14 DAY TRIAL // We have been hearing about modular smartphones and modular smartwatches quite frequently as of late, as they have been heralded as the future of the mobile industry.
Pretty soon we’re going to be able to build the handset we need by being able to choose exactly what features we want our mobile device to have.
Are you the fitness type? Then you can riddle your handset with heart rate monitors and pedometers. But if you’re a fan of smartphone photography, you can go ahead and invest in a more powerful camera module.
Modular laptops anyone?
But what if we applied this line of thought to laptops? The folks behind the project we’re going to talk about have and the result is called Sole Notebook.
Looking at the Sole Notebook we can’t help but get lego vibes and that’s probably the concept the creators of the modular laptop have rested upon.
Basically, customers purchasing such a laptop will be offered a pile of colorful bits they need to assemble into a working module. Kind of like Ikea for tech.
The Sole is currently just a prototype, so we’ll probably have some time to wait until we get to see a consumer-friendly model be made available.
Anyway, the current prototype runs on the so-called Sugar OS (which is a platform originally developed for the OLPC initiative) and nestles an Allwinner A20 CPU. It might not seem like much at the moment, but by the time the lego laptop gets released, things are probably going to look a bit different.
Sole currently employs 9 components (10 with the speakers) including the screen, battery, CPU, keypad, trackpad and so on.
Some of the modules are optional, like the speakers and camera, and once removed they reveal USB ports. The Sole also has a 28pin GPIO port, so the laptop can be turned into a hub too.
Sole is still a prototype
Note that the project is still in its early stages of development, so we are yet to know specifications like pricing and release date, although we don’t expect the Sole to break your bank.
The official website says that they are preparing more modules for the laptop and users will also be allowed to customize the device in terms of coloring.
