If you’re one of those people who miss phones with slide-out keyboards (if not can you pretend you miss them) because there’s a cool new open-source handheld computer project that turns your Raspberry Pi or similar boards into a Motorola Droid.
As spotted by Tom’s Hardware, this new project is called the MutantC v3, which is the latest iteration of a concept by creator Rahmanshaber, who debuted its first version back in 2019.
What exactly does this MutantC v3 does is, it just fits your Raspberry Pi board into a tiny case having a keyboard on its top and touch-screen display (slide-out) fitted over it. This version of “Mutant C” adds a Trackpoint with left and right-click buttons on the right side of the case, along with a real-time clock, a gyroscope, support for a buzzer, and a humidity/pressure/temperature sensor (thanks Tom’s Hardware). Its keyboard uses less power, and there’s space for a 12-pin UART/12C/GPIO docking port (with no official dock design just yet).
Which is quite obvious, for an open-source project like this. It’s up to you to buy all parts this project requires. And luckily, there’s a parts list and multiple build guides available over the MutantC v3’s Gitlab page. Also, this comes in three display size options, ranging from 2.8-inch to 3.5-inch to a full 4 inches.
And there’s one more good news for you, as you won’t need any custom software or coding skill to get this project working since it runs on Raspberry Pi OS (or equivalent OS your board uses). You just need to know is how to solder and install the drivers for your hardware.