the community of Pine64 released several days ago the start of receiving orders for the PineTab tablet 10.1 inch, which will have as a characteristic the environment Ubuntu Touch from the UBports project.
Since the PineTab Linux tablet had been in development for a while, it was never really clear which operating system would work on it. Unlike smartphones, there are few open source projects designed to run on tablets.
Of those few, UBports is perhaps the most immediately usable and rather than forcing users to download and install it, PINE64 decided to ship the software out of the box.
Although images from other systems are also available, such as: postmarketOS and Arch Linux ARM.
"In terms of software, the PineTab is convergent with the PinePhone and Pinebook software versions," says Pine64. Currently, however, there are still relatively few touchscreen apps available.
Another feature that stands out of the PineTab and that may be a plus to consider, is that Pine64 has added one mini-HDMI port and one M.2 slot that supports an optional SSD or LTE / GPS module.
What generally stands out to many is the user-accessible M.2 adapter plate that will allow you to mount both modules at the same time, but with only one available at a time. In addition to that there are also plans to provide LoRa and RTL-SDR plug-in options.
In addition to running an (almost) purely Linux operating system, PineTab could actually be an entry-level tablet thatIt runs on a 64GHz quad-core Allwinner A1,2 chip with just 2GB of RAM.
Of course, comparing the PineTab even with today's Android tablets would be missing the point of the device completely.
Since the PineTab, is designed to be open source (yes, Android is also an open source project) and privacy minded, the tablet is intended for users who move away from Android, iOS and even Windows who do not mind doing some work to make things work the same. way they want.
The PineTab is essentially a slightly smaller version and with touch screen of the first generation Pinebook, but with the optional keyboard instead of the built-in one.
Like that model, which has been superseded by the Rockchip RK3399-based PineBook Pro laptop.
Features
Of the main features of the device:
- 10.1 inch HD IPS screen with a resolution of 1280 × 800.
- Allwinner A64 CPU (64-bit 4-core ARM Cortex A-53 1.2 GHz), MALI-400 MP2 GPU.
- Memory: 3GB LPDDR2 RAM SDRAM, 64GB built-in eMMC flash memory, SD card slot.
- Two cameras: rear 5MP, 1/4 "(LED flash) and front 2MP (f / 2.8, 1/5").
- Wi-Fi 802.11 b / g / n, single band, access point, Bluetooth 4.0, A2DP.
- 1 full USB 2.0 type A, 1 micro USB OTG (can be used for charging), USB 2.0 port for docking station, HD video output.
- Slot for connecting M.2 extensions, for which modules with SATA SSD, LTE modem, LoRa and RTL-SDR are optionally supplied.
- 6000 mAh Li-Po battery.
- Size 258mm x 170mm x 11,2mm, keyboard option 262mm x 180mm x 21,1mm. Weight 575 grams (with a 950 gram keyboard).
Request your PineTab
For those who are interested in being able to order one piece or more, they should know that the early edition version of PineTab is available now for $ 100 or $ 120 with the keyboard plus $ 28 in shipping.
Also, more information can be found on the shopping page and Pine64 wiki, which is still under development and so far lacks open source files such as schematics.
And you, would you also be encouraged to get your PineTab?
In the case of a server, I only have to wait for a reseller to appear, since they did not trust the parcels (I do not want them to arrive in shreds) and there could also be setbacks with customs.
Source: https://www.pine64.org