Happy days with Planet Computers – Part 3

I am alaraajavamma and let’s start with this. I do not work for or receive any compensation from Furilabs. I am just a satisfied customer and Linux phone enthusiast who desperately wants to see linux mobile succeed. This is the third chapter in my Linux mobile journey.

After realizing that the Halium-based stability of Ubuntu Touch wasn’t quite the “true desktop Linux” experience I craved, I was ready to pivot. My ultimate goal; the convergence dream required a device that could truly function as a pocket PC.

And then, Planet Computers arrived with a promise that seemed tailor-made for me: a full QWERTY keyboard clamshell, built for productivity, and the talk of Linux support and wired display-out.

Wired display-out? Take my money!

The Gemini PDA: Hardware Triumph, Software Disappointment

I backed the Gemini PDA immediately. The excitement when it arrived was immense. This was a pocket computer, and the centerpiece was absolutely stellar.

The Keyboard: The Star of the Show

The keyboard on the Gemini PDA was genuinely awesome. It was surprisingly close to a full-sized desktop experience and felt substantially better than many full-sized keyboards I’ve used. For typing long emails, notes, or even coding, the hardware was a huge win.

The Near-Perfect Convergence Proof

Planet Computers sold an custom made HDMI dongle for wired video output. This was the moment of truth for my convergence dream, and technically, the results were stunning:

• The wired display-out worked flawlessly.
• It was latency-free and extremely responsive (even over the device’s USB 2.0 connection).

This proved that a pocketable device could deliver a proper, lag-free desktop video experience.

The Painful Catch

But the success was immediately crippled by the software. The display-out worked only in Android. And because you were mirroring or extending a mobile environment, what you could actually do with the desktop screen was severely limited by phone apps. The dream of a convergent Linux desktop remained just out of reach.

The usability caveats didn’t stop there:

• No Keyboard Backlight: This was my single biggest daily annoyance. The keyboard, the star feature, was useless in dim lighting conditions.
• The Black Slab: When closed, the device had no external display. If someone called, you only had five small notification LEDs to guess who it was a huge drawback for a modern “Communicator.”
• The eye of the Gemini: was camera back cover which was sold as accessory. Please comment if you had this, it was hilarious :).
• Missing Linux: The promised native Linux support was essentially absent. Yes, you could technically boot into a basic Debian environment, but that was it. It required immense community effort to get experimental ports of systems like Ubuntu Touch running, and even then, functionality was limited.

The Gemini was a beautiful device, but it was an Android-only pocket computer with crippling hardware flaws for a power user.

The Cosmo Communicator: A Refined Detour

Despite the Gemini’s issues, I loved the style of pocket computing so much that I immediately backed the successor: the Cosmo Communicator. The goal was clear: fix the Gemini’s most annoying hardware flaws.

The Cosmo delivered:

• Keyboard Backlight: Finally! The keyboard was now fully usable in the dark.
• External Display: The small external screen showed who was calling and allowed quick interactions while closed. The hardware was now a vastly more viable daily driver.
• Proper Camera: And this time it was built-in

However, almost everything else remained the same, including the problems for the Linux enthusiast.

The Convergence Stall

Just like the Gemini, the Cosmo featured the custom HDMI dongle and delivered the same latency-free, super responsive wired display-out but it was still an Android-only feature.

The convergence promise remained broken. The amazing hardware was ready for a full desktop environment, but the software was confined to a mobile sandbox. We had a perfect pocket terminal that couldn’t run a useful pocket desktop.

What I Learned

My time with the Gemini and Cosmo was a necessary detour. They cemented two critical truths about the convergence journey:

1. The idea works: The convergence concept really works and it surely is accessible. Even back then with mid-level hardware and USB 2.0 the display out concept worked really well.
2. Software is the Wall: But the working display out is useless if the underlying OS confines you to a mobile application environment.

Ultimately, Planet Computers offered an incredible physical device but failed to deliver the open software environment that true desktop convergence demands. The devices were reliable, fun, and had the best keyboard in the business, but they were still an evolution of the phone, not the evolution of the Linux desktop.

It was time to move on to hardware projects where the core operating system – not just community efforts – was dedicated to shrinking the PC into the phone.

The journey continues with my move Into the wild with Librem 5.

If you don’t want to follow my route and burn your money to test everything what is available you can also choose to pre-order the FLX1s and support most polished and complete linux smartphone today.