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I'm torn. I've been waiting for a $100 "netbook" for a long time, but I wasn't expecting them to be quite so small. I seriously doubt that I could touch-type on that keyboard.

EDIT: Yes, I know that it's not meant for "normal use", but that keyboard has to be for something...



You could try this: http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.39670

It's nowhere near as open, and nowhere near as cute, but it does have a larger screen & keyboard, and 128Mb of RAM. A debian port appears to exist.

(I reviewed a very similar tablet device - same chipset - on my blog, here: http://projectgus.com/2010/06/eken-m001-android-tablet-revie... )


Getting off into a bit of a tangent here, but you may have an idea. I'm looking for the cheapest possible tablet with 1 or more USB host ports and WiFi. It doesn't have to be pretty, large, or have decent software, just needs to be open enough that I can roll a little Linux distro for it to ship some custom software on it. I've got a SmartQ v7 on the way (for unrelated purposes mainly), but they're upwards of $200, so they aren't a perfect fit. If you have any ideas, I'd greatly appreciate it.


The reviewed tablet may be good enough for you - it runs Android, so you can ship a custom app on it (unsure why you need a custom Linux distro).

Apart from that, try alibaba. http://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?SearchText=linux+tablet is a good start.

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/278705581/Cheapest_Linux_M... looked pretty decent. They say the min order is 100, but a lot of vendors are flexible on that.

Often you can find some on ebay, too.

Edit: This is $88 and is currently running WinCE on ARM. If you are lucky, the vendor might know if Linux will run: http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-7-Mini-Netbook-Laptop-Notebook-WIFI-...


http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/296708176/3G_tablet_pc_Wit...

This seems like the King sub $100 unit. Someone please buy then and test it out!!!

Edit: Found another awesome sub $100 unit.

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/313429636/Come_here_the_An...


sheeva plug!


That's a disappointing review, but it makes a lot of sense. I've been looking at that tablet since it came out. There's a video review of it as well, which was mildly favorable.

It is probably worth pointing out that the DealExtreme laptop & tablet both use an ARM cpu, which may not be open like the MIPS one, but probably is better supported (eg, Android runs on it)


Android runs on it, but (as noted in the review) Eken (and the other OEMs) haven't released any sources, so as yet there's real way to build other kernels that will boot, or support the built-in peripherals in the SoC.

I saw the video review you're talking about, I think. Maybe my expectations were just too high, or alternatively too low cos I really did buy it expecting to just pull out the main board and use that...


The biggest deficiency for its use as a netbook, however, is the lack of net.

It doesn't have any means for network connection. The only hope for network connection is mini USB, but I'm afraid it will be not easy and not practical. That's why it's more of a concept to build on than a ready netbook.


No network cards included. Remember that.




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