About hardware, and avoiding “lock-in”

I’ve been asked and also been asking myself the same question, over and over again, over the recent weeks and months:

Nintendo DS or Sony PSP?

I’ve finally come to a decision, and it is: neither. This is the reason:

I don’t like hardware of software that makes decisions for me. I don’t want to be locked in to stupid, expensive formats (Sony UMD or MEMORY STICK PRO DUO ULTRA HYPER MAGIC MARK II), crippled capabilities (802.11b/g wireless that doesn’t talk to any other devices, hellooooo?), or only be able to run code that Sony or Nintendo wants me to run on their devices. I like being in control of where I get my media or software, and how I play it. I don’t want to buy stupid UMDs or have to resort to stupid hacks like the PSP memory stick swap hack that came out today.

I’ve drooled over the Pepper Pad before, and it’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a hardware platform (with the exception of ubiquitous handwriting recognition). My only question was: how hackable would it be? Now I see that there is already a Pepper hacking site, and it makes me warm inside 🙂 Warm knowing that yes, this device will “just work” out of the box, but people can also extend it without having to resort to ridiculous hacks like the NDS and PSP hackers are currently doing.

So we’ve started saving for one of these – it really fits the bill.

 

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