x 75 x 17.5 (lid closed)

source: OP
It´s indeed a prototype, booboo got one already and will post about it soon. A wise decision by Qi Hardware

They also plan already a successor, the Ya NanoNote (Ben and Ya are chinese characters apparently), and the community decides the internals (a bit^^). They are also totally open, at least they claim it. Call it the Pandora of the far east. ^^

 

[lulzfish]

dimension (mm): 99 x 75 x 17.5 (lid closed)

Ah, so it's in the Pandora's ballpark.
The hinge looks kinda small, and I'm not sure I could get used to the keyboard, but at least it's not a netbook.

 

[Exophase]

Hm, no thanks. This seems drastically worse than a variety of competitors in just about every way except price.

More to the point, how useful is something whose input methods are like a netbook but has only a 320x240 resolution and relatively tiny non-touch screen? And for that matter, no wifi/internet and an add-on isn't possible for a device-only USB port - so what are you supposed to actually use this thing for? Someone help me out, I can't think of a single application this would be good at. For games, a Dingoo is clearly going to be much better.. that d-square looks silly.

Clearly a lot of space is wasted where the screen could have been used instead. And the battery capacity is awful, compare with Dingoo's 1700mAh - you're looking at half the battery life here.

On the other hand, it's very refreshing to see another company be this open about what they're doing, especially a Chinese one - in English no less.

 

[atomicthumbs]

It looks like one of those $5 folding calculators that comes free with your magazine subscription

 

[lulzfish]

320 by 240 with no touch and no Wi-Fi?
wow, that is quite useless.

I was going to say "PDA", but if there's no touch screen, it would be a crappy PDA.
Maybe a graphing calculator. Come to think of it, it's probably got enough hardware to match my TI-89 Titanium.
Is the proprietary software the only thing that keeps selling these (graphing calculators) pieces of shit?

 

[Exophase]

Maybe a graphing calculator. Come to think of it, it's probably got enough hardware to match my TI-89 Titanium.

No numerical input buttons ;D I'd hate to have to remember which letters correspond to which numbers and operators and whatnot.

It should have not only enough power to match it but to emulate it.

Is the proprietary software the only thing that keeps selling these (graphing calculators) pieces of shit?

The button layout is naturally pretty desirable. A lot of people just want a calculator, and if that's all you want then they're pretty good at it. Now, are they fantastically overpriced? Absolutely. A TI-89 probably costs like $20 to make. Maybe less. But people are still willing to pay over $100 for them (unless things have changed in the calculator market)

 

[klikklak]

I read their website back when there was a thread about them. So this is the portable wikipedia device then? They're moving a lot faster than I thought, last I checked this was near 400$ and for developers. For a hundred 100$ a device for wikipedia and other apps might be a nice thing, or maybe not, a cell phone with a proper keyboard would do it as well.

 

[quartercast]

It looks like one of those $5 folding calculators that comes free with your magazine subscription

You crack me up! That is one fugly piece of kit

 

[euleberlin]

Alright, since some people apparently didn´t even read the description given by the manufacturer, i´ll copy it here too:

本: běn. The Chinese character 本 signifies an origin or the beginning place; It signifies exactly what the first version of the NanoNote is: a beginning.

The 本 version of NanoNote is an ultra small form factor computing device. The device sports a 336 MHz processor, 2GB of flash memory, microSD slot, head phone jack, USB device and 850mAh Li-ion battery. It boots Linux out of the box and also boots over USB. It's targeted squarely at developers who see the promise of open hardware and want to roll their own end user experience. It's the perfect companion for open content; we envision developers turning the device into a music or video player for Ogg or an offline Wikipedia or MIT OpenCourseWare appliance. Or you can simply amaze your friends by creating an ultra small handheld notebook computer. You choose the distribution. The 本 Nanonote is the first in a line of products that will see the addition of other hardware capabilities. Get your NanoNote and start a Nanoproject today. Or join one of the existing projects in our developer community.

Sounds good from the open source point of view, doesn´t it?

No numerical input buttons ;D I'd hate to have to remember which letters correspond to which numbers and operators and whatnot.

There is a NumPad on the right side (press 2nd shift for numbers i think).

no wifi/internet and an add-on isn't possible for a device-only USB port

They plan to add WiFi/bluetooth with microSD adapters. Don´t know if that´s any good, but they are in touch with manufacturers of those to get a good Linux driver. USB-Host is planned for the Ya NanoNote.

This quote from the Hello World! post on the website describes it pretty good:

We believe that an army of david's can conquer goliath, that by enlisting the help of the open source community we can build better products.

Or this:

We know we don't know everything: the wisdom and creativity outside the walls of the company, therefore, guides us in the difficult process of making the right decisions. Our customers drive that process; they know best what they want in a device and demand an open dialog.

Very wise words... Never heard such from GPH, right?

Here is a good blogpost about the NanoNote: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/10/open-hardware-handheld-computing-platform-for-custom-applications/

 

[Exophase]

Alright, since some people apparently didn´t even read the description given by the manufacturer, i´ll copy it here too:

Or, maybe it was completely irrelevant to everything we're talking about.

本: běn. The Chinese character 本 signifies an origin or the beginning place; It signifies exactly what the first version of the NanoNote is: a beginning.

The 本 version of NanoNote is an ultra small form factor computing device. The device sports a 336 MHz processor, 2GB of flash memory, microSD slot, head phone jack, USB device and 850mAh Li-ion battery. It boots Linux out of the box and also boots over USB. It's targeted squarely at developers who see the promise of open hardware and want to roll their own end user experience. It's the perfect companion for open content; we envision developers turning the device into a music or video player for Ogg or an offline Wikipedia or MIT OpenCourseWare appliance. Or you can simply amaze your friends by creating an ultra small handheld notebook computer. You choose the distribution. The 本 Nanonote is the first in a line of products that will see the addition of other hardware capabilities. Get your NanoNote and start a Nanoproject today. Or join one of the existing projects in our developer community.

Sounds good from the open source point of view, doesn´t it?

Nope, sounds like it can't do anything any number of other handhelds out now can't. Seems like these days slapping "open source" on something is turning into a marketing angle, when it really costs THEM less to make other people do most of the software work. Kinda like how people are pushing the Wiz as "open source" (okay, its crappy menus aren't, but oh well)

I just don't see the special allure, and I certainly don't see it as being worth all of its shortcomings. The open hardware part is interesting enough, but it's really just a novelty as well, for most people. It seems like another ideological battle is being fought instead of putting out a high quality product (hm, kinda like Neo1973)

There is a NumPad on the right side (press 2nd shift for numbers i think).

Okay, I didn't see those. Obviously a calculator program would have to accept input from those without the shift or it'd be about as useless.

They plan to add WiFi/bluetooth with microSD adapters. Don´t know if that´s any good, but they are in touch with manufacturers of those to get a good Linux driver. USB-Host is planned for the Ya NanoNote.

I'm aware of that, and I chose to completely disregard it because I know full well that most people are not going to want to run this strictly off of NAND. You shouldn't have to compromise one very major feature to get another one.

This device just seems pointless. Maybe they have a great attitude but who cares if they're not bringing anything new to the table and can't keep up in any number of other ways? This may be just the start of a long run of hardware revisions, but they have to actually sell the early ones to make the later ones happen. If they get a lot of sales it'll probably be big FOSS proponents driving it.

 

[OrR]

I think Open Source hardware is a very important direction to go into. While I agree that the device is not amazingly attractive for the average customer, there is going to be a market for it. I'm willing to pay for my freedom and I'm pretty sure I'll get one of their future hardware revisions. I really hope this works out.

 

[wejp]

Gmu is running on the Ben NanoNote. The NanoNote port is not finished yet, though.

 

[sbock]

Nice!

 

[jbrodack]

I quite like open devices but this just doesn't appeal to me. I'm not sure what it would be used for and the company behind it doesn't seem to know either which is why even they are vague about its possible uses. Also, while I think people obsess over specs a bit too much and ordered a smartq v5 despite outdated specs the specs on this are quite lacking. 32mb ram? The gp2x was better in that area. No built in wifi or ethernet? No real gaming controls? Add a smaller than necessary screen and it just looks poorly made. Even at $100 it seems overpriced.

The only thing that stands out about this is that its completely "open" but there are plenty of other better devices out there that are at least partially open.

I really want to know what this would be used for other then as a toy for devs.

 

[second exodous]

It seems a million of devices need to be released before one good one sees the light of day. With more and more devices like this it's only a matter of time until a device as useful as the Zarus is released. I'm still banking on the Pandora but I'm sure some people would like a Pandora without the gaming controls and someone will fill that niche.

The main problem is almost all of these devices are really under powered. I think it's maturing though, eventually someone will realize that the market for $300+ devices at this size and shape is quite large and we'll see better gizmos made.

EDIT: After looking it over, pics and specs, and looking at the name, NanoNote, I realize it's a great device for typing. It's not for games, not meant for emulators, just note taking and I bet someone could write a novel on it. For that it's great, in fact if that's what you want it for underpowered is a plus, less distraction.

 

[Exophase]

EDIT: After looking it over, pics and specs, and looking at the name, NanoNote, I realize it's a great device for typing. It's not for games, not meant for emulators, just note taking and I bet someone could write a novel on it. For that it's great, in fact if that's what you want it for underpowered is a plus, less distraction.

I think something like this is about the last thing I'd want to type a paper (much less a novel) on. The resolution is very low and the keyboard is very small, cramped, non-standard, and it doesn't look especially ergonomic for its form factor. I'd much sooner choose a low end netbook.