mobile device for development?

[stairwayoflight]

Hey everyone!

I picked up a 14.1" lappy last year, the selling point was the 12-cell battery--when my battery icon goes "red" I still have 1.5 hours left!

Unfortunately that means its a heavyweight for its size, and I've been oggling various sub-notebooks and such. What I really want is an ultraportable device I can use whenever, and keep in my pocket. I don't mind thumb-typing (like on a Rim). My guess is most such devices will have fairly inaccessible punctuation. Wifi is a must. Any suggestions?

If I can't find that, I will settle for a qwerty smartphone/pda with document editing, bluetooth, quad gsm, and full linux compatible syncing (eg. to evolution). I am thinking palm is the only option here?

[ZylGadis]

Sharp Zaurus.

[LaRoza]

Hey everyone!

I picked up a 14.1" lappy last year, the selling point was the 12-cell battery--when my battery icon goes "red" I still have 1.5 hours left!

Unfortunately that means its a heavyweight for its size, and I've been oggling various sub-notebooks and such. What I really want is an ultraportable device I can use whenever, and keep in my pocket. I don't mind thumb-typing (like on a Rim). My guess is most such devices will have fairly inaccessible punctuation. Wifi is a must. Any suggestions?

If I can't find that, I will settle for a qwerty smartphone/pda with document editing, bluetooth, quad gsm, and full linux compatible syncing (eg. to evolution). I am thinking palm is the only option here?

An EeePC might be worth looking into. I don't know what "keep in my pocket" exactly means (pocket of jeans? coat?), but an EeePC might be small enough. (Possibly less expensive than other solutions also)

[stairwayoflight]

<gripe> After googling around for several hours, I must say I am surprised at number of pages returned on a search for "linux" and "smartphone" that refer to smartphones running linux, while so relatively few refer to the compatibility of smartphones with linux computers. </gripe>

Realistically I can't yet have my cake and eat it too--I must settle for 2 separate devices, although the lines between phone and laptop have blurred it is apparently not enough. The eeepc is probably my best bet at this point.

I like the idea of booting from different sd cards; it would be fun to have one for a bsd os or two, though realistically my mainstay would still be linux. I'd probably settle for gentoo because I like the emerge system--I can keep the dep's low, there are few processes running, and I can rebuild the system optimised for SIZE (not speed, thank you) with relative ease. Truthfully I'm not familiar with the source-related debian/ubuntu tools and don't know how easy this could be accomplished with them. If it is relatively easy I'd probably be happier with ubuntu in the end.

I have always wanted to give lfs a try, maybe the 2g surf is a good excuse to do it.

[hessiess]

open pandora?

[slavik]

nokia e90 ... not linux (Symbian S60), but has wifi (including wpa2) and can run putty :)

the problem is the pricetag, a refurb one on ebay is around 630USD.

[days_of_ruin]

open pandora?
Its not out yet but +1
:)Its completely open so I would imagine developing for it would be great.

[xelapond]

The NeoFreerunner seems like a good candidate for this. Come preloaded with Linux, has Wifi, Phone, GPS, and whatever else you want to put on it. Completely open and it looks cool as a bonus!

Its not out yet, but should be coming out shortly, sometime this year.

http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo_FreeRunner
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.openmoko.com/

Good luck finding something!

[stairwayoflight]

All things considered, I still think the eeepc is the best choice for me. I would say the everex cloudbook might be a good contender, but I read it is noisy. Hp's 2133 has the free slot for eg. a wimax card, but with a 8.9" screen its a little bigger (and $500).

Apparently the "4g" non-surf version has a bit more diesel in the battery; I hope there is still a chance to pick up one of those!

[dwhitney67]

My brother has a Blackberry Curve. Using it, he was able to SSH to my computer. Once he was logged in, I'm sure he would be able to pretty do anything that typical geeks do on a Linux box.

[stairwayoflight]

Well I bit the bullet and pulled the trigger on an Eeepc 4g. $399 Canadian, although with a 16gb sd card and a 2gb ram upgrade it cost another $130.

After playing around on this thing, I am in love with the keyboard. I have quite large hands, and I was touch typing immediately. I'm glad I didn't buy the 900 or any other models even *slightly* larger.

Word to the wise though, if you buy one:

1. Make sure it has the access door to upgrade the ram. Its on the bottom.
2. Buy one with the ram slot, > 4g I believe. The 2g surf (and 4g surf?) have ram soldered to the mobo.
3. Some of the non-surf units are now shipping with the 4400mA battery. Don't buy it unless it has the 5200mA battery.

Man this thing is coming everywhere with me.