Qi Hardware's Ben NanoNote Handheld Notebook Now Shipping

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Qi Hardware has finally begun  shipping their open-source copyleft hardware ultra-portable “handheld laptop”, dubbed the Ben NanoNote. It’s a highly hackable, compact little computer that can be used normally with it’s base Linux operating system, or it can be easily modded to do just about anything you want.

The ultra-small form factor device’s specs are pretty light, as you’d imagine, but all the hardware meets copyleft standards. It uses a XBurst 336MHz processor, 32MB of DRAM and has 2GB of flash storage. The screen is smaller than an iPhone’s as it comes in at only 3.0-inches. It does have a microSD card slot and USB port for memory and a “full” QWERTY keyboard.

It’s a pretty impressive project and reminds me of the Pandora open-source gaming handheld. Qi Hardware imagines these little devices being bought and modded to do a lot of different applications. Their website writes, “It’s targeted squarely at developers who see the promise of open hardware and want to roll their own end user experience. [...] We envision developers turning the device into a music or video player for Ogg or an offline Wikipedia or MIT OpenCourseWare appliance. Or you can simply amaze your friends by creating an ultra small handheld notebook computer.”

You could also install Windows 3.1 on it, although, that might defeat the purpose a bit. At any rate, it’s definitely a cool little device and they’re selling them for only $99. They’re now shipping from Qi Hardware’s website and they host a Wiki for guides on how to mod it to do whatever you’d like.