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       Stardate: 20260919.2340 
       Location: The Lab
       Input Device: 8849/Unihertz TANK 5 (TATANKA5) 
       Audio: Fan
       Visual: nano, words.
       Emotional: spent.
                                                                                       
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       Lately, I have been exploring the 8849 (Unihertz) Tank 05 rugged 
       smartphone. [1] I picked up this device to replace my aging 
       Unihertz TANK 01, which came out in 2022.  Since then, they have 
       released more than 5 (maybe 7?) iterations of the device.  The Tank 
       05 that I acquired is the standard version, not the Pro version.  
       The main difference between the standard and the Pro, aside from 
       price, is the Pro version has a thermal imaging camera, which I 
       don't need.  My old CAT S60 has a thermal imaging camera, which 
       still works and I use from time to time.  I even replaced the 
       battery in 2019 when it got puffy. [2]
       
       I love me some crazy gadgets and the Tank 05 is a crazy rugged 
       gadget with tons of features.  I'm not going to go into them all, 
       but the main features that interests me for this round is the built 
       in projector and the USB-C DisplayPort (DP) Alt Mode.  DP Alt Mode 
       allows you to connect an external display to the phone, which I use 
       in the cybah DeX rig. [3] This could be a future replacement for 
       the Samsung S22 device.
       
       Kind of like the TANK 01, the TANK 05 will not replace my personal 
       phone and will be a personal computing device (among the many 
       others.)  My personal phone is still the Sonim XP3900 flip phone.  
       That does just fine for what I need it for, mostly phone calls, 
       text messages, music, flashlight.  Simple.  The personal computing 
       device does m0ar advanced and complicated things.  Stuff like 
       running as a hotspot, testing smartphone apps, running a linux 
       desktop, mobile tinkering stuff.
       
       Through the years, I have mostly kept my cellphone and personal 
       computing device separate.  It probably stems from how it was 
       before.  My PDA of that moment was separate from my cellphone.  I 
       have attempted combining and integrating, but it just did not jive 
       with my flow.
       
       I think the first time I tried that was with the Nokia N900.  It 
       ran PalmOS in a virtual machine (GarnetVM).  An unstable and 
       inelegant solution, with hotsyncing issues and data corruption.  I 
       tried doing other things, like rsync and syncevolution, but ended 
       up going back to what I did before, which was to keep my phone 
       separate from my PDA data.  The N900 was a fun device to tinker 
       with, being a linux phone and all.  I did a lot of scripting on 
       that phone.  I digress.
       
       With the TANK 05, I have barely scratched the surface with the 
       exploration and I look forward to discovering what other fun tricks 
       it can do.  There hasn't been too many devices lately that has me 
       this stoked with gadget lust for some time.  There will be phuture 
       phosts on this matter.  You have been warned.
       
 (HTM) [1] 8849 Tank 5
 (DIR) [2] 20191029_cat_s60
 (DIR) [3] 20251113_DeX
       
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