There’s no shortage of Windows, Android, and iOS tablets on the market. But if you want a tablet that runs Ubuntu Linux, your best bet right now is probably to buy an existing tablet and install the OS yourself.
A startup called MJ Technology wants to change that, and the company has announced that it will launch a crowdfunding campaign for two Ubuntu tablets on January 18th.
The company plans to offer an 8.9 inch tablet and a 10.1 inch version for $350 and $400, respectively. While one is bigger (and pricier) than the other, both tablets are said to have the same basic specs:
- 1920 x 1200 pixel IPS display with 10-point capacitive multitouch input
- Intel Atom x7-Z8700 Cherry Trail processor
- 4GB of RAM
- 64GB of storage + microSD card slots
- 802.11b/g/n dual-band WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0
- micro HDMI and 3.5mm headset jack
- USB 3.0 port, USB 2.0 port, and micro USB port
- 13MP rear and 8MP front cameras
- 2W stereo speakers
- Mini PCI Express slot
MJ Technology says the 8.9 inch model has a 7,500 mAh battery, while the 10.1 inch tablet has an 8,500 mAh battery for up to 8 hours of battery life on the smaller tablet and up to 9 hours of run time on the larger version.
The tablets won’t ship until June at the earliest, but the company says it plans to load them up with Ubuntu 16.04 software, which should be available by then.
Note that this is a crowdfunding campaign for a product that does not yet exist, and so far all MJ Technology has shown off are rendered images depicting a hypothetical tablet. We haven’t seen any real hardware yet.
Update: MJ Technology points out that there are a few photos and videos of a working prototype on the team’s Facebook page.
But there’s nothing on the spec sheet that seems unreasonable. With the right resources, it’s totally possible for a startup to work with a Chinese tablet maker to put together a system with that kind of hardware and sell it for that kind of price. How well it will work as an Ubuntu tablet remains to be seen though.
via CNX-Software and Softpedia
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17 Comments on "MJ Technology wants to crowdfund Ubuntu tablets with Atom x7 CPU"
not bad at all – might be my first tablet, if all goes well
Didn’t they MJ Technology post the exact some idea a year or two ago?
Yes!!!! Yes, they did! Twice over the last year.
http://www.tomshardware.com/ne…
http://www.tomshardware.com/ne…
If it wasn’t for the fact the company has made tablets before, I’d say this smelled of vaporware
Very interested in the 10.1 (16:10 sweetness) w/128gb storage (I’ve read that this is one of the options). It’s funny but I was searching for ‘Linux Tablets’ (again…) just a few days ago and suddenly the crowdfunding effort popped up on my feeds a day or two later.
I like the fact that they’ve built a tablet before (Android 7″ with built-in digital TV, some videos on youtube) so it doesn’t completely feel like a fly-by-night operation. Full-sized USB 3.0 & 2.0 – very appealing. Fingers crossed that Ubuntu w/Touch runs smoothly!
The one big concern is support for the device. Crawling their pages, I don’t get the sense they can properly support issues that might arise. Hopefully some Linux-specific vendors like System76 and ZaReason get involved at some point (even if it’s a separate effort).
Brad, didn’t you write an article a little while ago saying the Cherry trail line of SOCs are being replaced to fix some issues. ie Z8700 is being replaced with the Z8750.
In light of that, I hope they use the Z8750 and not the Z8700
I really love the idea. 🙂 Do you know if it will be easy to dual boot it with android x86? Thanks
It’d be cool if Ubuntu can be installed on the Surface 3.
Getting Ubuntu working properly on the Surface 3 would be awesome!
I don’t want an “Ubuntu” tablet. I want a general-purpose, accessible, x86 tablet which I can install any popular distro such as Debian,Ubuntu, Arch or Fedora on it. Just like I do on my x86 laptop.
With this device, your chances to do that are better than ever….
Yes I hope so. Hopefully they will not lock down this tablet’s BIOS or some other whacky stuff.
Would installing a base Linux distro on a tablet even be a good idea? From what I remember, base Linux is pretty keyboard dependent. Might be fine on something like a surface but just a tablet….
Every Linux distro has an on screen keyboard (or you can install one from distro’s package manager), which you can use to type stuff on the screen.
And every Linux distro has Bluetooth support, which you can use to connect an external keyboard/mouse to it.
I am aware of the on screen keyboard. I was more concerned about how optimized base Linux is for touchscreen use. Windows has an onscreen keyboard as well but I wouldn’t consider it as optimized as Android or iOS for touchscreen. However, Windows did carve out a niche for itself in the convertibles and 2-in-1 subsegment of the market.
I have an Android tablet with Allwinner A10 chipset. I managed to throwaway Android and install Debian on it. It’s easy to do it. The touchscreen experience is at par with old “Windows XP Tablet Edition”. Internet browsing, office and audio/video work to an acceptable extent, although nothing is really optimized for touch. On the plus side, it is a battery-powered Debian server in your backpack. You can SSH into it and use it as your portable dev environment wherever you go.
I should also mention that Ubuntu Touch is fully touchscreen oriented, but I couldn’t get it to work on this tablet. Installing it on a Nexus 7 shouldn’t be that difficult.
They should give an option to install Windows as dual boot on it. They need to release drivers for that.