This project looks like a poor man's N900
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWlZ3B_hq_g

edit: https://makezine.com/projects/build-...s-your-pocket/

yup....
definitely that....

His next project using a pi3 is more than a poor man's n900
it is the next logical conclusion since it will have much more ram...
More oomph! to do browsing and proper work on...

serendipitous-ly....
I have been spending time lately ...with a shopping list of materials to do just what he is mentioning with a pi3...

Glad you pointed the fellow out...
I'm keeping my eye on his stated next endeavor ...
instead of blind building...and mistakes made..
I may as well wait until he deals with all the fun of trial and error ....first.
Then just follow his instructions....for a more pain free conclusion.

I desire a more modern n900-esque that can handle being a daily ...

Why would one design a slider device where the bulk is in the display half, and not in the keyboard half?
I find it much more egonomically sound if I hold the fat and heavy part in my hands while only a slim and light display part slides out.

I believe, if feasible, the center of mass should never be above the upper edge of the lower half, otherwise I have to counteract the tilting momentum by constantly holding down the keyboard with my thumbs.

In fact, I thought of a similarish project using a nice already existing mechanics, namely the Asus eeePC!

As it happened I managed to get my hands on several surplus EeePC-901's which are fairly nice as it is with the original (really limited) OS they were released with but are pitifully slow when running any modern distribution. (I think the cpu is some weeny atom thingy and there is next to no RAM installed...)

The original OS has some severe limitations, like only having WEP security available! Yes, it seems WPA2 was only invented later on...
Hence need to run something more modern on them.

Well, why not rip their insides out and install a raspi-3 in the device? with modern innards it would be possible to stuff in loads of nice gadgets with space to spare! The form factor is pretty nice, with a real keyboard that's got the solid mechanical feel.

I completely agree with you sulu...
I think that the individ who did the zero term ...wanted a quick and easy ...
But I concur completely with your assessment.
top heavy ain't fun



I will have to take a look at that asus model..juice...
thanks

I have seen other peoples who have taken pi's and put them into laptop chassis...
In fact I think there is an actual pi-top for sale...if memory serves...
a laptop that has the innards of a pi.

pi's are quite versatile lil' buggers...it increasingly seems...

The EEE 901 came with an Atom N270 and 1GB of RAM. It was shipped with either WinXP or Xandros Linux. The latter was not available in all countries.
At that time the base of Xandros (Debian Sarge) was already heavily dated and the system was basically unmaintainable.

My 901 still works fine with Debian Stretch and Xfce. I upgraded the memory to 2GB (max) and replaced the stock 8GB SSD with 64GB model.
The speed is still acceptable in most stuations. Web browsing has become sort of a challenge though. The web and major browsers have picked up quite some weight during the past decade.

Now that indeed sounds more powerful than what I thought, so I rechecked what I actually have and it turns out the boxes are not 901's but 701 instead.
So by default there's Celeron-M/900MHZ with 512MB main memory and 4GB emmc drive...

ah...
poor you juice...

that being said...

Gut em'
Gut em' all





(considering halloween is on the way...)

Sounds like a "701 4G".

Its CPU is actually not that much slower than the N270 in later models. [1]
The problem is, that Asus underclocked these Celerons (to 500 or 600MHz) via BIOS settings to increase battery life. Back then, there was a quite popular tool called eee-control, which allowed to even overclock the CPU slightly (I believe the maximum was like 1.1GHz). I'm not sure If you can still find that tool anywhere, and if you would, I doubt it would work with current kernels. But then again, I'd almost expect current kernels to be able to set at least the original clock rate of the CPU without any tools.

The RAM can be increased up to 2GB (single module SO-DIMM DDR2).

There were also some after-market SSDs available to increase the internal storage. But these were comparatively expensive back then and since there was virtually no market for this form factor outside the netbooks niche, I wouldn't be surprised if you'd find any of these left. One also had to be very careful with chosing the right type of SSD, because due to the many netbook models with slightly different specs an SSD designed for one netbook model usually didn't work in another modell (interface type, jumper settings, etc.).
Most people simply resorted to increasing the storage with SD cards. The internal SSDs were hardly faster than good SD cards anyway.


[1] https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare...&cmp%5B%5D=614

My wife had a netbook once. Not an Eee but an AA1. It came with 512MB RAM and an 8GB SSD, probably the slowest there ever was. I upgraded the RAM to 1.5GB (the maximum it would take), replaced the SSD with a 100GB 2" HDD (there are such things if you look hard enough) and replaced the OS with EasyPeasy. I may have needed to file off some plastic tabs inside the box to make the HDD fit but nothing serious. It worked pretty well and EasyPeasy gave it a couple more years of life but is now gathering dust behind the sofa where she used to use it while watching TV. I may have a look what can be done with it. I do not expect the battery life to be exciting. It has never been too grand and it is now a few years old without charge...