Funny how things go: I've been waiting with tons of anticipation for the Gemini to arrive since I ordered autumn 2017. Last wednesday it finally arrived. I spent a few hours configuring things to my liking, and put it in my pocket - and now it feels like it has always been there. The device is all I hoped it would be, and all I need it to be. It is perfect for helping out customers on the road - basic sysadmin, bugfixing and development are all possible. Not as fast as on a full size PC, but it's all possible - who would have dreamed you could buy a qwerty phone in 2018 which has curly braces and a pipe symbol on the keyboard!
The good:
The build is pretty solid, the metal feels professional, and opening and closing the lid feels just right and has a satisfying -clunk- to it. The keyboard takes a day or two to get to know, but is just fine after that. The keys require a pretty tough press, proper typing is required. Stop thinking you're typing on a tiny device, just act like it is a normal PC keyboard and you'll be fine. The Enter key is the only key requiring a 'special' touch, if I type it too low it bends and doesn't register quite right.
My setup: I've rooted my Android (tip: only flashing the patched_boot component in flashtool is enough to root) and tuned the UI to drop the softkeys to get more screen estate. I do most of my daily work - mail, calendaring, IM - in the terminal on a remote system, for which termux with ssh and mosh does just the right thing for me.
Battery lifetime is OK for me, I get up to two days between recharges.
The bad:
Not too much, just some small annoyances which I'm sure will be fixed in time: properly configuring the keyboard layout is still trial and error using the Gemini app and Android settings, and a few reboots. Fn-sym and Fm-smiley do nothing, maybe I have configured something wrong.
Of all the trivial things: the Gemini makes a bad watch. My old nokia E71 always shows the time on front and is ready to be picked out of my pocket, and I never realized how often I do that until I switched to the Gemini. Probably a bad habit anyway, I'll get over it.
The ugly
Nothing yet, apart from the fact that I'm still running Android, but I'm sure this will be resolved as soon as de various Linux flavors get mature enough.
Kudos to the team from Planet Computers - they have managed to deliver a pretty solid device, which does just what they promised!
