Privacy-Centric Smartphone Specialist Brax Unveils the Open_Slate, a More Modular Two-In-One

Brax Technologies, the company behind the BraX3 "privacy-friendly smartphone" that recently closed its crowdfunding, has announced plans for something a little bigger: the open_slate, a modular two-in-one tablet capable of running Android and other Linux-based operating systems.

"With BraX3, we proved that a privacy-focused mobile device could be designed, crowdfunded, manufactured, and delivered outside the traditional Big Tech ecosystem," says Brax co-founder Plamen Todorov. "Just as importantly, BraX3 showed us the value of building with the community. The feedback we received — what worked, what didn't, and what people wanted next — played a major role in shaping our direction going forward. Today, we're ready to share the next step in that journey. We're introducing open_slate."

The open_slate is designed to be, in Todorov's words, "a powerful and private two-in-one tablet," which can be used as both a quotidian mobile device running Google's popular Android mobile operating system and as a workstation running a different Linux distribution. A key part of that flexibility comes from a modular design: the open_slate will feature an M.2 expansion slot for storage, accelerators, or other hardware, as well as a user-replaceable battery for longevity.

As you would expect from a company behind a smartphone sold primary on its privacy, user choice and control is at the heart of the open_slate too: Todorov says it will include physical switches that can disable components like the cameras, microphones, wireless radios, and sensors by cutting power "at the hardware level."

The tablet is based around the MediaTek Genio 720 system-on-chip, which pairs two high-performance Arm Cortex-A78 cores running at up to 2.6GHz with six lower-power Cortex-A55 cores running at up to 2GHz and a Mali-G57 MC2 graphics processor. Users will be able to choose between 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage or 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, which can be further expanded using the aforementioned M.2 slot, while the hardware is housed behind a 12" 2.4k IPS touchscreen with active stylus support along with an 8,000mAh battery good for a claimed 20-hour runtime.

There will be Wi-Fi 6E 2×2 and Bluetooth 5.3 support at launch, the company has promised, with plans to shift to a Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 module by the end of 2026 — though cellular connectivity will only be available "through [an] external network module."

More details are available, along with the warning that specs may change as the project approaches launch, on the Brax forum; as with the Brax3, the tablet will be sold through Indiegogo starting at "early bird" pricing of $399 for the 8GB/128GB model and rising to $529 for the 16GB/256GB model, from a $599 and $799 planned retail price respectively. All devices are expected to begin shipping in August this year.