But that exactly is the problem!

Imagine the unlikely case that a potential manufacturer visits this thread to gauge interest for "the best Handheld gnu/linux machine". What impression will (s)he get? A barrage of "not for me" answers. So, naturally, (s)he will turn away thinking there is no point even trying.

Just another reason ...
So help in the CMC starting up! (Community Massacre Committee)
We need some real "go getters" to achieve a common ground for potential investors for the couple of people left here in the community when it is all over...

The Plan (in December)
is to asking for poll nominations
for a poll beginning New Years Day.

The poll will ask what was the best
-delivered and used during 2017-
Handheld gnu/linux device during 2017.

The plan is to start asking for nominations
before the holiday season, of course.

Note:
this does not plan to "Answer an unanswerable Question",
it is just to shed light on what
the various of 'us' here at TMO perceive

Cheers - now back to your regular programming.

Interestingly, this has occoured to me too.
There are some Cortex-A5 chips out there (eg. NXP Vybrid, but SAMA5 is such a chip too) which look hacker-friendly enough to actually design a custom board (or use a compute module developed by somebody) and maybe it's even possible to create some sort of a device with it.

Would be a cool electronics project. (The Vybrid even has a QFP package IIRC, so it could even be hand-soldered.)

However, sadly I came to the conclusion that the resulting device would not be too interesting because of the very low performance of the Cortex-A5 comparted to anything you can find in a smartphone or tablet these days.

Exactly.

UX: neither the Vybrid nor the SAMA5 has serious graphics acceleration. Which means you won't have a smooth GUI either, so you won't have groundbreaking UX either. (The Vybrid has OpenVG which nobody cares about, but even if they did, it wouldn't be on par with a proper GPU.)

Maybe such a piece of hardware would be suitable for something like an e-book reader and some light terminal usage, but I'm not even sure if it could render websites with acceptable speed.

Maybe yes, maybe no. Using an low-performance chip does not alone warrant that the device will have a low power consumption. Neither the Vybrid nor the SAMA5 is meant for this use case. Oh, and implementing power management is a bitch. And the SoC is not the only thing on board which consumes power...

Yes, using a "proper" SoC (imx, omap, whatever) would more likely result in an interesting device. However looking at how the Neo900 guys struggle with it, I'd say this is not viable for a one-man or small-team electronics project.

If you just want ssh, GNU utilities, gcc, Python, numpy, etc but don't care about (usable) linux graphics, just get an Android phone and install GNUROOT Debian and/or termux. That's what I've done (although I still carry my N900!) and it works pretty well. I can even compile things with gcc and openmp on my Android phone, and use all the cores. You can still purchase good, new Android phones with hardware keyboards. Obviously the battery life is fine. If I could just get a decent X11 server (I've tried a bunch, and as far as I can tell all Android X11 servers are unusably bad), I'd be pretty happy with my Google Pixel XL - with the battery case I have, I can go six days without recharging.

For example?

What's the best Handheld gnu/linux machine for 2017?

This year 2017 You can "buy" this:
https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/

a short list of your suggested android alts.Ken ... is a great idea ...
(although for myself...I have just about had my fill of android...and am waiting for the zerophone to hit market now...and will be making my own pi-beast this winter....below is my list of bits I am going to buy and put together....)

- pi 3 model b (of course)

- a 9 layer transparent case (perhaps add a layer or two if needed...)
with a 3.5 resistive for the top
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/172855095066?...84.m1436.l2649

- a fan (needed for what is going inside)

and for the guts ...

- a mobile power board
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/232340038249?...MakeTrack=true
(my expectation for usage of battery is purely for calls when not plugged in....)

- a 4 band gsm board
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/112537391335?...84.m1436.l2649
(I may consider the newer 900 instead of the 800)

- and the audio injector sound card
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/182655173758?...84.m1436.l2649



i was originally favouring and considering the wolfram ...a stellar product..
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/231408301175?...84.m1436.l2649
but after enough research ...
Their board is definitely out as an option. ...
pitiful pitiful..
its lack of support is astounding...
their forum is full of people asking " what happened?"
with the current pi's ...nothing but probs... ..or rather the lack of proper support for their product
(which I find amazing ...sell a product and DON'T support it???? Really????)
it's like wolfram made this wonderful product...than then afterward decided to completely forget about it and ignore it...
..to use a Trumpism ".....sad...."
So yeah...
Not interested in a luxury car with square wheels ...as the saying goes...

and I briefly considered audio injector's octo
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/172755847976?...84.m1436.l2649
but decided that was overkill and would make portability a possible issue....

I just need a decent audio card to continue puttering with real time processing ...so I can continue using gtkgep and other such fab progs. with a decent portable system and my harps..


There is my intention....
an all in oner that should do the trick

Would the Ockel Sirius be a contender here ?

I just read about it on AnandTech.
It's obviously on Wincrap 10 and the production is still ongoing (scheduled for november on IndieGoGo, even though we all know how those crowdfunding schedules go), but from the FAQ:

well you pretty much answered your own question the moment "However ..." started.

I am not about to begin "hoping" for linux support ...
on top of hoping for driver support ..."which may or may not exist"..
on top of hoping and trying to count on a windows device that is still in the limbo of crowd - funding and may or may not perform as described...look as described ....or even make it to final production ...sales and shipping ...as described.

I have a tendency to wait until a long time after device release ....
now...
to see if everything actually measures up.
If it does...I am happily impressed ...curious about the device... and supportive..and willing to invest....time effort and money...in purchases...

Start-up crowd-funding is still quite new...as modern methods go...
I think it is great...and all..
many good things have come from it...
...
But I also see... that the old "soon" ...( mantra) ...
has quite quickly past "hope" and become an expectation..a given..

Personally I don't gamble on "possibles" any more.
Established devices with track record, good support and community are better than a gamble ..they are an investment.