Qi Hardware's tiny, hackable Ben NanoNote now shipping
By Donald Melanson 
posted March 15th 2010 1:41AM
posted March 15th 2010 1:41AM
It's been something of a long road to this point (beginning with the company being founded by some laid off OpenMoko employees), but Qi Hardware's ultra-compact, open source Ben NanoNote (actually, 本 NanoNote) is now shipping for just $99. That will get you a bare bones device that can simply be used as a Linux-based "handheld laptop" out of the box or, as the company hopes, be turned into anything from a PMP to an offline Wikipedia device. Something along those lines would seem to be the most practical, considering the device only has a 3-inch 320 x 240 display, along with some similarly basic specs including a 336 MHz XBurst Jz4720 CPU, 32MB of RAM, 2GB of flash storage, and a microSD card slot for expansion. Head on past the break for a look under the lid.
Prediction: Netbooks and electronic dictionaries will eventually converge, or already have.
@onlymyrailgun omg that is so litte ram. i mean what am i saying, that is so little screen!!!!!!
@onlymyrailgun
My electronic dictionary is a steaming pile of crap because the publishers won't get their act together and hyperlink the data. It's just a digital version of a half dozen dictionaries, each one blind to the other. So if you read a word in the Japanese-Japanese definition you don't understand you cannot click on it to look it up in the Japanese-English entries for example, or find the hiragana reading. Total pain in the ass.
I'd pay money for something decent on my netbook.
Unfortunately little banananote here doesn't look to be much of an answer to anything.
@bebop
Maybe you bought it from the wrong company? I reckon Sharp and Casio make some pretty good devices, albeit a little expensive. You can expand your dictionaries and e-books collection, although I'm not sure if the hyperlinking will still work with those.
@bebop if we get this working for you, would you buy a banananote?
Double the RAM and you can run XP!
@FauxNews you've missed the point entirely.
@FauxNews
Double the Ram and it would feel like haveing your first laptop 15 years ago, heck it would run windows 95 or 3.1
Ahhh feeling nostalgic already
@8th Gamer
15 years ago you'd have a toshiba libretto and be now wondering WTF with the "new" netbook fanboi set. Toshiba beat the Eee by yup nearly 15 years
Considering that most smartphones are more powerful than this WITH better and bigger displays...what's the point? Everyone already needs a phone...why waste the extra 100 bucks for something totally useless?
This looks like Qi is asking for a reason to file Chapter 11.
@JFlowas Not on a ARM based laptop your not ;)
^^ my bad wrong reply
@fatty35 It's a MIPS anyway, not an ARM.
If you say the full name quickly its sounds like banana oat
@syko21 it*
Um.. my pre is faster and has more ram. (thats a normal pre, sans the plus)
It's meant to be a platform for developers to develop and practice on as well as a reference design, not a final consumer electronic. Currently it can be bought in packages of ten only, but it would make a great novelty if they sell it individually or if an online store decides to stock it.
@someone Why, as a developer, would I waste my time developing on this when I could easily make more money developing on android or webOS? It just seems like the incentive isn't really there.
And the thing doesn't even pack wifi. Fail.
@someone They do sell individually. It costs only $99.
@JFlowas It's for device developers. That's why it's a barebone.
@someone
The guys that know what they're taking about should be voted up.
@JFlowas For inexperienced developers, it is simple and is great for practice. The design could be re-imagined or recycled into a PMP, or an electronic dictionary by a budget brand. It's really more of a developer novelty and hobby device.
Guys, you're missing the most important spec: it's $99. Come on!
@starkruzr
Yeah and the cherrypal africa has wifi, more ram, more cpu speed.
You can polish a turd, but in the end it's still a turd.
@starkruzr
And it's Copyleft, meaning everything is open.
that............. is a low powered torrent machine right there.
Pocket NES / SNES emulator perhaps?
@HawtDawg
droid already does. like you don't want a smartphone already if you don't have one. pointless device.
$100 for a text based instant messenger / emailer / rss reader / movie time checker / weather-looker-upper sounds reasonable.
Wait, I mash all the programs in through a console? Wait, Wifi is $29 extra? Wait, my phone does all of these things already? I understand now, it's a box for hobbyist coders. I wish I had one of these growing up. But now I can buy a netbook for under $200.
I wish these guys luck.
Sorry. In day and age, I can't bring myself to consider any device that doesn't fully utilize lid area for screen. I know it's only $99, but every time I look that fat bezel, I can't help but think "junk".
@appsman
right. I'm utterly confused at this. they made a glaring mistake by not reducing the bezel to provide for a larger screen
I can't get the source links to work... :-( Well.... load, I guess.
Meh, 320x240 fits doom just perfectly! and "hackable" probably means it's already in there :)
@possan yes it is, along with quake , and some other games,
and due it's almost compatible with Dingo A320 console, a lots of ports are on their way.
you can check some videos on Doom and some apps running on Ben
here
http://www.tuxbrain.com/en/content/doom-y-quake-en-ben-nanonote-videos
and with sound at the end of post here
http://www.tuxbrain.com/en/content/fosdem2010-desde-dentro-en-un-rinc%C3%B3n
Just a qick reply to our detractors, Copyleft Hardaware and Qi Hardware project is to Hardware as GPL and GNU/Linux is to Software, is about freedom not high lastest feature commitment.
Ben in chinese means , start point so that's what Ben Nanonote is.
GNU/Linux started as console OS totally hacker oriented and in, but the freedom has make it grow to what we know today, we are trying to follow similar path but solving the difference between hardware and software.
@dsamblas awesome, i like the a320, i might just get me one of these...
Is that supposed to be in the shape of the Kanji for book?
Well it isn't the kanji for "ben", much to my relief.
@Air2ground Or origin.
(points to netbook)
That's not a bezel.
(points to benAnonote)
Not THAT'S a bezel!
Its a chinese word! 本
@onlythebrave
or 笨 if you don't put the tone in.
Looks pretty cool, Im not going to get one though..
It's a very very close relative of the Dingoo A320 emulation player.
Some of the developers involved with Dingux Linux are also very interested in this unit, so there might be some impressive stuff emerging for this platform soon.
The Bezel That Ate Tokyo!
It looks like my netbook took a poop. OR it looks like a ben hecked gameboy laptop. Guess he got sick of making 360/ps3 ones and opted for smaller less impressive.
I'm gonna get one of these to use as practice for my programming classes. Maybe I can convince the instructor to buy 9 more.
I wont let you know how that goes, mmmmkay.
Not sure you guys care but 本 means book in Japanese.
How is this different than a zipit z2. Its only $50 and has the same specs.
@markatlnk
Looks cooler for sure.
So-called laptop , 3 inch linux based LAPTOP
So where do i buy it ? company website is down?