Cyberdecks are typically reminiscent of weird computers in futuristic sci-fi films, moreso than the computers of today. The cool thing about cyberdecks, though, is you get to build them however you like. [WillTechBuilds] has put together a deck of his own that diverges from cyberdeck norms and ends up closer to something you might have bought off the shelf at Best Buy.
For a start, the build eschews the typical Raspberry Pi or other single-board computer that normally lives at the heart of a cyberdeck. In its place is a motherboard harvested from a GMKTec NucBox G5. It runs the Intel N97 CPU. It’s an x86 processor that’s roughly equivalent in power to an i5 from 10 years ago, but it only sips 12 watts. The compact motherboard is installed in a compact 3D-printed case along with a porbable USB-C battery pack, a small widescreen LCD, and a Lenovo ThinkPad trackpoint keyboard. This latter design choice, along with the x86 chip, is what gives this build so much of a laptop feel. There’s no weird Linux desktop, green-glowing terminal, or chunky mechanical keyboard here, let alone any GPIO pins. Definitely an oddball entry to the cyberdeck world, but valid nonetheless.
We’ve featured cyberdecks built out of everything from CRT TVs to event badges. As always, we’d love to see your latest innovative creation on the tipsline. Video after the break.
[Thanks to Heath Kit for the tip!]
Lol. Builds a machines. Demos games on a well known CPU. Can we a agree that a phone with tmux installed in a jogging wrist band is more cyberdeck? This is not a cyberdeck.
It’s just a small laptop. A very respectable cool one, but still a laptop.
man builds a cyberdeck, turns out to be a laptop.
Who are ”we”?
You are free to pick one of the many usages of ‘we’ and go from there.
guess we need a screen inch limit for defining what’s a cyberdeck and what’s a laptop
Waiting for hackaday to feature my HD audio TV retrofit Cyberdeck be like 😭 It’s the PiJamsTV 2.1 on YouTube if anyone interested! 😅
Did you submit it to the tip line?
https://hackaday.com/submit-a-tip/
If he had built this into a Pelican case as a DIY Toughbook, you wouldn’t hesitate to call it a Cyberdeck, but because he made it look like a laptop, with decent ergonomics, “It’s just a laptop.” My, my, my. Aren’t you guys a bunch of shallow b****es. Would it still just be a laptop if he had shoved an optical processor in it?
It’s a cyber deck in my opinion. It’s just not a form factor I would want one in. Too big for me, but it is smaller than the typical laptop that’s for sure. Power consumption is right too.
Usually the Pelican case ones end up with lots of not a computer hardware, making them an all in one mobile HAM station perhaps, and often the weather seal isn’t broken at least while closed so while not in use it pretty much doesn’t care what you do to it – There is usually at least one something that rather significantly differentiates them from a regular laptop so they have an at least niche usecase most laptops couldn’t do or survive (which quite likely includes Toughbooks, durable as they are).
This on the other hand really does seem like a regular laptop form factor, with all the regular laptop trade-off, I can’t see any reason at all to not consider this just a regular laptop that happens to be a bit DIY in construction. Which is still a really neat project, but calling it a cyberdeck…
You wouldn’t call a Laptop a gaming handheld, even if its a light enough laptop you can just about manage to hold it and mash some buttons around the edge and game, and you wouldn’t call the gaming handheld a laptop, as it lacks the keyboard entirely most of the time, and the ones that have keyboards tend to really really tiny compact not very day to day useable keyboards. They have a feature set that goes with the name and while cyberdeck features are less clear cut the one feature you expect to qualify for a cyberdeck description is simply missing – Really the one universal feature to cyberdecks is something weird you really really can’t just buy something similar off the shelf.
p.s
I’d also argue many of the Pelican case builds end up with way better ergonomics as the keyboards are often able to be taken out and put on the desk so you get the tall laptop with a screen at a much better height – Laptops really are not ergonomically good, the compromises in ergonomics to make them portable are rather significant.
Man, didn’t even get to see that hinge in action. No machine 360 view…
The write-up doesn’t even mention it’s a touch screen… Wonder if the writer watched the video
I saws this in person at https://rockymountainreprapfestival.com/ and it is a very elegantly designed and functional cyberdeck.
“saw” not “saws”, no way to edit!
I mean, I thinks it’s really cool, and give the maker lots of credit. I don’t think I’d call this a “cyberdeck” though. Wether it’s more of a William Gibson/Neuromancer or Cyberpunk/ Mike Pondsmith style cyberdeck there are a few things that “define” something as such. I wonder if the term cyberdeck has become synonymous to some with “smaller homemade computer”. Still, though, this is really cool and there are things about this build I would use in my own.