back to article The Gemini pocket PC is shipping and we've got one. This is what it's like

They've really gone and done it. They've made a modern Psion: a brand new computer that fits in your pocket – one you can touch-type on and everything. Planet Computing's Gemini is not just a PDA: it has been called "the only interesting phone in the market," which shouldn't sound so weird – the Gemini model with a SIM card …

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  1. Allonymous Coward

    Where Gemini's value really lies

    I think Orlowski missed a trick here. I can see quite a lot of potential value for people who really need a keyboard because their workflow doesn't support or require much else. Thinking of sysadmins and the like. It's not all about Evernote and MS Word.

    Admittedly a niche market, but this seems like a niche product.

    1. Lysenko

      Re: Where Gemini's value really lies

      Agreed. Writing English is a niche activity I can do in various ways, including this on screen touch keyboard. Writing code, particularly code that is formatting sensitive (Python), is where this is going to be a game changer (for me).

      1. Steven Raith

        Re: Where Gemini's value really lies

        I agree - as a sysadmin, the ability to pull a device out and be able to quickly through a terminal emulator and run basic diag, before dragging out the laptop if it's really necessary would be handy.

        IE doing a quick htop, df -h etc - things that aren't as easy with a soft keyboard.

        I think I'd need a reasonable linux distro on there, rather than Android, though.

        I'll be watching this with interest.

        Steven R

        1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

          Re: Where Gemini's value really lies

          I think I'd need a reasonable linux distro on there, rather than Android, though.

          I remember it being marketed as such - you were supposed to have access to the underlying Linux and it was supposed to be nowhere near as crippled like the environment used to run Android.

          I believe this is fixable. Recent android kernels have support for lxc so you should be able to spin up a proper distro as a container. This should be goof enough for most stuff.

        2. Tom 64
          Coffee/keyboard

          Re: Where Gemini's value really lies

          Just give me a fullscreen linux terminal, and I'll be very tempted to open my wallet indeed.

        3. Joel Mansford

          Re: Where Gemini's value really lies

          I run a Blackberry Key2 which I absolutely love for email, I have a terminal emulator and had every intention of using it for remote admin until I discovered that my key customers' VPN client has no Android support (but does Linux) !!

          Also the Blackberry's lack of CTRL key is quite annoying...

    2. heyrick Silver badge

      Re: Where Gemini's value really lies

      "Admittedly a niche market"

      Oh, I don't know. I'm writing this right now on an S7 with a Bluetooth keyboard because while swipe-to-type is useful, it's pretty rubbish for anybody who actually wants to write something (plus no swipe-type keyboard I've ever seen has a Tab key)...

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Admittedly a niche market"

      So niche that any device that appealed to sysadmins only has been a total failure. Especially since even many sysadmins like to show off with the latest fashionable gadget, only true die hard ones would get devices like this, and they are a niche into a niche - and without profitability, no company can survive.

    4. Oh Homer
      Meh

      I can't help feeling...

      This is just a nearly good keyboard screwed onto an Android phone.

      It's the "nearly" part that really bothers me. Well, that and the £600 price tag.

      The fact that the custom software is still in beta is annoying too, but I can overlook that for the sake of good hardware, especially as software can be easily updated.

      Sadly the hardware cannot, short of shelling out another £600 for Gemini 2.0.

      If they ever release just the keyboard, updated to be closer to the Series 5, and at a reasonable price, I'd buy it.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: I can't help feeling...

        The fact that the custom software is still in beta is annoying too, but I can overlook that for the sake of good hardware, especially as software can be easily updated.

        They are a hostage to Android and its dodgy keyboard support.

        Perhaps a touchscreen (I assume it hasn't got one) would fix the shortcut issue more easily than rewriting a load of Android apps.

        1. DJO Silver badge

          Re: I can't help feeling...

          Perhaps a touchscreen (I assume it hasn't got one)

          Assumption is the mother of all cock-ups.

          Of course it has a touch screen.

      2. Sloth77

        Re: I can't help feeling...

        It's $600 not £600 - and that is for the Wifi+4G version. The Wifi only version is $499, which is actually only about £350 in GBP.

        And I got it for £236 as an early backer :-)

  2. wolfetone Silver badge

    But how do you make a phone call with it?

    1. Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

      How

      To make a call you start the Phone app (it's on the Dock) or hit Fn-Esc. You can then close the lid and carry on talking. It doesn't matter which way up you hold it, as there are two mics, and it works out which one is nearest your gob.

      I would like to have tested this of course, but the SIM slot isn't working. If you have a wrist-jobbie that gives you alerts, it becomes feasible to replace a regular phone.

      1. Graham Dawson Silver badge

        Re: How

        A fancy watch is next on my list once the gemini had arrived. It's a combo that will serve very well, I think.

      2. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: How

        To make a call you start the Phone app (it's on the Dock) or hit Fn-Esc. You can then close the lid and carry on talking. It doesn't matter which way up you hold it, as there are two mics, and it works out which one is nearest your gob.

        DTMF is going to be a bit inconvenient.

        If you were to install a Linux distro, what happens to phone support/SIM data when running Linux?

      3. zumbruk
        Happy

        Re: How

        A "wrist-jobbie"? Really?

    2. Christian Berger

      Why would you make a phone call with it? For decades there are now mobile phones as well as payphones for when you wish to telephone when you're out and about. Also most stores and restaurants now have a telephone you could use.

      But why telephone, when you can e-mail or fax with one of those.

      1. wolfetone Silver badge

        "Why would you make a phone call with it?"

        Because it's being marketed as a phone, but no where was it explained how to make a phone call. While I agree about payphones, Frank Williams might have conducted business out of a pay phone in the early days of his team, but when he was successful he had a phone number people could reach him on.

        Thank you Andrew for the explanation. I would've thought the screen would swivel outwards so you could hold it with the screen facing you, if that makes sense? Could see the benefit of it swivelling out like that especially if you want to take notes with a stylus.

        I'm intrigued though.

        1. Phil W

          "I would've thought the screen would swivel outwards so you could hold it with the screen facing you"

          Like the old XDA Exec (HTC Universal). https://www.gsmarena.com/o2_xda_exec-pictures-1279.php

          If the Gemini was like this I'd be a bit more interested. If it had a power button I'd be a bit more interested still (I can understand key combos for lots of things, but power seems a pretty key thing to have a hardware button for), and if it wasn't so damned expensive and impractical to insure (because most phone insurance providers won't have heard of it) I'd have bought one already.

          I'm hoping they're successful and v2.0 ticks all of my boxes, but unfortunately my practical sense tells me that this isn't going to be case.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            I loved my XDA Exec, kept it running up until mid-last year when it finally died a death.

          2. wolfetone Silver badge

            "Like the old XDA Exec (HTC Universal). https://www.gsmarena.com/o2_xda_exec-pictures-1279.php"

            Exactly like that!

        2. Charlie Clark Silver badge

          I would've thought the screen would swivel outwards so you could hold it with the screen facing you

          The design was always supposed to be similar to the Psion 5. There are mechanical reasons for this not least a stable centre of gravity when typing with both hands. I suspect that doing a full swivel would have added quite a bit to the complexity. Might be done in a later model, but you might be better off with something like the I-Pad-Pro or the Surface that promise a 2-in-1.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            I suspect that doing a full swivel would have added quite a bit to the complexity

            Actually just disconnecting the rear foot from the screen would remove complexity but then you couldn't sell it as a pretend Psion.

            The fact is that this is just a smart phone in a fancy box, running something other than android would have made the difference but since the hardware was orginally for the mobile market then you have to do your own linux which is where the difference between the RPi and this or say pine64 comes.

            Now you can buy a laptop style case with 14" display/keyboard etc for the RPi and use a decent fully working/supported linux and for much less money although admittedly with correspondingly less CPU. This being because the RPi design phylosophy put more emphasis upon linux than a fancy box and have gone out of their way to keep android off the RPi.

            Thus I would say that if you want a portable keyboard with a maintained linux for say remote shell/RDP etc then the price of the added CPUs is for no benefit at all and having also kept my libretto 50 (still working on battery) I can say that remote working on a tiny screen didn't help with the aging of my eyes, the 14" one for the RPi is much more functional and people won't accuse you of excessive self abuse.

            However if you want a smart phone that says "I am a sysadmin, bow before my Psion style packaging" but doesnt come with a fully accessible linux then clearly you put useless pretties above functionality or perhaps you just want an advertising discount.

            As an asside I still have my Acorn Pocket book 2 (Psion3) and it works today just as well as it did when I bought it i.e for weeks on full batteries, show me the smartphone that is still secure, fully working and has not needed any repair for a fraction of that working life and I will agree that it is Psion like.

            http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/5047/Acorn-Pocket-Book-II/

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_Libretto

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        > But why telephone

        Because it then becomes a phone-replacement device: you don't need the weight, expense or additional SIM card of a separate phone.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @ Christian.

        You needed to put the joke icon, it's gone over a lot of peoples heads.

      4. MrRimmerSIR!

        @Christian

        "payphones"

        "fax"

        1990 called asking for its technology back.

      5. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
        Joke

        "But why telephone, when you can e-mail or fax with one of those."

        Wot? No app for sending Telex? No Morse key? Well, I'll not be buying one then!

        Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.

    3. GBE

      But how do you make a phone call with it?

      But how do you make a phone call with it?

      Now you're just being silly.

      Nobody born since the last moon landing uses phones for making phone calls.

      If "making phone calls" becomes "a thing", I'm sure somebody invent some small portable device that you can use to do that. Rumor has that Nokia used to make such things.

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: But how do you make a phone call with it?

        Sony make a little Bluetooth device about the size of a little finger. It has a small monochrome display, a 3.5 mm headset socket and physical call and media transport buttons. it can also be used as a standalone Bluetooth headset. As a bonus, it contains a standalone FM receiver, and has a clip for attaching to shirt pockets etc

        It could be a good companion to this Gemini device.

        1. Robert Carnegie Silver badge
          Joke

          Re: But how do you make a phone call with it?

          "Sony make a little Bluetooth device about the size of a little finger. It has a small monochrome display, a 3.5 mm headset socket and physical call and media transport buttons. "

          And you an use it as a stylus? :-)

  3. Shonko Kid
    Thumb Up

    Replication of key Psion use-cases

    What I want to know is, am I going to be taking it out of my pocket to find that it's drained it's battery recording 4 hours of 'pocket noise'?

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
      Go

      Re: Replication of key Psion use-cases

      And the winner of the 2018 Turner Prize is…

  4. Chris G

    I just want one!

    I had a couple of Psions back in the day, the 5 I had a couple of weeks then got burgled by some bastard.

    I write for a hobby and write notes about everything because my memory is rubbish, I have tried countless apps for writing and note taking but at the end of the day, half your screen is virtual keyboard and the other half is small script that makes my head ache. I have a Tab 4 which I like typing on but it doesn't fit in a jacket pocket, so, clamshell with real qwerty keyboard, I want.

  5. Christian Berger

    Far from complete

    I'd say a large part of the people wanting to buy that device couldn't care less about Android. They bought it because it's promised to get a propper native Linux.

    1. DarkwavePunk

      Re: Far from complete

      The following gives an update on the state of Linux on the Gemini:

      Linux update

    2. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: Far from complete

      I don't agree with this assessment I think most of us want an Android with a keyboard fro e-mail, ssh, etc. It's only a vocal few who want a full Linux on this.

      1. Phil W

        Re: Far from complete

        "It's only a vocal few who want a full Linux on this."

        Indeed, and many of those who claim to want Linux would be better served by Android anyway because most of the reason they want Linux on it is to ssh to other Linux stuff which you can do perfectly well with Android while simultaneously not making it difficult to use as a phone and cutting yourself off from a whole ecosystem of apps.

        1. Christian Berger

          Re: Far from complete

          Well Android has the problem of lots of crud from Android one does not really want.

          On the other hand Android is severely lacking on other fronts. For example if I want to take a photograph and send it via e-mail, it's very hard to scale it down to some reasonable size. On a normal Debian I could just use imagemagick or gimp to scale it down.

          Same goes for simple things like access to fileservers. Yes you can get an SMB client for Android, but for that you need Google Appstore access or root. On a normal Linux system that's just installing a package and running a mount command.

          1. Phil W

            Re: Far from complete

            @Christian Berger

            Those are some terrible points you've tried to make. Android is far from perfect but if you're going to pick holes at least pick real ones, especially ones that are OS related not specific app related.

            "For example if I want to take a photograph and send it via e-mail"

            Like most Android things this varies by what apps you install in this case your choice of Camera,Gallery and E-Mail client. But certainly the gallery app on every Android I've ever owned has an edit function which can do many things including resizing quite easily and also has a button to share via email which automatically passes it to your mail client as an attachment on a new email. While the Gmail client doesn't offer an option for resizing attached images, others do including Nine which I use.

            "Same goes for simple things like access to fileservers. Yes you can get an SMB client for Android, but for that you need Google Appstore access or root. On a normal Linux system that's just installing a package and running a mount command."

            So you're saying on a "normal Linux system" you'd have to install a package (presumably from a distro provided repo via their preferred package manager) to be able to mount SMB.

            But you have a problem with Android because you have to install an app from the vendor provided appstore using their preferred appstore interface (and actually you could find the APK for an SMB capable file explorer and install via some other method if you wished). If you can't see that these two process are very nearly functionally identical then you're clearly deliberately blinding yourself to Android because you've chosen not to like it.

            I love using Linux for lots of things, but a small form factor device with a touch screen is not one of the areas where Linux shines.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Far from complete

            '..SMB client for Android, but for that you need Google Appstore access or root.'

            F-droid

            Ghost Commander

            Ghost Commander - Samba plugin

            1. bobmajors

              Re: Far from complete

              A file manager that can access an nfs/smb share is not a substitute for the ability to mount one.

              1. werdsmith Silver badge

                Re: Far from complete

                I f***ing detest Android. To me Android is just a waste of good storage space.

          3. heyrick Silver badge

            Re: Far from complete

            "For example if I want to take a photograph and send it via e-mail, it's very hard to scale it down to some reasonable size."

            What?

            The Gallery thingy has an edit option that lets me resize, crop, and some other tweaks. I can't say I want to scale the image to an exact size, but I can shrink it down.

            The standard email client, also, has resize options (large 70%, medium 30%, and small 10%). Oh, and since you can access the filesystem (unlike iOS ;) ) you can even use the email client as a quick and simple image resizer instead of faffing around with the image editor. Just attach the image to an email, resize it, pluck it out of /Download, then cancel the email.

            So, no, not particularly hard...

          4. DrBed

            Re: Far from complete

            > "On a normal Debian I could just use imagemagick or gimp to scale it down."

            Actually, you can use Gimp or Inkscape natively at Android - it's already compiled for years now.

            https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.gimp.inkscape

            But screen size will be issue (it should work on Chromebook imho; so you don't need crouton for those there).

            Wine v3 (alpha) now runs on Android; just Gemini is ARM (= only Win RT apps), but, in theory, you can run even Paint.NET ;-)

            https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2411497

            But yes - Android makes sense but I'll rather use some real Linux, in container or as dual boot. As Samsung did it with Ubuntu few months ago, chrooted Galaxy S8 (Android):

            https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/11/samsung-linux-galaxy-video-demo

        2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: Far from complete

          "cutting yourself off from a whole ecosystem of apps."

          Would that be a whole ecosystem of data slurping apps wanting access to every subsystem on the device irrespective of whether their relevance to the alleged purpose of the app?

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Far from complete

          "...those who claim to want Linux would be better served by Android anyway..."

          Good luck with writing and testing small ad-hoc bash/php/perl/python snippets to get around an emergency or fix problems before running them on the production systems, or even mounting NFS exports, on Android. Then there's all the telemetry and adverts that seem to be stuffed in to nearly every android app I've seen...

        4. werdsmith Silver badge

          Re: Far from complete

          Using Android to SSH to other stuff does not help me avoid the Google slurp.

          Just give me the linux without the layers of google cruft.

      2. Allonymous Coward

        Re: Far from complete

        Maybe... personally (i.e. sample size = 1) I suspect people want a keyboard for keyboardy applications like ssh and email and don't care too much which OS underpins it.

        That said, you can already get a Bluetooth keyboard for Android devices that are probably already better at being Android devices when compared to the current Gemini iteration. But a truly open & vendor-supported software stack is something that's missing in the marketplace just now. So I can understand the desire for Linux from a freedom/diversity/tinkering/differentiation perspective.

        1. Alistair
          Windows

          Re: Far from complete

          @Allonymous Coward:

          After a quick skim of the forum they have BT1 does *not* appear to be working - although the implication is that it is coming.

          1:bluetooth, not bell or british telecom

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