How would you like to be the owner of a touchscreen smartphone that is unlike any other? – Well you can be, just build your own! That’s what David Hunt did, using his Raspberry Pi and a few other bits that came to a total cost of $158. That is slightly cheaper than your average smartphone but is it as good?
Well clearly it’s not as sophisticated as most handsets but it is one of the only smartphones that comes with an Ethernet jack, RCA Output and a full-sized HDMI port. Included in the build costs is a PiTFT display, 2500mAh lithium-polymer battery, GSM/GPRS radio module and antenna, DC-DC voltage convertor and the Raspberry Pi of course.
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“As you can see from the cost of the components, you’d be FAR better off going into your local phone store and picking up a normal smartphone, but hey, where’s the fun in that?” Hunt wrote on his blog. “I got a great kick out of the first phone call I made with this thing. And it won’t stay in one piece for long, I’ll be using those parts for other projects very soon!”
When switched on with the black toggle switch the PiPhone boots into the Raspbian operating system and then displays a numeric keypad. Hunt admits that “you wouldn’t actually use it in the real world”, especially because it gets rather hot and the battery likely only lasts a couple of hours, not to mention the rather bulky, ugly appearance.
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But if you fancy giving this a go yourself then keep an eye out on GitHub, as Hunt has promised to release the code for his project if enough requests come in.
Check out the video below of the PiPhone making a call!
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