I honestly think that this tinkerer mentality is somewhat adorable; however it has yet to deliver a product that fulfills any of these criteria of mobile device with decent battery life and processing power that's pocketable. I love the Raspberry Pi devices with screens (almost all are lower resolution than I'd rather purchase).

Glad the tinkering spirit exists, I'd rather have something that does what I need with less fault points.

Funny thing that I keep circling back to - why a phone when most of you guys here (myself included) would love to have an always connected to the Internet device instead. The people that make phone calls is lesser than those that want access to our servers, our code, and our messaging platforms of choice.

Last I checked the Nokia Internet Tablet gave us that.

It's a gamble, most of us nerds will find fault in something trivial and make it into Mt. Everest but in the end, it's a better option than going full-blown Android or trusting some garbage ODM that uses off-the-shelf parts that are generations behind, a mismatch or worse.

I guess I'm of the same mind where hardware is a necessary evil to be done correctly first. The OS needs to be extensible enough to make the tinkerers happy. And putting it together, not even on my list. For a computer that makes sense. For my servers, that makes sense. For a pocketable device; that's never made sense. Not yet at least.