Tag Archives: Cyberdeck

This Kid-Friendly Raspberry Pi Cyberdeck Teaches Children How To Build Chatbots

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Remember those Radio Shack project kits with the spring terminals, where you bent wires into a working radio and felt like Tony Stark? Elecrow’s CrowPi 3 is that feeling, updated for a world where the thing kids want to build is a chatbot. It is a Raspberry Pi 5 learning station with 41 built-in sensors and modules, a camera, a microphone, and a 4.3-inch touchscreen. The courses run from blinking an LED to face recognition and voice control, plus plugging in LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini, and DeepSeek. Kids already talk to AI all day, so Elecrow figured they should get to build one.

The CrowPi 3 ships in a bumpered gray briefcase with a frosted magnetic lid, a fold-out handle, and an orange pull tab, which makes it the friendliest cyberdeck I have seen. For the uninitiated, that is a DIY computer built into some rugged container, usually with a Raspberry Pi for a brain and a lot of sci-fi attitude. Most of them cost their builders a few weekends of 3D printing and swearing, while this one arrives finished. The faceplate is silkscreened with labels and pin numbers, so the board doubles as its own wiring diagram. A middle schooler can legally carry the whole thing onto the bus, and I did not own anything this cool at that age, so I am only slightly bitter.

Designer: Elecrow

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Every module gets its own labeled cell, so the ultrasonic sensor, buzzer, tilt switch, RFID reader, and flame sensor sit in plain view instead of hiding behind a lid. That layout is the best teaching decision in the box, since a kid can point at the part they just coded and watch it react. Two breadboards on the left handle custom circuits, and a Pico, Arduino Nano, or micro:bit can join the Pi 5 on the same board. The unit measures 11.2 by 7.3 by 1.5 inches (285 by 185 by 38mm) and weighs 2.43 pounds (1,100g), about a hardcover textbook. Elecrow calls the design open source, with resources on GitHub.

The touchscreen is the one part of the faceplate that moves, folding flat or flipping forward for a better angle. A 2MP camera sits on a small bar above it like a laptop webcam, which is exactly where a face-recognition lesson wants it. At 800 by 480 pixels and 300 nits, the screen suits status readouts and debug info, and the It’s FOSS reviewer found the custom learning interface doesn’t display properly at that size. The full-size HDMI port solves that, so a bigger monitor can take over once the real coding starts. The RGB cooling fan got a gripe too, loud for its size and always spinning, though the same reviewer cheerfully called silencing it a free coding exercise.

The AI curriculum covers OpenCV (an open-source computer vision library) image processing, object tracking, face recognition, QR codes, pedestrian and car detection, and speech recognition. Elecrow says there are 180+ lessons in total, which is a lot of homework disguised as fun. The LLM lessons connect the board to ChatGPT, Gemini, and DeepSeek, and since a Pi 5 can’t host models that big, expect those to lean on online services. Elecrow’s project ideas are pleasantly small, like a voice-activated night light or a piggy bank that recognizes coins and plays a sound for each deposit. There is also a Minecraft course where tapping an NFC card spawns TNT, which is how you sneak Python into a kid’s weekend.

Raspberry Pi’s own 500+ answers a simpler question: what if the whole computer lived inside a keyboard? For $200 you get 16GB of RAM, mechanical keys, and a 256GB SSD, which makes a fine desktop and a poor science fair. It has no joystick, no ultrasonic sensor, and no flame detector, which are the things a kid actually wants to poke. The closest direct rival is the Joy-Pi Advanced, a Pi 4 kit that TechRadar put above $470 while comparing it to the CrowPi 3’s Kickstarter pricing. The CrowPi 3 is the one that sells the poking.

The original CrowPi hit Kickstarter in 2018 with a Pi 3B+ and a carry case, and the CrowPi 2 later fit in over 22 sensors and modules. The CrowPi 3 nearly doubles that count and adds the AI courses, plus Pico and micro:bit support that the earlier kits never had. Makers who build briefcase cyberdecks from scratch will get the appeal immediately, since this one skips the modeling and wiring marathon. The sensors come pre-wired and the lessons come already written. That is a fair trade when the person at the desk is eight.

Elecrow sells two kits, and the gap between them is a Raspberry Pi. CNX Software’s December 2025 roundup had the Basic Kit at $229 on Elecrow’s store and the Advanced Kit at $439, with the Advanced Kit listed at $599 on Amazon, so check that listing for today’s price. The Basic Kit expects you to bring a Pi 5, while the Advanced Kit adds a 16GB Pi 5, a wireless keyboard and mouse, two 18650 batteries, and two game controllers. Kids will spend the next decade chatting with AI, and the Radio Shack kids turned out fine because someone let them open the box. Somebody will build a piggy bank that judges your coins, and honestly, I would back that.

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Turn your old Galaxy phone into a weatherproof cyberdeck for under $100

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That old phone sitting in a drawer as a backup could have a more interesting second life. ETA Prime’s DIY cyberdeck takes a Galaxy S10, places it inside a compact waterproof mini tackle box, and pairs it with a small Bluetooth RGB keyboard with an integrated trackpad. The result is a piece of hardware that already exists turned into a surprisingly capable portable workstation.

The tackle box becomes the enclosure, with minor modifications made using a Dremel, so the phone and keyboard can sit securely inside. There is no 3D-printed shell or elaborate fabrication involved, which keeps the project accessible to anyone comfortable with basic-level How-Tos. More importantly, the sealed enclosure avoids the need to cut openings for charging ports or physical buttons, helping protect the electronics from dust, moisture, and accidental splashes.

Designer: ETA Prime

At the center of this project is a Galaxy S10, whose Snapdragon 855 processor, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and AMOLED display still give this repurposed setup plenty of capability. A Rotation Control app is used to keep the phone’s interface in the desired horizontal orientation, while the Bluetooth keyboard turns it into something closer to a tiny computer. The keyboard also supports RGB lighting, adding a little character to what would otherwise be a very utilitarian build.

The practical appeal shines through when the S10 is used for more than browsing. The hardware can handle Android productivity apps, media playback and retro-game emulation, including demanding platforms such as Dreamcast and PSP. That makes the cyberdeck equally suited to writing on the move, watching videos, experimenting with software, or playing older games without carrying a laptop or dedicated handheld.

The enclosure is arguably the most interesting part of the design. Unlike many cyberdecks that prioritize a futuristic appearance over everyday practicality, the tackle box gives this one a rugged, purpose-built quality. The rig is compact enough to carry around, while its weather-resistant construction makes it better suited to outdoor use than an exposed phone-and-keyboard combination. That unusual mix of ordinary storage hardware and repurposed electronics is what gives the project its character.

There is also plenty of room for experimentation. A larger battery can be added beneath the keyboard for longer sessions, while a detachable kickstand could make the viewing angle more comfortable. The Galaxy S10 is not necessarily the only possible brain, either. According to the DIYer, the same enclosure concept could accommodate a Raspberry Pi or small-form-factor PC for users who want to explore Linux and other operating systems.

Best of all, the project is quite inexpensive, given the exponentially rising costs of memory modules, and in turn PCs and smartphones. With a used Galaxy S10 potentially available for less than $70 and inexpensive components filling out the rest, the complete build can remain below $100. The clever DIY is very easy to take u unlike some of the more complex cyberdeck builds we’ve seen in the past like the pocket-sized Altoids DIY.

 

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This DIY Computer Build Looks Like a Muppet and Works Like a Real PC

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Nearly every DIY computer build chasing the cyberdeck label ends up looking like a prop from a gritty sci-fi film, all exposed wires and grungy metal panels borrowed straight from Neuromancer’s aesthetic playbook. This build ignores that entire tradition on purpose, wrapping a fully functional single-board computer inside a soft, orange, furry puppet head with a mouth that actually opens. It’s a cyberdeck that looks like it wandered off the set of a children’s show instead of a hacker den.

A single-board computer sits at the center of the whole thing, running the Linux side of its chip rather than tapping into the onboard microcontroller some builders use to drive servo motors. That decision kept the mechanics simple. A 5-inch HDMI screen handles the display duties, paired with a compact Bluetooth keyboard and touchpad combo for actual typing, while a USB battery bank keeps the entire rig running without hunting for an outlet mid-performance.

Designer: Natasha Dzurny

A webcam tucked into the build adds a function most puppets never get, letting its creator record herself running an actual puppet show through the lens mounted somewhere in that fuzzy head. That’s the kind of detail that turns a novelty prop into something genuinely useful for someone practicing puppetry, since reviewing your own performance afterward is a lot easier when the camera is already part of the puppet doing the performing.

Getting all that hardware to fit inside a rounded puppet skull took real spatial planning rather than just stuffing components wherever they’d squeeze in. The head itself started as a spherical mold, cut into two halves specifically so the mouth could open and close during a performance. A frame built inside that sphere anchors the electronics in place, giving the soft fur exterior something rigid to hold onto underneath all that plush material.

Fitting a human hand inside the same space the electronics occupy created its own puzzle, since puppeteering requires room for fingers to move the mouth while the board, screen wiring, and battery pack all compete for that same interior volume. A mounting platform above the hand cavity solved that conflict, giving the electronics their own dedicated shelf instead of floating loose around whatever space a puppeteer’s fingers happened to need that day.

Small engineering choices reveal how seriously the functional side of this build got treated despite the whimsical shell around it. The board itself sits on a piece of foam board rather than glued directly to the frame, which keeps adhesive away from sensitive components while also helping dissipate heat that would otherwise build up inside an enclosed, fur-covered space. A modified stereo jack even gets its own reinforced pocket near the mouth so headphones can plug in without disrupting the puppet’s face.

None of that hidden engineering shows once the fur and the big cartoonish eyes go on. What’s left looks entirely harmless, friendly enough to hand to a kid, right up until someone notices it also streams video, plays media, and somehow doubles as a bag you can carry over one shoulder. That kind of layered function inside a shape nobody would ever suspect is exactly what makes a build like this worth remembering.

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The Mac Mini Belongs on a Desk, This Build Runs It From Your Hands

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Most people who outgrow a Mac Mini just buy a bigger one. One builder went the opposite direction, gutting an M4 Mac Mini down to its bare motherboard and squeezing the entire machine into something you hold in two hands. The result runs full macOS, plays games with real controllers, and never touches a wall outlet, proving Apple’s desktop silicon was never actually tied to a desk in the first place.

The trick starts with restraint rather than miniaturization. Instead of ripping out Apple’s factory heatsink and blower fan to save space, the build keeps that original cooling setup intact, letting the M4 chip run demanding workloads without throttling under heat. The motherboard and its cooling system then slide into a custom 3D-printed shell nicknamed the Mac Nano, treating Apple’s silicon less like a sealed product and more like a component waiting to be rehoused.

Designer: Shing Solutions

That shell doesn’t bolt permanently into the cyberdeck’s body. It slides in and out on rails instead, resembling something closer to a Game Boy cartridge than a soldered motherboard. Pull it free, and the rest of the handheld, its screen, its keyboard, its controllers, stays behind as a shell ready for whatever core gets slotted in next, whether that’s a repair, an upgrade, or an entirely different chip generation down the line.

Up front sits a 7-inch touchscreen running at 120Hz, paired with a shrunken QWERTY keyboard that includes its own built-in touchpad. That keyboard began as a wireless accessory, but its battery got pulled and rewired to draw power straight from USB instead, trimming both weight and one more thing that could run out of charge mid-session.

Gaming input came from an unexpected donor. Circuit boards pulled from genuine Nintendo Joy-Con charging grips now sit on rails built into both sides of the cyberdeck, wired directly rather than paired over Bluetooth. Since macOS has no native support for wired Joy-Cons, Steam’s controller mapping layer bridges that gap, turning what looks like a stripped-down laptop into something that plays games with console-grade tactile controls in hand.

Wiring that many peripherals into one small chassis created its own bottleneck. The fix came from combining two miniature USB splitter boards into a single custom three-port hub, stripped of their bulky original connectors to fit the tight internal layout. A bank of rechargeable cells rounds out the build, feeding a custom power delivery setup that keeps the whole machine running for hours without a cable in sight.

None of these choices were about making the smallest possible Mac Mini. They were about proving a desktop chip could be pulled apart, rehoused, and handed a battery without losing what made it worth owning in the first place. That kind of modular thinking, where the computer becomes a swappable cartridge rather than a sealed box, points toward a version of portable computing that upgrades in pieces instead of getting replaced whole.

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The Cyberdeck Trend Went Viral and Raspberry Pi Just Made It Official

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A cyberdeck, as Raspberry Pi defines it in its freshly published official build guide, is something you make to solve a problem that a conventional tablet or laptop simply can’t, or just to build something entirely your own for no reason beyond the satisfaction of doing it. That definition is broad on purpose. The cyberdeck trend has been all over social media and the Internet for months now, and Raspberry Pi has finally stepped in with its own version.

The concept traces back to William Gibson’s cyberpunk novels, where cyberdecks were the portable hacking tools of futuristic underground operators. What people are building now is less dystopian but arguably more interesting: compact, custom computers assembled from parts, housed in whatever enclosure the builder can imagine, running whatever software fits the project. Briefcases, mint tins, old pocket computers, wooden boxes, purses, prop replicas, and more have all served as cyberdeck enclosures.

Designer: Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi’s reference build keeps things approachable for first-timers. The brain of the whole thing is a Raspberry Pi 5 board paired with Raspberry Pi flash storage. The keyboard is the Rii RK302, a low-profile Bluetooth model small enough to fit inside the chosen case. Audio comes from the Pimoroni Picade Max USB Audio, a compact USB-C sound card with a 3W stereo amplifier that handles everything through a single connection, leaving the 40-pin GPIO header completely free for other uses.

Power comes from a LiPo battery tucked underneath the keyboard plate, a small but deliberate detail that keeps the layout clean while making the computing stack accessible whenever needed. The whole assembly sits inside a black Pelican-style hard case, which is weatherproof, carries a handle, and is widely available at various price points. It’s an unassuming container that happens to hold a working personal computer inside.

The guide is structured around four decisions: brains, peripherals, power supply, and case. Each section walks through the considerations that matter most, power consumption, processing power, fit, and form, without prescribing a single right answer. The Pelican-style case gets the most airtime because Raspberry Pi says the case is what defines a cyberdeck. Pick a different container, and you get a fundamentally different machine.

Customization is built into the concept from the start. A Raspberry Pi Pico can be added as a secondary processor to drive a smaller auxiliary display, control LEDs, or monitor the battery level in real time. The guide notes this explicitly and frames it as just the beginning of what you can bolt on. For anyone who wants a project that never really finishes, that’s part of the appeal.

The timing connects to something real. The viral wave of cyberdeck content on the Internet has pulled in creators who’ve built these machines into everything from jewelry boxes to rehabbed thrift store bags. Some have attracted millions of views. Raspberry Pi’s social team admitted it “hasn’t been able to get away from” the trend, which makes the official guide feel less like a product launch and more like the company finally joining a conversation it had been watching for a while.

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Flipper One Behind The Scenes: “Sharper, Smarter, More Cunning, Brutal” says Flipper CEO

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When you first see the Flipper One, it’s clear something has changed. Its predecessor, the Flipper Zero, had the playful, almost toy-like charm of a 90s gadget. It was clever, compact, and just a little bit mischievous. The Flipper One, by contrast, is not playing around. With its exposed metal, ruggedized shell, and dense, purposeful form, it looks less like a hacker’s Tamagotchi and more like something you’d find bolted to the dashboard of a military vehicle. The design language has become, in the words of Flipper’s CEO Pavel Zhovner, “sharper, smarter, more cunning, more brutal.”

The source of this aesthetic shift isn’t another cyberpunk movie. While the team’s love for William Gibson’s Johnny Mnemonic is still part of the lore, the Flipper One’s design was shaped by a much more tangible artifact. “There was a very tangible, physical reference this time too,” Zhovner explains in an exclusive interview with Yanko Design, “the Yaesu FT-897D radio transceiver. It’s serious field communications equipment.” That single object unlocks the entire story behind the Flipper One’s aggressive new form. The team’s earliest prototypes, he notes, were shaped by hand in polymer clay to mimic the radio’s rugged, function-first ergonomics, and even then, they “looked remarkably close to it.”

Designers: Pavel Zhovner & Flipper Devices

Yaesu FT-897D radio transceiver

This move from fiction to field equipment wasn’t just a stylistic choice; it was a direct response to the device’s new capabilities. The core challenge in creating the Flipper One wasn’t about living up to the Zero’s reputation, but a years-long technical quest. “For years, we were chasing the right balance between performance, battery life, and price,” Zhovner recalls. Every processor they considered “forced a compromise we weren’t willing to make.” The breakthrough finally came with the arrival of the RK3576 chip. “The moment we looked at its performance specs and peripheral support, we knew – this was it.”

But that power came at a cost: heat. “Unlike Flipper Zero, Flipper One runs hot,” Zhovner says. Suddenly, the housing couldn’t just be a passive shell; it had to become an active part of the thermal solution. This is where the Yaesu’s design influence became critical. The rugged, armored look isn’t just for show. “The metal elements are doing real thermal work, acting as part of the cooling system,” Zhovner points out. The design team decided to lean into this necessity, creating a device that visually communicates its own power and thermal demands. The Flipper One wears its cooling system like armor because, in a very real sense, it is.

This philosophy of brutal honesty extends to the iconic dolphin mascot, which has also evolved. It’s now sharper, more angular, and decidedly less friendly – a reflection of the smarter, more powerful machine it represents. This commitment to a cohesive design language is rooted in the team’s belief in their core visual element. “We’re simply in love with our aggressive triangle,” Zhovner states. “It was never up for debate.” The goal was to preserve that instant recognizability while adapting it to a more demanding set of functional requirements.

Preliminary clay model of the Flipper One

The device’s functionality was also shaped by hard-won lessons from the Flipper Zero. One of the biggest takeaways was that expandability should never come at the expense of usability. “With Flipper Zero, the moment you plug in any module, the whole experience degrades,” Zhovner admits. “It becomes harder to carry and pocket, and the port takes a beating over time.” For Flipper One, this led to a strict design mandate: modules had to integrate seamlessly. The team landed on two types – M.2 and GPIO – both designed to either “disappear completely under the back cover, or they extend flush along the rear surface.” It’s a small detail that reveals a mature approach to product design, focused on the realities of daily use.

Ultimately, the Flipper One’s serious, function-driven design is meant to signal that it’s an entirely different kind of tool. Zhovner is quick to clarify that this isn’t a replacement for the Flipper Zero. Instead, the two devices operate on different technological layers. Flipper Zero is a “Layer 0” offline tool for NFC, RFID, and other low-level interfaces. Flipper One is a “Layer 1” IP/network cyberdeck – a pocket-sized, open Linux computer. It can be a portable gateway, a smart home hub, a media center, or a radio platform for listening to everything from pilot communications to satellites.

By grounding its design in the world of serious hardware, Flipper has created a device that feels less like a controversial gadget and more like a piece of portable infrastructure. It’s a tool that, despite its aggressive looks, is designed to be quietly useful, whether as a travel router in a hotel or a honeypot sensor guarding your home network. The Flipper One’s journey from a clay model inspired by a ham radio to a finished cyberdeck is a story of a company, and a product, that is growing up.

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This BlackBerry Cyberdeck Brings Back the QWERTY Keyboard, Powered by an old Intel Compute Stick

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Everyone has a drawer somewhere with a dead BlackBerry sitting at the bottom of it, wedged between a tangle of old chargers and a phone you swore you’d sell on eBay someday. Most of those BlackBerrys are never coming back to life, the batteries swollen and the software hopelessly outdated, fit only for nostalgia and the occasional TikTok unboxing. One Reddit user looked at that drawer of dead phones and saw raw material instead of trash. Rather than reviving an old BlackBerry as a phone, they ripped out just the keyboard and gave it an entirely new life and purpose. What came out the other end looks like a BlackBerry, types like a BlackBerry, and yet runs on hardware that has nothing to do with phones at all.

The build, posted by a Redditor going by thetechdoc, is currently named the blackberry cyberdeck while the comments section argues over something catchier. In place of a BlackBerry’s actual phone parts, the keyboard now sits on top of a tiny stick computer, the same kind of gadget people used to plug into a TV’s HDMI port to stream movies. It runs on a homemade power setup too, combining a charging circuit pulled from a phone charger with a battery salvaged from an old Android handheld, enough for about six hours of video so far. Everything is wrapped in a 3D printed shell that’s currently mint green, with a matte black version planned once the fit is finalized. There’s even talk of giving away the design for free, so anyone with a 3D printer and a soldering iron could build their own slice of BlackBerry nostalgia.

Designer: thetechdoc

BlackBerry’s keyboards were built for thumbs, with a slight curve on each key that helps you find letters without looking down. That shape is exactly why this build works, since the keys were already sized for something this small. We’ve covered cases like Clicks that bolt a similar keyboard onto an iPhone, though the phone grows noticeably longer to make room. This build skips that tradeoff by ditching the smartphone entirely and building a new device around just the keyboard. The footprint stays close to the keyboard’s own size, with a small screen stacked directly above it.

The project started as an attempt to retire an aging Palm Tx PDA, mainly for reliable alarms and a calendar. Small Android powered boards turned out to be a dead end, since none of them could properly sleep and wake. A rumored Palm OS port for the tiny Pi Pico chip also came up empty, with no public files anywhere. The fix ended up being an old Intel Compute Stick, a mini PC once meant for the back of a TV. It already has a working power button for sleep and wake, solving the one problem that kept derailing earlier attempts.

Crack the case open and it looks more like a tiny power station than a phone, with a charging board salvaged from a portable charger. A battery pulled from an old Android handheld powers it all, good for around six hours of video so far. A pair of USB ports and an HDMI output line the edge of the case for accessories or a monitor. Even the name is still up for grabs, with suggestions ranging from Deckberry to the slightly unfortunate Dickberry. Color is just as undecided, with the mint green prototype splitting opinion against the matte black finish planned for later.

What you can actually do with it once it’s finished is the more interesting question, since the x86 chip allows a real desktop operating system instead of the cut down mobile interfaces most pocket computers settle for. thetechdoc plans to run CentOS or Fedora as the main system, with an Android x86 build available as a secondary option for app heavy tasks. That means actual desktop software runs natively, browsers, terminal access, file managers, even basic coding tools, rather than a locked down phone interface pretending to be a computer. The original PDA goal of alarms and a calendar still works fine, but now it sits alongside the ability to SSH into a server, edit a document, or use the whole thing as a tiny desktop once it’s plugged into a monitor. What it adds up to is a genuinely useful pocket sized Linux machine that happens to type like a BlackBerry.

thetechdoc has floated releasing the design files for free, undercutting paid BlackBerry keyboard decks like the HackberryPi that sell for around $90 to $125 USD. All it would cost anyone else is a 3D printer, a soldering iron, and some patience. If the final version works, BlackBerry diehards finally have a good reason to dig that old keyboard muscle memory back out of storage.

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Forget the Steam Deck, This Custom-Built Handheld Runs a Full Linux Desktop in Your Palms

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Before the iPhone arrived in 2007 and quietly buried the category, handheld PCs were shaping up to be something genuinely exciting. Devices like the Sony Vaio UX and OQO Model 2 promised a full desktop OS in your jacket pocket, and for a brief window, that felt like the obvious future of personal computing. Smartphones won that argument decisively, and the handheld PC faded into a footnote. A YouTuber who goes by Wisce decided that footnote deserved a second chapter, and built one himself from scratch.

The result is a fully custom x86 handheld computer built around the LattePanda Mu single-board computer, running Linux Mint on a 7-inch 1920×1080 120Hz display. It has a full QWERTY ortholinear thumb keyboard with custom-printed keycaps, a Joy-Con thumbstick repurposed as a mouse, a horizontal scroll wheel, four USB ports, a full-size HDMI output, USB-C charging, and a 4,500mAh battery pack with a three-digit readout that tells you exactly how much juice is left. Every single component was designed, sourced, or fabricated by hand.

Designer: Wisce

The LattePanda Mu is an x86 SBC that outperforms even the Raspberry Pi 5 by a notable margin, and Wisce built a custom carrier board for it rather than using an off-the-shelf solution. That board delivers four full-size USB ports, a full-size HDMI port, M.2 SSD and Wi-Fi slots, and internal USB connectors for the keyboard and audio subsystem. A 1TB SSD and a budget Wi-Fi card complete the internals. The operating system is Linux Mint, chosen partly on merit and partly because Wisce’s previous builds attracted considerable audience displeasure when they shipped with Windows 11. Linux also strips out the background process bloat that Windows tends to accumulate, giving the Mu’s x86 architecture more room to breathe.

The display decision alone took multiple iterations to land. Wisce initially planned to use a 1024×600 60Hz panel from DF Robot, the parent company behind the LattePanda line, but rejected it for its low resolution, large bezel, and limited refresh rate. The replacement is a 1920×1080 120Hz eDP panel with a much thinner bezel, connected directly to the Mu’s native eDP output via a custom PCB that reroutes a pin mismatch between the two connectors. That kind of problem-solving shows up everywhere in this build: when a straightforward solution didn’t exist, Wisce designed one.

The keyboard runs on a custom PCB with an RP2040 microcontroller integrated directly into the board, bypassing the need for a separate Arduino or Pi Pico. The switches are surface-mount tactile types rated for around two million presses, sized small enough to fit a full QWERTY layout without sacrificing the thumb-typing ergonomics the ortholinear arrangement was chosen to support. Keycaps were modeled in Fusion 360 and printed on an FDM machine using a 0.2mm nozzle and multi-material filament to get legible, sharp legends on each key. The Joy-Con thumbstick on the left handles cursor movement via a QMK profile that maps it as a mouse, and the horizontal rotary encoder scroll wheel on the right is, by Wisce’s own admission, one of his favorite things about the finished device.

The enclosure is a two-part construction: a translucent resin rear shell that keeps the internal geometry visible, and an aluminum front plate that was CNC machined, anodized, then repainted by hand after the factory “champagne” finish came out looking closer to a flesh tone than the golden bronze Wisce had rendered. The finished device is 36mm thick at its deepest point and weighs approximately one kilogram, which puts it in a different category from a Game Boy but well within the range of something you’d actually carry. A 3D-printed dock props it upright on a desk with the HDMI port and USB-C charging accessible, turning the handheld into a functional desktop workstation when paired with an external keyboard and mouse.

What makes this build genuinely compelling, beyond the craftsmanship, is how clearly it articulates a design philosophy that commercial manufacturers keep fumbling. Devices like the GPD Win 5 chase gaming performance and end up compromising portability or pricing out most buyers. The Steam Deck nails the gaming use case and handles general computing as an afterthought. Wisce’s machine is neither of those things. It’s a full x86 desktop OS in a form factor that fits in two hands, with physical controls that were chosen specifically for the way humans hold objects, a battery system that actually communicates with its user, and a screen bright and sharp enough to make the whole proposition feel current. The handheld PC category failed twenty years ago because the hardware wasn’t ready. This build suggests the hardware has been ready for a while, and we’ve just been waiting for someone stubborn enough to put it together properly.

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