RISC OS Handheld?

Ever on the lookout for a decent replacement for a Psion 5mx, I came across this and took the £70 punt to pick one up from MyGo.

As a Psion replacement, it’s manageable, but with a 1.2GHz single core ARMv7 processor and 1GB RAM, I figured it might be good for RISC OS. It also has a mouse with built in click-button that could be used as Select and maybe the Menu and Back buttons at the top could be utilised as other mouse buttons.

What do people think? At that kind of price, assuming there’s a big enough supply, is this worthy of a porting attempt? Having checked the actual hardware using an Android app, I have deciphered it is an Allwinner A10, and there’s a datasheet here but I have no idea if that’s of any help.

The Allwinner datasheet is an 83 page overview. The OMAP4430 and its support chips datasheets total IIRC over 3000 pages. I’ve seen frequent posts that no one has yet got full A10 datasheets:-(

According to various unauthoratitive pages I found the GoNote7 & 10 uses a Fuzhou Rockchip Electronics RK2918 there doesn’t appear to be any Datasheet or Android sources on their website http://www.rock-chips.com/a/en/products/RK29_Series/2013/0731/329.html which not a good start.

The next problem is that even if a highly skilled RISC OS programmer was to work full time on a port, starting straight away, by the time they had anything remotely useable by an end user the GoNote is unlikely to still be in production.
The only vaguely possible RISC OS portable would be a unit using a SoC that already has a RISC OS port. i.e. an OMAP4430 or a broadcom bcm2835 or very closely related SoC’s

That’s a No, then! :-(

I’ll just have to make do with the Android UI – not quite up to Epoc quality (or speed) but the closest thing I’ve managed to find to replace the 5mx… and, at £70, a lot cheaper than most of the other things I’ve tried.

On the other hand, the A10 is a pure Cortex A9 core+ Mali solution. For OMAP 4 products there is just a few products: Panda & some Archos tablets.

Let me know how you get on with the MyGo. I’m wondering if it might be a useful little computer for my mother.

Specifically, how good is the email and the browser compatibility? Is the browser like Android on a phone (reverts to mobile mode every chance it gets) or the one on an iPad (tries to be a grown up browser)? Is the screen nice to look at? Clear? Etc…

Thanks.

Specifically, how good is the email and the browser compatibility? Is the browser like Android on a phone (reverts to mobile mode every chance it gets) or the one on an iPad (tries to be a grown up browser)? Is the screen nice to look at? Clear?

It comes with the stock Android browser, but I installed Chrome, which looks like it loads things up in “desktop mode” rather than mobile versions. I use www.thetrailhead.co.uk as the test, as it has a very obvious mobile site on my Android phone.

It also has the stock Android email client, which I immediately disabled in favour of AquaMail, which I use across all Android devices due to its ability to back up settings and not have to re-do the account settings every time!

I’d like to say the screen is clear, but in all conscience, I can’t. It reflects its 800×480 resolution, so everything can look a little grainy. I tend to set things “small” though, so I’m partly to blame for that, but it’s no worse than a laptop. Sit it next to an IPS tablet and the difference is clear, with blacks very washed out, but it depends what you want to use it for. Text is manageable, especially if you use a medium or above font size.

The best thing about it for me is the keyboard is actualy nice to use in handheld mode. Not Psion 5mx quality, but at least Psion 3a quality! Given it’s size, it’s not too “stretchy” although capital A is tricky (a bit of a duffer if your name begins with A – I seem to be perfecting a one thumb Shift-A method!).

When you compare it to other things I’ve tried to replace the Psion 5mx, it’s the most usable to date. And I’ve tried a Sharp IS01 (poor keyboard), Netwalker (poor keyboard), PsiXPDA (poor battery and poor OS – didn’t fit on screen!), Galaxy Tab 2 with keyboard (not clamshell so always fell apart as a handheld), iPad mini clone with clamshell keyboard (needed bigger back pockets) and Sony Vaio P (poor battery, and high res screen making things unreadable). And it’s £70 direct from the manufacturer! I was prepared to take a chance on that. I like it so far, three days in. It does look a bit “childish” but no worse than any other glossy white plastic thing!

Hope that helps.

I’ve seen frequent posts that no one has yet got full A10 datasheets:-(

just a rough overview

a useful little computer for my mother

I’d suspect that the 7" screen would probably be far from ideal for silver surfers.

I’d suspect that the 7" screen would probably be far from ideal for silver surfers.

She copes okay with the iPad Mini. Though, I think a “real” keyboard might be better than poking a piece of glass.

copes okay with the iPad Mini

Fair enough. I can’t think that my parents would… however the weight of a larger tablet mightn’t be acceptable either!