Is All Hope Lost For Non-Android Linux Tablets?

Canonical with their Ubuntu Touch initiative isn't the only project that's failed to deliver as of yet with a successful non-Android Linux tablet.

While there's arguably still hope left for Ubuntu Touch to become a commercial success, there's been more Linux tablet projects that have faded away.

First of all, the activities around PengPod are finally over. Last year there was a crowd-funded PengPod Linux tablet that dual-booted Android and Linux. While it was nice in theory for dual-booting Android and a "true Linux" distribution, the specifications were poor with an A10 1.2GHz single-core Cortex-A8, 1GB of RAM, Mali 400 graphics, and 8GB of storage.

This year the company behind PengPod said they would transform the PC and tablet industry. PengPod was going after a second crowd-funding campaign with better hardware than the original tablet and still the dual-booting Android and Ubuntu concept and a bit similar approach to the failed Ubuntu Edge campaign. This campaign to "transform" these industries looked rather silly when sharing my views early on, "At the end of the day, the hardware specs on this tablet aren't anything exciting and the 'transform the PC and Tablet world' comes down to just advertising Android and Linaro/Ubuntu dual-boot support. I had hoped at least for some exciting hardware, but it even lost there in making me interested in the PengPod 1040. Making matters worse, this Cortex-A7 tablet isn't even something that's available today but is contingent on a $349,000 USD IndieGoGo campaign to crowd-source the effort."

Well, now it turns out PengPod is shutting their doors after their second crowd-funded campaign was a complete failure. Details of their shutting down was shared in a company blog post entitled Crowd Funding Failed. They are shutting down and can't deliver on their promised tablet.

OpenTablets.org has also closed its doors too, which was centered around the KDE Plasma Active Vivaldi Tablet.

Not dead yet, Rhombus Tech is still working on a KDE tablet. They have recent blog posts talking about their recent design work on such a tablet. I got done reading their blog after seeing 1024x768 LCD displays mentioned.

Do you think all hope is lost for a non-Android Linux-only tablet that would be a commercial success? Let us know what you think in the comments within the forums.