+1 for wishing for a proper d-pad! (or well, a general hope that the directional buttons are better than on the DevTerm)
I’m also eager to see some more real world pics of it in use. Because in my mind it resembles a Pocket Operator, but then I’m sure in reality it’s wayyyy bigger than that.
Well you can see the comparison with a DevTerm above which is about the size of a DVD case, just a little bit wider.
And yeah, really wish they would do a “rocking” style d-pad instead of the separate button thing, basically every other device for retro game emulation, fantasy console etc. has that style.
Pre-ordered almost right away… and felt buyers’ remorse 5 minutes later
I just have too many gadgets with no use cases for them, but this will basically make Devterm obsolete for me. But I love it already.
I just wish it would have a touch screen finally. It’s not that I need it most of the time, but how much would that add to the price, 2$? For me that would make it more useful for ScummVM, DOSBox, Exult etc.
For those who know what that is this is basically Pocket C.H.I.P. reborn and even the size is veeery close - based on the images and comparison to my PC it’s almost the same height and will be ~1-1.5cm wider (half an inch).
For me, uConsole is so nice, the design, all metal case and the 4G capabilitie…
But I am really worried about the lead time of the first batch. I live in China and as a manager of a small OEM company, I know the COV19 and supply chain issue is really the problem.
My personal suggestion for the ClockworkPi team is focusing on the layout, the metal case, the main and 4G board. Don’t put too much effort to the A04, A06, at least within this period… Even the raspberry pi is still under shortage, I think fighting with the PCBA OEM supplier for the customized A04, A06 core board and maintaining the rom for them will take much effort than that.
I don’t know how many mambers in the ClockworkPi team at 2022. I hope my suggestion is helpful and the uConsole can be delivered quicker.
Meanwhile. I just noticed the main board, the battery board seems the same as for the DevTerm. If so there is really not so much work to do about the PCBA thing for this new device. Good news.
For the metal case, our company have about 100 vertical CNC machines, sand blasting machines and aluminum anodizing production line, located in Suzhou. We product the metal case of laptops for years. So if the metal case is the delivery bottleneck, I’m really glad to cooperate with the ClockworkPI team
Just to add if DevTerm is any indication ClockworkPI is one of the few companies, maybe along with Pine64, I’ve dealt with within the last 3 years that delivered their product on time. That was a year ago when the global situation was arguably worse than it is today. I don’t know how they do it but I was pleasantly surprised with how fast I received my DevTerm (though this is based more on my feeling than measuring the time).
Other companies which I backed/pre-ordered from had their products delayed to some extent - Pocket Popcorn Computer, Purism (Librem 5 delay is getting ridiculous in all fairness…).
Here’s hoping the same will be true for uConsole.