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Sure, your phone is fun, but if you want the fun and power of an all-in-one Linux PC in your pocket, you’ll need to look elsewhere. the Comet Wake It’s a 3.4-inch rectangular laptop that vaguely resembles a BlackBerry, but runs Debian Linux with a custom, touch-friendly user interface on top. release Coming soon to Kickstarter For $159, the device has a pogo pin interface where you can connect various accessories, including a gamepad, a Blackberry-style keyboard, and a GPIO (general purpose input/output) connector with 40 female pins.
Using the GPIO connector, you can connect a variety of electronic devices, including Raspberry Pi caps. You can also attach the caps directly to the comet or design your own extension plate to attach to the pins.
There are hundreds of Raspberry Pi caps (devices attached above) are on the market that offer everything from GPS to cellular connectivity to flashing RGB lights or even sensors. This makes Comet the heir to the Pi ecosystem and its expansion options are almost limitless.
The 3.5-inch, 480 x 480 resolution touchscreen displays a fair amount of text and graphics, and with Mecha’s custom user interface (built into Rust), you can use the touch keyboard to enter commands at the command prompt or launch applications. However, if you want any of the official extension modules, you’ll need to pay a little extra for them (represented here at CES They said they can cost up to $30 for a set of three).
The comet’s interior is also permeable. You can easily disassemble the device and add a dedicated M.2 board such as an SSD or Google Coral M.2 AI accelerator. There is also an Alan key built into the chassis to help you remove the panels as needed. Four screws come out in the chassis so you can use them all for a custom mounting bracket, should you choose to 3D print one.
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The Comet is powered by NXP’s 1.8GHz quad-core Arm Cortex A53 CPU, 4GB LPDDR4 RAM, and 32GB eMMC. It has a 3,000 mAh battery that Mecha claims will last 4-5 hours with the screen brightness maxed out. There is a built-in gyroscope, real-time clock, and analog-to-digital converter.
The device has a 5-megapixel rear camera for taking photos and image recognition. It also has a digital microphone and high-fidelity speaker. Ports include a full-size Ethernet connector and two USB Type-A 2.0 ports. There is Bluetooth 5.0 built-in and Wi-Fi 5.
We had the opportunity to see the Mecha Comet in person at CES 2025 and were impressed with the build quality, the clarity of the display, and especially the flexibility it gives you to connect to Raspberry Pi HATs and their extension modules. I especially like the fact that there’s a home button on the side next to the power button so you can always return to the home screen with a single press.
The possibilities of a pocketable Linux computer like the Comet are practically endless. You can use it for gaming, as a hacking tool for pen testing, as a local AI device, as a mini web server or as the brain of a robot. Overall, it looks like a lot of fun for makers, developers, and hackers.
