As the year draws to a close, it’s time to return to our irregular series — the most popular Liliputing articles of the year.
Unsurprisingly, Amazon Fire tablet hacking continues to earn a place in the top 10 most viewed articles of the year. With prices starting as low as $50 on most days (and half that a few days a year), the tablets offer a lot of bang for the buck… in terms of hardware. But if you’re not a fan of Amazon’s tablet software, it’s good to know that it continues to be possible to add the Google Play Store or hack the tablets in other ways.
In fact, several different Amazon Fire tablet hacking articles made this year’s top 10 list, so I just picked one in order to move a few other articles up the list, making room for stories about Raspberry Pi accessories, fanless mini PCs, mini-laptop computers, and cheap Linux laptops, among other things.
So without further ado, here are Liliputing’s most read articles published over the past 12 months.
- This $16 Raspberry Pi case has a 3.5 inch touchscreen on top
Raspberry Pi devices are small, cheap computers. There seem to be a growing number of small, cheap accessories that let you do more with them. This one is still available, but it now sells for $18. Fun fact — I jotted the most viewed article the year on January 10th, 2019 as I waited in the airport for my flight home from the Consumer Electronics Show. More people read this article that I dashed out in 20 minutes than anything I published about gadgets unveiled at CES 2019. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ - Amazon Fire tablet hacks: Google Play, Root, Recovery, and ROMs
Some recent models can be rooted and bootloader unlocked. Others cannot — but it seems like Amazon has yet to release a Fire tablet that won’t let you load the Google Play Store. - 2nd-gen Amazon Fire TV Stick hack: Unlock the bootloader, install custom recovery
Oh look, you can hack Amazon’s media streamers too!
- Vnopn K1 is a small, cheap fanless PC with an AMD processor
AMD has made a splash in the laptop and desktop space with the launch of its Ryzen processors in recent years. Recently the company started competing for the mini-PC market with a new platform for Intel NUC-like fanless computers with Ryzen Embedded chips. This isn’t one of those. But it shows that the idea isn’t new.
- This $10 PCB lets you build a handheld PC with a Raspberry Pi Zero W (plus a display)
Oh look, it’s another Raspberry Pi accessory — this time one that lets you assemble a BlackBerry-life handheld computer. - GPD Win Max will be an AMD Ryzen-powered handheld gaming PC
GPD has made some of the most intriguing mini computers in the past few years, with the launch of handheld gaming machines and laptops small enough to fit in your pocket. The upcoming Win Max is expected to be one of the company’s most powerful (and largest) to date.
- iLfe MP8 Micro PC is a palm-sized Windows 10 desktop computer
It’s ridiculous how small this thing is. - UDOO BOLT single-board PC with Ryzen Embedded starts shipping this week (crowdfunding)
It costs a lot more than a Raspberry Pi, but it packs a heck of a lot more power.
- Pinebook Pro update: The $199 Linux laptop is almost ready to go
Cheaper than an Udoo Bolt, this Linux laptop has a 1080p display, a hexa-core processor, and a magnesium alloy chassis. It’s now available for purchase from Pine64 for $200. - ASRock unveils a Thunderbolt 3, mini ITX graphics card
Enough with the small PCs! How about a small graphics card that.. fits inside a small PC?
They didn’t make it to the top ten but I’m hoping to see continued coverage of UMPCs. FYI:
– Pyra prototypes seem to have finally started arriving in prototype pre-orderer’s hands in the last week based on the forums. There’s a new ” Prototype information and bug tracker” forum section now for issue/bug/prototype discussion.
– Some folks got an initial Ubuntu chroot running from Sailfish OS on the f(fx)tec Pro1. Both Sailfish and the Ubuntu chroot are still in the very early stages though.
– The Cosmo Communicator seems to boot Debian but not much else is shown working beyond logging in.
I guess the above (except the Pyra finally shipping albeit prototypes) are not major enough news to warrant articles though.
Thanks for the heads up! Crazy to see that Pyra prototypes are finally shipping after all this time. Reading up on it now.
UMPC coverage will definitely continue — the resurgence of this category after years of stagnation has been one of the most exciting things for me to see in the mobile computing space in the past few years. But it’s a lot easier to generate a list of articles with the most page views at the end of the year than to look back over the thousands of articles published and try to come up with trends 🙂
Speaking of stuff with Ryzen Embedded shipping, Smach Z never came out, huh?
Thanks for another great year of small articles Brad! You should post a bottom 10 list as well