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Comment by StevePerkins | Hacker News Reader

Two-hundred bucks is basically "impulse purchase" territory, but I'm nevertheless struggling to see the use case here.

If you're into maker projects with Raspberry Pis, then I'm not sure what this does for you. It's a Pi already built into a consumer device. Not seemingly a platform for new maker projects.

If you want a tablet with a Linux kernel buried in there somewhere, then there's probably a thousand Android options with better specs at the price point.

Just kinda seems like a tablet with with limited apps and terrible battery life, being marketed to Pi fans who think having "Pi" in its name will make it a good conversation piece.

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Their software and hardware are open source. Far cry from alternative android tablets. Either way, building a tablet, even based on a raspberry pi, is no easy feat.

In reality, "open source" means next to nothing if you don't get any documentation... which Broadcom remains hesitant to provide.

At least for the Mediatek stuff there's some leaked datasheets and programming manuals as well as board layouts and such.

Why is it so hard though?

I guess the problem is always power management, and I guess writing drivers for the appropriate hardware?

I still fail to understand why there isn't more open source projects like this using android, since android is open source.

I mean using linux on a desktop is easily feasible, but "owning" a tablet or a phone seems like it's so difficult.

I’ve been thinking about my kid’s first computer and something in this ballpark is interesting. More hackable than iPad, not quite the complexity of a laptop. Not sure this one is quite right’ especially compared to the Pi400, but nice to have the tablet form factor.

Pi400 is a fun thing. How much more powerful is the Pi400?

In theory the cm4 should match the 400: they're both based on the BCM2711 chip. There'll be differences in revision, though, and the 400 has a thumping great heatsink so it basically never throttles.

RAM-wise the CM4 they're using in the CutiePi has 2GB, while the 400 has 4GB.

I was really hoping this would be a "bring your own pi" solution rather than a build in one. If it were BYOP then it'd be great for portable devices like field readings (hydroponic nutrient readings around the greenhouse, wilderness env readings, etc) or taking retropi gaming on the go. I feel like having it built in dampens that portability aspect, especially since RPIs are often reused for various projects.

There are exist laptop shells for your pi

With batteries too? Know of the name? The only ones I've seen are the size of suitcases.

Pi-Top.

One of the first things I bought for my Pi was a battery HAT and with VNC on, I use my iPad as its screen, and a BT keyboard from an old Mac. It’s the best of both worlds. I can take the Pi anywhere and work on some Python projects. I went out in nature and it is quite cool to have your tools of the trade with you. Perhaps this fits in that kind of -maybe niche- use case.

Can you please add details on what hardware you bought and what battery life you have achieved? I want to build something similar.

Sure! I bought this HAT : https://www.pishop.us/product/pijuice-hat-a-portable-power-p... and I also bought the AUKEY model pb-t3 16000mAh as an external battery, as it was recommended for this setup by people on the Raspberry forums. You can charge the HAT 4 times, or your Ipad.

The battery lasts long enough, I run some services and some other tools and the HAT alone will last you a day or so. If you do something like video encoding, it will burn quicker obviously. Think phone battery levels of juice with the HAT.

I have a use for this for sure. I got two 400 models for my 3 and 4 yo and installed all the Linux educational software. Recently I started working on my own educational games for them in C and having something like this I can carry around the house to code on vim while I watch them would be super handy.

A surface tablet with a linux image is underrated IMO. They are good and capable hardware and can be had for cheap. I don’t understand why PI is used for a tablet when its purpose is a standalone device with IO capabilities or for experimenting. I went on this path and bought a few linux first devices and while fun they did not perform even close to an consumer device which with the right image (linux) it could become a very good daily driver.

I'm intrigued, which model Surface with which Linux distro would you recommend in the "impulse buy" territory?

https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface/wiki/Supporte... has a matrix of Surface devices and how well they work with Linux.

I'm writing educational games for the PI, so it makes sense for me to get a device with the same hardware to work on. Also I can test builds without taking over one of my kid's devices

If 200$ is in impulse purchase territory I need to do a reality check with my wallet and humanity

The pitch of this project is not great imo.

Not sure saying it's an open source table is any better but calling it a tool for keeping projects on the go is also just weird.

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