10-inch tablet with detachable keyboard case should be available in early 2023:
Pine64, makers of ARM-based, tinker-friendly gadgets, is making the PineTab 2, a sequel to its Linux-powered tablet that mostly got swallowed up by the pandemic and its dire global manufacturing shortages.
The PineTab 2, as described in Pine64's "December Update," is based around the RK3566, made by RockChip. Pine64 based its Quartz64 single-board system on the system-on-a-chip (SoC), and has all but gushed about it across several blog posts. It's "a dream-of-a-SoC," writes Community Director Lukasz Erecinski, a "modern mid-range quad-core Cortex-A55 processor that integrates a Mali-G52 MP2 GPU. And it should be ideal for space-constrained devices: it runs cool, has a variety of I/O options, solid price-to-performance ratio, and "is genuinely future-proof." While Linux support was scarce early on, development for RK3566 is "booming," and it's now a prime candidate for mobile operating systems, Erecinski writes.
[...] The tablet should ship with two memory/storage variants, 4GB/64GB and 8GB/128GB. It's due to ship "sometime after the Chinese New Year" (January 22 to February 5), though there's no firm date. No price was announced, but "it will be affordable regardless of which version you'll settle on."
The original PineTab eventually shipped, but Erecinski describes it as "a victim of COVID and its fallout," and its "death" as a choice to focus on the PinePhone. Pine64 later iterated on the phone to deliver the PinePhone Pro. As with the PineBook and PinePhone, context is key: This is a device meant for tinkering, experimenting, or using as a truly low-power spare/alternate device, not a daily driver or workhorse for most people. Those who know themselves enough to order, however, should keep an eye out early next year.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 20, @07:32PM (9 children)
Seriously, what has been preventing this from coming to market for the past 10-12 years? Has that changed?
If they can keep it in supply, reasonably priced, and work out some kind of way to keep "evil apps" off, or at least readily identified, I would heartily welcome a tablet that runs applications that don't have to update every 9 to 18 months to keep up with ever-shifting demands of the operating system.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday December 20, @07:57PM (5 children)
Purism in 2016. [notebookcheck.net]
PineTab in 2020 [notebookcheck.net] but it became a victim of bad timing as TFS notes.
There are some cheap Chinese Linux tablets like JingPad [notebookcheck.net]. I thought Chuwi made one but it looks like they are all Android.
Juno Computers [notebookcheck.net] is based in the UK.
Fydetab Duo [notebookcheck.net] uses a Chromium OS fork, so straying a little but should be able to run Linux applications.
If you roll the clock all the way back to 2010, that was around the time that HP was trying to get on the tablet train with webOS [wikipedia.org] on TouchPad [wikipedia.org]. It failed miserably, but the fire sale was legendary because they were sold off at as low as $100, which was unheard of at the time. 2010-2012 would have been a horrible environment to launch a niche Linux tablet. Now that cheap tablets are commonplace and specs/perf are much better, you can design a Linux-based one that doesn't suck, and do small production runs. It became common to fund Linux gadgets with platforms such as Kickstarter, as Ubuntu tried to do in 2013 [wikipedia.org].
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-hp-doomed-the-touchpad-to-failure/ [zdnet.com]
https://www.computerworld.com/article/2470884/hp-touchpad-sale-ignites--99-webos-tablet-grab.html [computerworld.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 20, @09:18PM (4 children)
Lately, I find myself wishing for something to write notes on besides paper with ink (advantages of immediate transfer into e-documents without a scanner or paper to throw away, etc. etc.)
The boox line [boox.com] of e-ink tablets (and similar) seem tempting: nice portable size, long battery life, easy reading in sunlight, paper-like surface for stylus friction while drawing, semi-standard Android OS for apps like Krita, etc. buuuuut... they're not the cheapest things out there, and then there's the issue of color - which I can live without, but do I want to? and is a less sucky color implementation just around the corner???
I already got a Christmas present [amazon.com] for the man-cave / office, which is where the e-ink tablet would see the most use, but it is very portable...\
I can't help but think that iff Ubuntu Touch had gotten traction (in the form of a Qt based Nokia smartphone in 2008...) the whole landscape around tablet devices would look more attractive, to me. Mobile apps that can be developed as simple desktop apps, etc.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday December 27, @11:37PM (3 children)
It seems to be a choice between colour and usability in bright sunlight.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 28, @12:59AM (2 children)
Or this, quasi color visible in bright sunlight:
https://shop.boox.com/products/novaairc [boox.com]
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday December 28, @03:53PM (1 child)
Very interesting. Colour isn't art-grade, especially not with the low resolution, but a lot better than I've seen before.
E-ink is usually a bit slow. And it runs Android. I imagine things might get a bit out of control if I end up with a video ad.
I know that happens on my laptop when I end up seeing a video over ssh -X link (i.e. the video codec is running remotely). The connection gets so overloaded it's difficult to get a click in to kill the transmitting process.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 28, @05:15PM
Yeah, even though the processor/OS can run anything, I wouldn't expect great results for fast animations.
Still, very tempting, and if you compare it with an iPad mini the price isn't out of line - compared with loss leader e-readers full of proprietary software isn't realistic.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Informative) by RamiK on Wednesday December 21, @12:35AM (2 children)
Thanks to Intel's ~2016 Atom & Celeron dumpings (against Chromebooks and Android mostly), the x86 x5-8300, x5-8350, N3350 and N3450 tablets, 2-in-1s and laptops flooded the lower ends of the markets and prevented ARM from entering the segment. In fact, you can still find some very nice options using that era's SoCs selling in the $70-150 range depending on RAM, screen size and resolution that can make for surprisingly good linux boxes: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMJAjiTgBtFmxIzlMQ4Yq4qr318IGlWiG [youtube.com]
compiling...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 21, @12:46AM (1 child)
+1 informative, thanks
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday December 21, @02:08AM
Sure. btw, honorable mention: https://github.com/Maccraft123/Cadmium [github.com]
compiling...
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 21, @06:06AM (3 children)
Come on, people. I'm pretty sure that Android powers more computers than Windows does, these days. Everyone has a phone - even people who don't own a desktop or a laptop. And, all those Apple devices use a descendant of BSD. *nix already dominates the world. So, why exactly do so many people feel the need to spread Linux to phones, tablets, and whatever else. *nix is already there.
Ohhh-kay, I'll admit that Android isn't Debian. Or Redhat. Or Dr. Seus, for that matter. But it's *nix. Most of us should feel pretty much at home on Android. Don't like your Android device? Fine, root it, and fix it the way you like it. Pull out all the manufacturer's apps, pull out all the Telco apps, pull out the Google apps, and you're left with a system that is just as flexible as Linux. Install all of the open source apps you like, just leave the spyware out, and you have a decent computer.
For that matter, wouldn't it be simpler to just fork Android? Give the ̶d̶e̶v̶i̶l̶ Google his due, he showed us how to do Linux on touchscreen devices. And a lot of companies are printing their own money at the Android mint. Fork it, and follow their lead.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday December 21, @09:53AM (2 children)
Android is a crutch, particularly on ARM. Most of these third/fourth-tier SoCs are meant for Android TV boxes first, Linux desktop duty a distant second/third. Getting Linux running well on RK35** is a sign of maturity.
The forks have already happened. There's LineageOS [wikipedia.org] as the Android fork, and FydeOS [fydeos.io] for Google's other big OS, Chrome/ChromiumOS, among others [wikipedia.org]. FydeOS has already been put on a tablet [notebookcheck.net]. ChromeOS tablet UI was criticized when the tablets first came out, but I hear it's gotten better and people love those Lenovo Duets. Clearly, you can start from something new but bad and improve on it, particularly when you have plenty of good examples to copy. In Google execs' darkest dreams, they will even eliminate Android, replacing it entirely with Fuchsia [wikipedia.org].
Considering all of the Linux-based operating systems that have been worked on for the likes of the PinePhone [pine64.org], there's nothing preventing a decent Linux experience on a tablet. It's even easier since the screens are larger and the devices don't need to handle calls/texts. If you attach a keyboard, you have a laptop. Why shouldn't Linux be made to run on touch devices, which would include 2-in-1s?
Out of the available options, I'd take a look at Ubuntu Touch, Manjaro, and Sailfish for running Linux on a mobile device.
Android has various stupid flaws in the design. Also, Google has played around with having a universal desktop mode in Android, which would have fulfilled the Ubuntu Edge dream. But they neglected it, leaving it to other companies to push their own versions instead, e.g. Samsung DeX mode or Motorola "Ready For" [xda-developers.com]. If there was a competent Android desktop experience without any modification, then any Android device could be plugged into a display, connected to some peripherals directly, indirectly, or wirelessly, and used as an alternative to Windows/Linux.
There is Andronix [andronix.app], but you're still on Android and it's probably got some limitations. And that about covers everything I can think of.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 21, @04:00PM (1 child)
It should, most definitely. The problem is acceptance and adoption. The world has voiced it's resounding approval of Android and iOS. Only us geeks and nerds prefer an OS with the words 'Linux' or 'Unix' or 'BSD' in them. Somehow, the magic is missing from them.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have a Linux tablet or whatever. It's the world at large that needs to be convinced.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 22, @03:16AM
I think the world can accept some of these niche Linux products today because everything has gotten fairly cheap, even with small production runs, at least in comparison to 10 years ago.
You even have crappy solutions like Pi-Top that nevertheless get made and sold.
Taking it back to TFA, Pine64 doesn't even pretend that their single-board computer and phone/tablet/laptop products are aiming for any kind of mass market acceptance. They are up front about the fact that their stuff is for developers and probably doesn't work like you want it to when you buy it. In exchange, you get reasonably priced Chinese-made Linux-capable hardware.
https://www.cnx-software.com/2022/12/16/pinetab2-linux-tablet-rockchip-rk3566-soc-up-to-8gb-ram-128gb-emmc-flash/ [cnx-software.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by jman on Wednesday December 21, @11:37AM (1 child)
My Galaxy Tab S2 (TM-813), purchased new in 2015, runs LineageOS these days, has the accompanying Samsung Bluetooth keyboard case, and works fine, so long as I remember to plug it in every couple of days.
The tablet was my main mobile unit for some years, handling situations that didn't require the "medium iron" of the now-almost-ancient 2009 MBP, which I always seemed to forget to put in the car.
Sure, I'd never write a letter or code on it, but could dial into the shop and TS a funky workstation if I was on the road, so long as I didn't mind scrolling and zooming. 10" screen. Ugh.
Though must admit, having gotten a Framework back in September, it's not my go-to for mobile anymore. Haven't used the tablet (or the MBP) since. 13" screen. Still Ugh, but *much* stronger, and not really all that much bigger.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21, @04:12PM