Want a touchscreen tablet computer, but don’t feel like purchasing any of the pre-configured options already on the market? No problem, you can pick up a $400 kit that will let you build your own tablet.
Liquidware is selling a kit to build a “Beagle Tablet,” which is based on a BeagleBoard with a 1GHz processor and a 4.3 inch OLED touchscreen display. You also get a 4G SD card and Angstrom Linux, but you can install your own operating system including Google Android or many other Linux-based operating systems.
The Beagle tablet is primarily aimed at DIY enthusiasts and developers looking to write their own software. It’s clearly not for everyone. But a kit that you can snap together yourself and configure rather easily sure seems a lot more attractive than other DIY tablet options I’ve seen, which generally require disassembling a netbook and putting it back together with a touchscreen display and without the keyboard.
The biggest down side is that the Beagle Tablet is just 4.3 inches, which makes it hardly any large than a smartphone. The display has a resolution of 480 x 272 pixels. On the bright side, it weighs just about half a pound.The kit comes with a 2600mAh battery pack.