Originally posted by Luke_Wolf
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This used to be a thing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-mobile_PC. However I think the ancestry heritage to the Pandora is the IBM palmtop 110. Not a direct link, as it came to be as an idea of what the various state of open linux handhelds did wrong.
What they did right was run Linux, which was cool in itself back then. I think they opened up more to tinkering as a result of being security-flawed initially more than anything else. As those people became the userbase, all of a sudden software, d-pads and connectivity fixed themselves, most prominently on the GP2X. The enginers at Gamepark, which made it, abandoned ship and became Gamepark Holdings. While both existed at one point, the latter was more welcoming towards hackery and the former went bankrrupt. All very fine, but korean Gamepark Holdings lacked the connection with their userbase that makes the Pandora the community device it is.
Having a open ecosystem that you are allowed to tinker with, which has a free and copyleft side to it, is just as awesome today as what was on offer back then in the GP2X days and before. While things have gotten better, they have also gotten worse in terms of privacy. And that's unfortunately the crucial point to make, if a device lends itself to spying on me, it isn't my device, its someone else's by the nature of allowing them to do that. I could make effort towards making it mine, but frankly I'm tired of doing it as a necessity, and I don't really want to support the companies that make it a requirement. I buy a device, that's my device. Call me old fashioned if you want.
The longer down you dig in bootloaders and firmware (2) the more ugliness there is to find, and it has then long since stopped being a trivial issue. If you manage to get past drivers, (some part of what www.replicant.us helps fix on Android.)
with modem control and shared memory with CPU on other devices ultimately it really comes down to a hardware issue, seemingly not by accident. And whatever you want to believe, there is always the safe stance in supporting someone who is on your team, in doing something about it. Except for the pyra, and the pandora (which has no modem) your options are few and far between, luckily they do exist. Most of it doesn't go past having board-only on offer, but if that wont stop you, then all the better for you. Novena laptop has something for both.
On the 'it is a phone, mainly'-front, the GTA04A5, and the neo900 (if you want a keyboard) comes to mind, which are very nice initiatives.
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