Does it need to be so cheap? With these specs it would make a decent replacement for a low end general purpose computer. The older NUC I use for a lot of stuff has similar-to-worse specs than this thing does.
That's exactly my point! It's a low to midrange computer with extremely high portability including a grayscale display. Where else are you going to get that functionality combined as a single unit?
Considering this is 6.1 inches wide and 1.6 inches thick, I think I'd be happier with a GPD that's 6.8 inches wide and 1.0 inches thick. And I can put the screen into grayscale mode if I want?
Moreso the entire company and its variety of models, but yes. Especially when running Ubuntu. I think they have two models of the size I mentioned right now, one around $600 and one more expensive.
I have a $140 Lenovo education market laptop I got from their site, new. It doesn’t have a built in Ethernet port but I taped an L shaped usb dongle to the back.
I use it as a terminal mostly.
So I feel like if this costs more than $400, it’s DOA
Chip intended for this thing is also heavily blobbed. Even the creator lists "Push vendors to open up their existing closed-source code and ditch binary blobs entirely." as one of the goals as if small niche gadget had any chance of erven nudging the needle.
We are talking Rockchip, company mired in numerous GPL violations with latest nuking their github repository early this year.
And yet a smartphone running an FSF-endorsed distro does exist, so it's possible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5. Not free of firmware blobs though.
This is not a general purpose computer though. There is no keyboard and you would need to start adding stuff. The volumne then would be bulky as hell. Any small form factor laptop would be cheaper and easier and also has better specs.
A cheap laptop with display and keyboard, which would be capable of all that stuff the flipper can do, starts at 200 Euros.