Archive for the ‘Ben NanoNote’ Category

Ben NanoNote – First impressions

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Thanks to the guys from qi-hardware, I’ve just got my own Ben NanoNote. I want to share a few impressions of the little device with you. Here are some pictures which I have taken right after unpackaging it.

The Ben NanoNote came in a nice black box, quite similar to the package of the GP2X F100.

When opening the box, the first thing that becomes visible, is the NanoNote (with some dust that immediately appeared because of static electricity originating from the plastic bag that contained the NanoNote).

Right below the NanoNote there is another box with some accessoires.

The NanoNote comes with a USB cable, a removable Li-Ion battery, a printed manual and a little rubber pad which can be used to put the NanoNote in USB boot mode. They have also included a cleaning cloth, which is a nice thing as the NanoNote is made of glossy plastic, which looks nice but also easily captures fingerprints and dust.

For size comparison, here are two pictures with the NanoNote right next to a Dingoo A320. When the NanoNote is closed it is about as thick as the Dingoo.

Nothing special on the back of the NanoNote. There are rubber feet and the battery door.

The opened device.

The buttons are made of clear plastic which are printed from the back, so even when heavily using the keyboard the printing should still remain readable.

There is one speaker located on the left side of the device. The grid looks like it is made of a sheet of metal.

When removing the battery door there is a label with holes for a few contacts – three for a serial connection and another two to put the device in USB boot mode.

When starting the NanoNote for the first time this is what one will see when it has finished booting.

Right now there is nothing but a Linux console. There is no menu, yet.

The overall build quality of the device is quite impressing. It is not one of those cheap looking chinese handhelds made of flimsy plastic.

Finally, good old midnight commander on the Ben NanoNote. :D

Posted in Ben NanoNote | 1 Comment »

Gmu 0.7.0_BETA8 – First Gmu Open Source Release (Update)

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Gmu has been around for quite some time now and previous versions of Gmu always have been released as Freeware. Today I release another version of Gmu. It is another beta release of the 0.7.0 series and hopefully the last beta release until the final 0.7.0 release.
Over the past few years, people have frequently asked me if I would release the source code of the Gmu music player, but until today I didn’t. Although I had planned to release Gmu as open source software, I always wanted to make Gmu somewhat feature-complete, first. Now Gmu is very close to such a state. Of course there will always be features worth adding and bugs that need to be fixed, but (in my opinion) it is in a very usable state.
Actually, I had planned to release Version 0.7.0 as Gmu’s first open source release. The reason for doing it earlier with this 0.7.0_BETA8 version, are the guys at sharism.cc who develop open source hardware like the Ben NanoNote which I have mentioned a few posts earlier. They would like to ship those NanoNote devices with Gmu as the device’s music player.

What’s new in this release? Actually not that much considering new features, but there still has been a notable change. I’ve improved Gmu’s theme engine such that it will be possible to use Gmu on devices with screen resolutions other than the good old 320×240 resolution used on the GP2X, Wiz and Dingoo. This is not of much use for those devices but allows for easier porting of Gmu to other devices. Unfortunately, this change also means that you cannot use your old Gmu skins, but it is rather simple to create your own new themes with the new theme engine. Just have a look at the new “default-modern” theme, which comes with this Gmu release.

So here it is. The Gmu Open Source Edition released under the GPLv2 (GNU General Public License version 2). Also, for your convenience, there are binary builds for the GP2X, GP2X Wiz and the Dingoo A320.

gmu-0.7.0_BETA8B-GP2X.zip (GP2X and Wiz release, 707 KB)

gmu-0.7.0_BETA8B-DINGOO.zip (Dingux release, 671 KB)

gmu-0.7.0_BETA8B.tar.gz (GPL’d source code, 163 KB)

When trying to build Gmu please have a look at the BUILD.txt file first. There are important information on how to build Gmu binaries for different targets.
Also, new users should have a look at the README.txt file that comes with every Gmu release.

Update: Right after the release a minor bug has been discovered, which I have already fixed. So here is an updated BETA8B release.

Posted in Ben NanoNote, Dingoo A320, Dingux, GP2X, GP2X Wiz, Gmu | 1 Comment »

Gmu on the Ben NanoNote

Monday, January 11th, 2010

The Ben NanoNote is a handheld device with hardware similar to the Dingoo A320. It runs Linux as its operating system (OpenWRT). Instead of gaming controls it has a qwerty keyboard. Probably the most interesting aspect about this device is its open hardware design.

Here is a photo of a Ben NanoNote running the Gmu music player. The Gmu port for the Ben NanoNote is not finished yet, so there is no public release yet.


I do not currently own a Ben NanoNote myself. That is why the photo has been taken by zear of the Dingoo community, who has been helping with testing Gmu on the device.

Posted in Ben NanoNote, Gmu | No Comments »