Flipper One is a pocket-sized Linux computer and network hacking tool

Nearly six years after introducing the Flipper Zero wireless hacking tool, the developers have unveiled a new model that’s way more powerful and versatile. The Flipper One is still a pocket-sized gadget with an awful lot of networking features. But it’s also a full-fledged Linux computer that runs open source software and support for modular hardware expansion thanks to PCIe, SATA, and USB 3.0 interfaces.

Flipper isn’t ready to talk pricing or availability yet. But the company has launched a developer portal for the Flipper One and is seeking to build community support ahead of an eventual crowdfunding campaign.

The new Flipper One isn’t meant as a replacement for the Zero – the old model will continue to be available indefinitely as a tool that provides “protocol-level access to physical systems available to a broad developer audience, packaging NFC, RFID, Sub-1 GHz radio, infrared, and hardware interfaces into a pocket-sized microcontroller tool.”

Meanwhile, the new Flipper One loses a few of those wireless capabilities, but picks up a whole lot more – it has two Ethernet ports, an M.2 slot that you can use to add a 4G LTE or 5G modem, (or an SDR if you want to bring back NFC, RFID, etc), and much more.

And this model is powerful enough to run mainline Linux software.

Measuring 155 x 67 x 40mm (6.1″ x 2.64″ x 1.57″), the Flipper One is a little larger than the Zero (100 x 40 x 25mm or 4″ x 1.6″ x 1″). But while the Zero is a pretty basic device with an Arm Cortex-M4 32-bit microprocessor and a bunch of wireless radios, the One is basically a pocket computer.

It has a Rockchip RK2576 processor with four Arm Cortex-A72 Performance CPU cores, four Cortex-A53 Efficiency cores, Mali-G52 MC3 graphics, and an NPU that delivers up to 6 TOPS of INT8 AI performance. Combined with 8GB of LPDDR5 memory, 64GB of UFS 2.2 storage, and a microSD card slot for removable storage, and you’ve basically got yourself a little Linux-compatible computer

With a small 256 x 144 pixel orange-and-black monochrome display and a button-based user interface rather than a full QWERTY keyboard, this is a little computer isn’t going to work very well with a typical desktop Linux distro designed for keyboard and mouse or touchscreen input.

So instead it will ship with Flipper OS, a custom operating system built on top of Debian that includes a custom menu-based user interface called FlipCTL, which optimized for the Flipper One and other devices wit small screens – Flipper says FlipCTL should work with routers, servers, single-board computers, and other devices that “you can bolt  small screen onto.”

The operating system also supports “profiles,” which are full system snapshots with different packages and settings pre-installed and configured. This lets you switch between different profiles for different purposes, or clone a profile if you want to make modifications without losing the original snapshot.

Since Flipper wants everything to be as open source as possible, Flipper has been working with Collabora “to push full support for the Rockchip RK3576 SoC into the mainline Linux kernel,” although at the moment the DDR trainer, “which initializes RAM during early boot” is still a proprietary binary blob.

Of course, while upstream kernel support means that you can download a mainline Linux kernel and pretty much run it on the Flipper One , it doesn’t mean everything’s going to run well. And that’s part of why Flipper is announcing its new device before it’s ready to ship – to build a developer community around the platform.

As the company explains in a blog post, work is still underway on power management, video output over a USB-C port, hardware-accelerated video decoding, and NPU utilization. So opening a developer portal now means that there’s a better chance that some or all of those things could be working by the time the Flipper Ones goes on sale for the general public.

The Flipper One also has a Raspberry Pi RP2350 low-power microprocessor with two 150 MHz Arm Cortex-M33 CPU ores and two 150 MHz Hazard3 RISC-V cores, 520KB of SRAM, and 16MB of flash storage.

Wireless features include a WXTAM2101 module with a MediaTek MT7921AUN chipset that provides WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 support. And the Flipper One has a surprisingly robust set of ports for such a compact device, including:

• 2 x Gigabit Ethernet (RTL8211F-CG)
• 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C (5 Gbps w/video & charging support)
• 1 x USB 3.1 Type-C (5 Gbps data & power output only)
• 1 x USB 3.1 Type-A (5 Gbps data & power output only)
• 1 x HDMI 2.1
• 1 x 3.5mm audio
• 1 x microSD card reader
• 1 x nano SIM card reader (connects to M.2 port)

One of my favorite things about the Flipper One is just how well labeled those ports are. Not sure which USB-C port supports video output? No worries, there are labels beneath each that explain their capabilities. Want to know if the HDMI port supports 4K/120Hz output and HDMI-CEC. It does… as explained by the label under the port.

There’s also a 20-pin GPIO header on the back of the device, along with a 14-pin debug port.

Inside the body of the Flipper One there’s an M.2 B-Key slot with support for PCIe 2.1 x1 M.2 2242/3042/3052 add-ons like cellular modems.

And on the outside there are five buttons below the screen, an app switcher and back button on the right, along with a 5-button D-Pad. On the left is a touchpad for controlling a pointer, scrolling, or other navigation functions. There’s also a push-to-talk button on top.

All told, the Flipper One appears to be a pretty versatile little computer that’s kind of like a portable Raspberry Pi with buttons, a battery, a small display, and a custom user interface. And while it’s meant to be easy to navigate using nothing but buttons, it has plenty of ports and wireless functionality that will let you basically use it like a desktop with Raspberry Pi 5-like performance. Just plug in a display and connect a wired or wireless mouse and keyboard and you’ve got a desktop PC that you can then pack up and put in your pocket when it’s time to go.

We’ll have to wait a little longer for pricing and availability details, but considering that the Flipper Zero currently sells for $199, I think it’s safe to say that the Flipper One will cost considerably more than that… if for no other reason than the fact that it’s 2026 and this thing has 8GB of RAM inside.