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PayPalMecha Comet was covered here on GamingOnLinux back in early 2025, and now this exciting bit of hardware has a Kickstarter live to fund it. This would have been a dream device to mess about with when I was younger, really love what they're doing with it.
A handheld that doesn't look too far from the original Nintendo Game Boy, except it's all open source in both hardware and software. It has various official attachments you can swap on the front pictured above like a mini keyboard and trackpad, gamepad and a GPIO board for hooking up all sorts of things. It's not just the outside that's modular though, the inside is too.
With around 27 days left on the Kickstarter, they've managed to hit $602,783 in funding against the original $50,000 goal so it has been quite a big early success.
Check out the trailer:
Direct Link
The current specifications:
| Operating System | Mechanix OS (Linux 6.12) |
| CPU | I.MX8M Plus (4–Cores A53) or I.MX 95 (6–Cores A55) |
| Memory | 2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB |
| Storage | 64 GB, 128 GB Flash (eMMC) |
| Wireless | 2.4 GHz/5.0 GHz 802.11ac, BT 5.4, Physical SIM card |
| Display | 3.92" AMOLED Display (550 nits), Capacitive Touch |
| PCIe | PCIe 3.0 (1x, B-Key) |
| Camera | 8 MP (with Auto-focus) |
| Audio | 2x Digital Mic, HD Speaker |
| Power | 4100 mAh Battery, Type-C (5V) |
| Ports | 1x HDMI, 2x USB C |
| Peripherals | 9-Axis Motion Sensor, RTC, ADC |
| Security | Trust Anchor (CC EAL 6+) |
| Dimensions | 155 x 73 x 14 mm (225g) |
Since I originally covered it, they have moved from a Debian base to Fedora for their own Mechanix distribution. They've also made it even more open, as per the blog post from earlier in January that notes the Mecha Comet will be released as open hardware under the CERN-OHL-S-2.0 license. That blog post also touched on the RAM situation, as they had to deal with the price rises with their original supplier quoting an "800%" increase in the cost of their 4GB and 8GB LPDDR. Thankfully, they were able to work around this with only a minor price increase.
The minimum price right now appears to be $189 / £139 (early bird stuff is sold out) which gets you a Mecha Comet with I.MX 8M Plus + 2GB RAM and 64GB Storage. The extensions you stick to the front are extra between $15-$20, with bundles available to make it a bit cheaper.
See more on the Kickstarter and official website.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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You can also find comments for this article on social media: 
Arehandoro 2 days ago
The_Real_Bitterman 2 days ago
Quoting: The_Real_BittermanFedora based ... no thanksWhy? Fedora is one of the best polished and easy to use distros nowadays.
Persephone the Sheep a day ago
Mountain Man a day ago
Quoting: Mountain Man3D renders do not a viable product make.Ten times your goal in funding might, though.
Quoting: The_Real_BittermanFedora based ... no thanksWhats wrong with Fedora?
Gerarderloper a day ago
soulsource a day ago
Arehandoro a day ago
Quoting: soulsourceRed flag: The I.MX8M Plus is painfully slow...That's the CPU used by Purism in their Librem 5... So painfully slow AND painfully old.
Last edited by Arehandoro on 28 Jan 2026 at 2:49 pm UTC
but ... has a bunch of red flags. Kickstarter being the biggest. I have been following the Pilet device for forever now as well ( https://soulscircuit.com/pilet ) but it seems to be stuck in kickstarter hell as the website still says "in development" and not released, but the kickstarter says it was to be delivered 7 months ago. So who knows.
Basically this Meceha device LOOKS amazing, but will be a wait-and-see ... Thanks for the recommendation!
The_Real_Bitterman 16 hours ago
Quoting: PaldinoXWhats wrong with Fedora?
Quoting: AsciiWolfWhy? Fedora is one of the best polished and easy to use distros nowadays.The better question is, what is not wrong with Fedora. But also I am not willing to discuss this with random strangers in the GoL comments section. Sounds like a waste of effort.
Quoting: The_Real_BittermanThat's real bitter, man.Quoting: PaldinoXWhats wrong with Fedora?Quoting: AsciiWolfWhy? Fedora is one of the best polished and easy to use distros nowadays.The better question is, what is not wrong with Fedora. But also I am not willing to discuss this with random strangers in the GoL comments section. Sounds like a waste of effort.
The_Real_Bitterman 11 hours ago
Quoting: Purple Library GuyI actually laughed at this one more than I probably should 😅Quoting: The_Real_BittermanThat's real bitter, man.Quoting: PaldinoXWhats wrong with Fedora?Quoting: AsciiWolfWhy? Fedora is one of the best polished and easy to use distros nowadays.The better question is, what is not wrong with Fedora. But also I am not willing to discuss this with random strangers in the GoL comments section. Sounds like a waste of effort.
Usually I get "Username checks out" and the likes. This one is pure comedy gold. Thank you!
It costs just about $400 to have this shipped to the US if you get 8GB of memory, 128GB eMMC, the MX95 and all three of the IO devices added on.This is basically maxed out.
For $450 you can get a maxed out AYN Thor that has two screens, 16GB of memory, and a 1TB NVME SSD. Don't get me wrong, this is not a 1:1 comparison at all. The Thor has pretty limited linux support, but there is some out there. It's definitely going to be better for a handheld gaming device though especially for emulation. It normally runs android though, not linux.
But when you compare it spec for spec, it's really hard to want to drop so much on a device that will probably feel dated the day you get it. 8GB of ram just isn't much anymore. A super tiny screen isn't great. It's going to be a meh blackberry, an ok gameboy emulator, or an oddball tinkering device. I'm sure a lot of people will enjoy it but the price doesn't feel right to me.
A version 2 in a few years once memory prices calm down and another generation of better processors is available might make more sense, and i'll get to see how they do with the kickstarter launch. I've never had a kickstarter ship on time before so I don't expect them to.
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