Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

So the Chumby is now shipping, and it's only $179 USD. Though it's getting only minor attention as of yet, some people are blogging about it. And, apparently quite a few people are already off and running -check out the photos of their chumbinastic creations.

All in all good first impressions. Personally, I was ready to pull the trigger and buy a few, but I am bummed out about by the fact that it's not really wireless. Sure, the net is wireless, but not POWER. The thing still has a cord? WTF? Ok, so maybe it makes sense to keep the cost down, but man that's a bummer. I want a "bean bag" computer I can throw across the room to a friend, or pickup and go to the next room, or, you get the idea.

To be fair, the engineers know the cord is a downer, but it has a cord for a reason, it doesn't "sleep" and it's powering a 3.5" LCD all the time. The current Chumby does have a 9V battery that acts as a "backup," and reportedly that lasts about 30 mins.

Also, there is a lot of discussion about batteries in general, and apparently the schematic includes hints that a battery is in the plan somewhere along the line? For current hardware see the wiki.

I still may buy one, but I also may just wait until rev 2 comes out with 6 hours of battery life, sleep mode, and is plug in rechargeable.