Tag Archives: linux

Waveshare Built a $149 Handheld That Runs Full Linux Without the Laptop

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The handheld computer has always been a compelling idea that rarely lives up to its promise. Smartphones are too locked down for real development work, and tablets occupy an awkward middle ground between a phone and a laptop. Pocket PCs, mini notebooks, and DIY computer builds have all tried to fill the gap, but each one compromised too heavily on usability or demanded too much assembly.

Waveshare’s PocketTerm35 takes a more deliberate approach, landing somewhere between a purpose-built tool and a proper portable computer. Compatible with the Raspberry Pi 4B and Pi 5, it wraps a complete Linux terminal experience into a handheld unit that’s ready to use right out of the box. Everything from the display and keyboard to the battery and connectivity is already integrated, so there’s nothing left to hunt down or assemble.

Designer: Waveshare

At 93.5mm x 168.5mm x 37mm, the PocketTerm35 fits comfortably in one hand, though it has enough weight to feel substantial rather than cheap. The front panel is CNC-machined aluminum, giving the face a solid, slightly industrial character. The rear is plastic, which helps keep the overall weight manageable. Status LEDs sit above the display, and dedicated boot and reset buttons are tucked on the back.

The 3.5-inch IPS touchscreen sits at a 640 × 480 resolution, which is modest by modern standards but appropriate for a terminal environment where text clarity matters more than pixel density. Optical bonding seals the glass to the panel, reducing reflections and making the screen usable outside without squinting. The 5-point capacitive touch surface sits under toughened glass with 6H hardness, which should hold up well against daily wear.

Below the screen is a 67-key QWERTY silicone keyboard laid out in a standard layout for typing commands, editing code, or navigating menus. A dedicated RP2040 microcontroller manages keyboard input, screen brightness, and volume, offloading those control tasks from the Raspberry Pi itself. The arrangement keeps the main processor free for heavier work, which is the kind of practical engineering detail that makes the difference in a device like this.

Power comes from a 5,000mAh lithium battery with a built-in UPS system that supports seamless switching between battery and external power without losing your session. You can run it plugged in at your desk, then pull the cable and walk away without any disruption to whatever’s running. It’s the kind of reliability that makes a handheld device genuinely trustworthy to use rather than just technically portable on paper.

Connectivity is where the PocketTerm35 avoids the usual compromises. Four USB-A ports and an RJ45 Ethernet jack handle wired needs, alongside a 3.5mm audio jack and a 2W built-in speaker. An I2C expansion header opens things up for custom hardware add-ons. It also supports RetroPie, so the same machine that handles a terminal session during a work trip can become a retro gaming console once the day is done, especially considering it has ABXY buttons.

The PocketTerm35 ships in a few configurations. The Pi5 variant includes a 1GB Raspberry Pi 5, a 64GB microSD card with the system preloaded, and the 5,000mAh battery, all for $148.99. A Pi 4B version is available for $179.99. Developers who’ve been carrying a laptop just to have a real terminal within reach might find the PocketTerm35 a far more sensible answer to that specific problem.

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This Finnish Privacy-focused Linux Phone Wants You to Forget Google Exists

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Finland gave us Nokia, the company that taught an entire generation what a mobile phone could be before the iPhone rewrote the rules. That legacy didn’t vanish when Microsoft bought Nokia’s devices division in 2013. It splintered into smaller, fiercer projects, including Jolla, a company founded by ex-Nokia engineers who refused to let European mobile technology die quietly. Jolla launched its first phone in 2013 running Sailfish OS, a Linux-based alternative to Android and iOS, and while that device never broke into the mainstream, it proved something vital: you could build a commercial-grade mobile OS outside the American duopoly. Thirteen years later, Jolla is back with new hardware, 10,000 pre-orders, and a renewed argument that Europe deserves its own smartphone ecosystem.

The new Jolla Phone costs €649 and ships in two waves, the first batch leaving Finland at the end of June 2026, with a second limited run of 2,000 units arriving in September. It runs Sailfish OS 5, the latest iteration of Jolla’s Linux-based platform, and it supports Android apps through an emulation layer that strips out Google’s surveillance infrastructure. The hardware sits comfortably in mid-range territory: a 6.36-inch Full HD+ AMOLED display, MediaTek Dimensity 7100 5G chipset, 8GB of RAM (expandable to 12GB), and 128GB of storage (upgradable to 256GB). Final assembly happens in Salo, Finland, the same city where Nokia used to manufacture millions of handsets per year, and every unit ships with a physical privacy switch that kills the microphones, cameras, and Bluetooth when you flip it.

Designer: Jolla Phone

The design language leans heavily into Scandinavian minimalism with a splash of nostalgia. The Orange colorway (one of three finishes alongside Snow White and Kaamos Black) features a vibrant coral hue that recalls the bold plastics Nokia used on devices like the Lumia 920. The rear panel is smooth and removable, emblazoned with a script “jolla” wordmark and the Sailfish OS logo at the bottom. Two camera lenses sit in the top-left corner in a vertical arrangement, and the overall footprint is boxy and utilitarian rather than chasing the curved-edge aesthetic that dominates Android flagships. Physical buttons line the right edge, the top houses what appears to be a modular accessory port, and the bottom edge packs a USB-C port flanked by speaker grilles. The front is all screen with minimal bezels, no notch, and no hole-punch cutout, giving the display a clean, uninterrupted canvas.

Jolla’s privacy commitments go deeper than marketing copy. The physical privacy switch, located on the side of the device, cuts power to the microphones, cameras, and Bluetooth radios entirely, a hardware-level kill switch that software toggles can’t replicate. Sailfish OS doesn’t require a Google account, doesn’t collect location data for advertising, and doesn’t send telemetry back to corporate servers. The operating system compiles from source code in-house, and Jolla installs it manually in Finland rather than relying on third-party ODMs. The battery is user-replaceable, a feature that disappeared from flagship phones over a decade ago, and one that extends the device’s practical lifespan well beyond the typical two-year upgrade cycle.

The modular back panel revives the “Other Half” concept from the original Jolla Phone, which allowed users to swap colorful rear covers that could also carry NFC chips to trigger UI themes and functionality changes. This time around, Jolla is opening the platform to third-party designers and hardware hackers, with potential add-ons including secondary e-ink displays, physical keyboards, and extended batteries. Android app compatibility comes courtesy of Jolla’s AppSupport layer, which emulates the Android runtime without Google Play Services, meaning banking apps, messaging platforms, and productivity tools run normally but without the tracking apparatus baked into standard Android. It’s a pragmatic compromise: you get access to the app ecosystem that makes a smartphone functional in 2026, but you don’t hand over behavioral data in exchange.

Jolla CEO Sami Pienimäki positioned the phone explicitly as a statement of technological sovereignty, arguing that Europe’s dependence on American mobile infrastructure represents both a privacy liability and a strategic weakness. Only four commercial-grade mobile operating systems exist today: iOS and Android from the United States, HarmonyOS from China, and Sailfish OS from Finland. Antti Saarnio, chairman of the Jolla Group, acknowledges the phone will remain a niche product in the near term but frames it as infrastructure for what comes next, particularly as AI reshapes the form factors and interaction models we use to access computing. Whether Jolla scales beyond enthusiasts and privacy advocates depends on how well Sailfish OS holds up in daily use and whether the company can sustain hardware production beyond these initial batches.

The Jolla Phone is available now for pre-order in EU countries, the UK, Norway, and Switzerland, priced at €649 with a €99 deposit required upfront. The September 2026 batch is capped at 2,000 units, and given that the first wave of pre-orders moved 10,000 devices in just three months, that inventory won’t last long. A U.S. launch is under consideration but has no confirmed timeline, and while the phone should theoretically work with major American carriers, it lacks FCC approval. If you’ve been waiting for a legitimate alternative to the iOS-Android duopoly, this is the closest thing Europe has built in over a decade.

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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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The Brax open_slate is a modular tablet that lets you actually own what you buy

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Most tablets arrive as sealed objects with decisions already made for you: storage is fixed, the battery is buried somewhere inaccessible, and the operating system is whatever the manufacturer chose. You use the device on those terms until it slows down or falls out of software support, and then you replace it. Brax Technologies, the company behind the BraX3 privacy smartphone, is betting there’s a different way to do this.

The open_slate is a 12-inch 2-in-1 tablet that treats its hardware as a starting point rather than a finished product. Inside the chassis sits an M.2 2280 slot, a standard used in laptops and desktops, allowing owners to swap in faster storage, add capacity, or eventually slot in a network card. There’s also a user-replaceable battery, which sounds mundane until you consider how few tablet makers have bothered to include one in years.

Designer: Brax Technologies

That battery holds 8,000mAh and carries a claimed 20-hour runtime, a figure that tracks given how efficiently ARM processors handle light workloads. The MediaTek Genio 720 chip pairs two Cortex-A78 performance cores with six Cortex-A55 efficiency cores. It’s a capable mid-range processor, not a desktop replacement, but paired with either 8GB or 16GB of RAM and a 120Hz display, daily use should feel smooth for the tasks the device is designed for.

That 12-inch IPS screen runs at 1600 x 2400 resolution with Gorilla Glass protection and supports a stylus at 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity. Connectivity covers Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, GPS, and two USB-C ports, one supporting DisplayPort 1.4 output. Someone writing on the go, sketching ideas, or running a Linux terminal while connected to an external monitor could reasonably treat this as a primary machine, provided the software cooperates.

On that note: the open_slate ships with BraxOS, a de-Googled Android build, and targets Ubuntu support through MediaTek’s Genio developer platform. Brax acknowledges that some Linux features may not be complete at launch, which is an honest position for a small team working outside the mainstream supply chain. ARM Linux has improved considerably, but it still surprises you at inconvenient moments.

The physical kill switches are the most distinctive feature on paper. Dedicated toggles cut power to the cameras, microphone, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS at the hardware level, not through a software setting that an app might quietly bypass. This design logic comes from the secure laptop world, and applying it to a consumer tablet is unusual enough to notice. For anyone who’s thought seriously about what their devices transmit and to whom, the appeal is immediate.

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This Phone Runs Android, Linux, and Windows to Replace 3 Computers

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Carrying more computers than you want is familiar. There is a personal phone, maybe a MacBook, and then a separate Windows laptop “just for work” or a Linux box for coding. Phone-as-PC ideas have been floating around for years, but they usually stop at a half-baked desktop mode that feels more like a demo than something you would actually use for hours at a stretch.

NexPhone is an Android 16 handset built on Qualcomm’s QCM6490, a long-term-support chip Qualcomm says will be backed through 2036. That is rare in phone marketing, but it matters when the device is also your computer. It has 12 GB of RAM, 256 GB of storage with microSD expansion, a 6.58-inch 120 Hz display, a 5,000 mAh battery, dual rear cameras, dual SIM, wireless charging, and MIL-STD-810H plus IP68/IP69K ruggedization.

Designer: Nex Computing

NexOS lets you treat the phone as three machines in one. On its own, it is a clean Android system with no bloatware. Plug it into a monitor, and you can switch into Android desktop mode or full Debian-based Linux with hardware acceleration, sharing folders between them. If you opt in, you can also boot Windows 11 on Arm, turning the phone into a tiny Windows PC when docked.

NexPhone builds a custom Windows Mobile UI on top of Windows 11, a grid-style launcher inspired by old Windows Phone tiles to make the OS less painful on a small screen. For desktop use, the phone ships with a five-port USB-C hub that fans out to HDMI, keyboard, mouse, and power. Any desk with a monitor becomes your workstation with a single cable, and you pick up at home where you left off at the office.

Windows 11 on Arm still has app compatibility gaps and relies on emulation for many x86 programs, which can hurt performance and battery life. Multi-booting Android, Linux, and Windows adds complexity that appeals to enthusiasts more than casual users. Putting phone, PC, and laptop brain into one device also means a single point of failure, and the rugged build does not remove the need for backups and a fallback plan.

With the optional NexDock laptop shell, you can plug in and get a 14.1-inch display, keyboard, and trackpad in airport lounges or coffee shops without carrying a full laptop. It is designed for people who already juggle multiple OSes and want to consolidate, but not for those hoping to escape complexity. The promise to support the device for a decade is either visionary or risky, depending on how seriously you take startup hardware commitments.

NexPhone is less about convincing everyone to ditch laptops and more about giving the Linux-comfortable, multi-OS crowd a serious shot at carrying one device instead of three. It treats the phone, the OS stack, and the docking experience as one design problem. Whether that holds up depends less on the specs and more on whether the software behaves like three clean experiences instead of one messy compromise.

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Miyoo Mini Flip Shrinks Retro Gaming into a 2.8-Inch Folding Square

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Retro handhelds have exploded in the last few years, from chunky bricks to tiny keychain consoles, and a lot of them still feel like little Linux boxes with buttons bolted on. The Game Boy Advance SP’s clamshell still lives rent-free in people’s heads, that satisfying snap when you close it, and the way it fits into a pocket without scratching the screen. The Miyoo Mini Flip is a modern answer to that memory, scaled for pockets and commutes.

The Miyoo Mini Flip is a folding version of Miyoo’s tiny emulation handheld, now with an upgraded hinge for better durability. Closed, it is a 2.68‑inch square about 0.79 inch thick, small enough to disappear into a jeans pocket or bag. Open it up, and you get a full control deck and a 2.8‑inch screen, turning idle minutes into quick sessions of 8‑bit and 16‑bit comfort food without needing to commit to a full setup.

Designer: Miyoo

The 2.8‑inch IPS panel runs at 750 × 560 with a 4:3 aspect ratio, which lines up nicely with most classic consoles. The marketing calls it “3× pixel perfect,” hinting at clean integer scaling for certain systems, so sprites and tiles look crisp instead of smeared. Wide viewing angles and decent colour make pixel art and old racing games feel surprisingly alive on such a small canvas, bright enough to play outdoors or on a dimly lit train.

The control scheme mixes classic D-pad, ABXY face buttons, Select and Start, a Menu key, and L/L2 and R/R2 shoulder buttons tucked along the back edge. Volume and power live on the sides, with a front speaker and a TF card slot underneath. The layout feels like a mashup of modern controllers and old handhelds, giving thumbs familiar landmarks without overcomplicating a device that is meant to be grabbed and played.

The hardware is a Cortex‑A7 at 1.2 GHz, 128 MB of RAM, Linux under the hood, 2.4 GHz Wi‑Fi, and a 3.7 V 2500 mAh battery. It is tuned for NES, SNES, GBA, PS1, and similar eras, not chasing Switch-level performance. The bundle usually includes a 64 GB microSD card and USB‑C cable, so you are not hunting for storage or adapters before you can start tinkering with ROMs and emulator settings.

The hinge‑enhanced durability callout addresses early batches where people worried about wobble and wear. Closed, the Flip feels like a small, dense square you can toss into a pocket, backpack, or travel pouch without babying it. Marketing leans into travel, outdoor, waiting, and “back childhood” scenarios, which is exactly where a device like this shines, filling dead time with a few more runs of your favourite platformer or racer.

The Miyoo Mini Flip stands out beyond the emulator list. The clamshell form, upgraded hinge, sharp 4:3 IPS screen, and toy-like colours make it feel like a considered object, not another PCB in a shell. Retro games live as a small ritual in a pocket rather than a full setup on a desk, and this little folding square hits a very specific, very charming note without demanding much more than a microSD card and a willingness to revisit Super Mario World one more time.

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Jolla Phone Returns with a Physical Switch to Cut Off Mics and Tracking

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The mobile OS graveyard is crowded. Symbian, MeeGo, Firefox OS, Windows Phone, all killed by iOS and Android’s duopoly. Most people quietly accepted that those two won and moved on. Jolla started from Nokia’s MeeGo ashes in 2013, shipped the original Jolla Phone, and somehow kept Sailfish OS alive for twelve years in the wilderness. The new Jolla Phone feels less like a comeback and more like a refusal to die.

Jolla frames it as Europe’s independent smartphone, a 5G Sailfish OS 5 device built around the pitch that every Android and iPhone phones home to California. The announcement post says this is about digital sovereignty and choice rather than nationalism, but the subtext is clear: Europe needs its own mobile platform, or it stays perpetually dependent on US and China infrastructure. It is a Linux phone you are meant to daily drive, not a dev kit or novelty.

Designer: Jolla

The core specs sit in upper mid-range territory. A 6.36-inch FullHD AMOLED screen, a Mediatek 5G platform, 12GB of RAM, 256GB of storage with microSD expansion up to two terabytes, dual SIM, and a 5,500 mAh battery. The flat-sided Scandinavian design offers replaceable back covers in Snow White, Kaamos Black, and The Orange, a nod to the original Jolla’s signature color. It includes a side fingerprint reader and an RGB notification LED.

The privacy hardware choices feel almost retro. A physical privacy switch can be configured to cut off the mic, Bluetooth, Android apps, or other subsystems. The battery and back cover are user-replaceable, which feels unusual in a world of sealed slabs. Those choices align with the idea of owning your device instead of renting it, and they support Sailfish OS’s pitch as “private by design,” with no tracking or hidden analytics happening in the background.

Sailfish OS 5 is a Linux-based, gesture-heavy mobile OS that Jolla promises will get at least five years of updates without forced obsolescence. App ecosystems matter, so the phone includes Android app support via Jolla AppSupport, without Google Play Services. That means many Android apps will run, but you are not feeding data into Google’s backend every time you unlock your phone or letting services siphon usage patterns while sitting idle.

The funding model is a 99 euro fully refundable pre-order voucher toward a 499 euro final price, with production only happening if at least two thousand units are reserved. The community voted on key specs and features, and the campaign already passed its goal. The phone becomes a Do It Together project where early adopters literally decide whether it exists, and pre-order customers get a special edition back cover as a thank you.

The new Jolla Phone represents a rare, stubbornly optimistic alternative in a market that settled on two platforms years ago. It will not replace iOS or Android for most people, and there are risks around timelines and app compatibility. But for anyone who wants a phone that treats privacy, longevity, and independence as design constraints instead of afterthoughts, Jolla’s return feels like proof that small, opinionated hardware can still find oxygen if the community wants it badly enough.

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