4 ms·

It's more like a portable Raspberry Pi with better efficiency and more IO. And hopefully even better mainline Linux support out of the gate. The key question w

It's more like a portable Raspberry Pi with better efficiency and more IO. And hopefully even better mainline Linux support out of the gate. The key question will be how much it costs. Beyond $250-300, it's a lot more of a niche product. Below $250 would be very interesting. I don't think it will be below $300. With current memory and storage pricing, probably $350-400 is more realistic :(

bigiain 5mo ago
Its got 8gb of ddr5 in it. That's already a huge chunk of $300 - I'm not even sure they will get the BOM down to $300. I'm guessing it'll be $1000 or so. (Which is good for me. Well above my impulse buy threshold. I don't regret buying my Flipper Zero, because it was within my impulse buy and not regret it threshold.)
- geerlingguy 5mo ago
  I forgot it has a battery as well, so add on the extra power and charging circuitry. Yeah, probably north of $500, but I can't imagine it being closer to $1000 :/
  - Dylan16807 5mo ago
    That extra circuitry is like a dollar retail. That should not be a significant impact on the price. For the battery itself, three 18650s would add $5 to the BOM so I'm not expecting a huge difference from that either.
    - geerlingguy 5mo ago
      At the scale they have, prices probably not quite so low, but the power stuff would be more if they use higher quality parts and factor in the integration / firmware bits.
fc417fc802 5mo ago
Does it need to be so cheap? With these specs it would make a decent replacement for a low end general purpose computer. The older NUC I use for a lot of stuff has similar-to-worse specs than this thing does.
- karlgkk 5mo ago
  If it’s not cheap, then what differentiates it from a $150 Linux laptop and $30 dongle
  - fc417fc802 5mo ago
    That's exactly my point! It's a low to midrange computer with extremely high portability including a grayscale display. Where else are you going to get that functionality combined as a single unit?
    - mitthrowaway2 5mo ago
      A steam deck maybe?
    - bspinner 5mo ago
      See the Mecha Comet
    - karlgkk 5mo ago
      I have a $140 Lenovo education market laptop I got from their site, new. It doesn’t have a built in Ethernet port but I taped an L shaped usb dongle to the back. I use it as a terminal mostly. So I feel like if this costs more than $400, it’s DOA
    - Dylan16807 5mo ago
      Considering this is 6.1 inches wide and 1.6 inches thick, I think I'd be happier with a GPD that's 6.8 inches wide and 1.0 inches thick. And I can put the screen into grayscale mode if I want?
      - 5mo ago
rasz 5mo ago
>better mainline Linux support haha
- rasz 5mo ago
  for reference https://www.tomshardware.com/software/chinese-semiconductor-outfit-has-linux-mpp-repository-on-github-disabled-after-a-dmca-takedown-request-ffmpeg-team-accuses-it-of-using-libavcodec-code-without-attribution https://www.tomshardware.com/software/chinese-semiconductor-... https://securityonline.info/open-source-standoff-github-freezes-rockchips-code-after-two-year-ffmpeg-license-battle/ https://securityonline.info/open-source-standoff-github-free... https://hackaday.com/2026/01/05/github-disables-rockchips-linux-mpp-repository-after-dmca-request https://hackaday.com/2026/01/05/github-disables-rockchips-li... https://legal.gpl-violations.narkive.com/gAoCqXFb/rockchip-rk2808a-rk2808-all-variants-gpl-violation https://legal.gpl-violations.narkive.com/gAoCqXFb/rockchip-r... https://mastodon.social/@geerlingguy/113698847221483936 https://mastodon.social/@geerlingguy/113698847221483936 "I was told Rockchip no longer considers RK3588 to be an “open source” chip"

bigiain 5mo ago

Its got 8gb of ddr5 in it. That's already a huge chunk of $300 - I'm not even sure they will get the BOM down to $300. I'm guessing it'll be $1000 or so. (Which is good for me. Well above my impulse buy threshold. I don't regret buying my Flipper Zero, because it was within my impulse buy and not regret it threshold.)

geerlingguy 5mo ago
I forgot it has a battery as well, so add on the extra power and charging circuitry. Yeah, probably north of $500, but I can't imagine it being closer to $1000 :/
- Dylan16807 5mo ago
  That extra circuitry is like a dollar retail. That should not be a significant impact on the price. For the battery itself, three 18650s would add $5 to the BOM so I'm not expecting a huge difference from that either.
  - geerlingguy 5mo ago
    At the scale they have, prices probably not quite so low, but the power stuff would be more if they use higher quality parts and factor in the integration / firmware bits.

fc417fc802 5mo ago

Does it need to be so cheap? With these specs it would make a decent replacement for a low end general purpose computer. The older NUC I use for a lot of stuff has similar-to-worse specs than this thing does.

karlgkk 5mo ago
If it’s not cheap, then what differentiates it from a $150 Linux laptop and $30 dongle
- fc417fc802 5mo ago
  That's exactly my point! It's a low to midrange computer with extremely high portability including a grayscale display. Where else are you going to get that functionality combined as a single unit?
  - mitthrowaway2 5mo ago
    A steam deck maybe?
  - bspinner 5mo ago
    See the Mecha Comet
  - karlgkk 5mo ago
    I have a $140 Lenovo education market laptop I got from their site, new. It doesn’t have a built in Ethernet port but I taped an L shaped usb dongle to the back. I use it as a terminal mostly. So I feel like if this costs more than $400, it’s DOA
  - Dylan16807 5mo ago
    Considering this is 6.1 inches wide and 1.6 inches thick, I think I'd be happier with a GPD that's 6.8 inches wide and 1.0 inches thick. And I can put the screen into grayscale mode if I want?
    - 5mo ago

rasz 5mo ago

>better mainline Linux support haha

rasz 5mo ago
for reference https://www.tomshardware.com/software/chinese-semiconductor-outfit-has-linux-mpp-repository-on-github-disabled-after-a-dmca-takedown-request-ffmpeg-team-accuses-it-of-using-libavcodec-code-without-attribution https://www.tomshardware.com/software/chinese-semiconductor-... https://securityonline.info/open-source-standoff-github-freezes-rockchips-code-after-two-year-ffmpeg-license-battle/ https://securityonline.info/open-source-standoff-github-free... https://hackaday.com/2026/01/05/github-disables-rockchips-linux-mpp-repository-after-dmca-request https://hackaday.com/2026/01/05/github-disables-rockchips-li... https://legal.gpl-violations.narkive.com/gAoCqXFb/rockchip-rk2808a-rk2808-all-variants-gpl-violation https://legal.gpl-violations.narkive.com/gAoCqXFb/rockchip-r... https://mastodon.social/@geerlingguy/113698847221483936 https://mastodon.social/@geerlingguy/113698847221483936 "I was told Rockchip no longer considers RK3588 to be an “open source” chip"