PineNote Developer Edition – E-Paper Tablet
pine64.com
pine64.com
> Developers will need to use a coupon code to complete the purchase.
Of course there has been no progress on reverse engineering the epaper display driver in the past three months. Furthermore it is questionable why anyone would need to RE it, considering that the driver is in-kernel. The assembly file that rockchip shipped with their sdk seems like a GPL violation to me.
In the distant past I was hired to provide programs in binary form and many clients refused to pay more for source.
And to answer your question, two come to mind, NXP and Amlogic.
As for blobs without source, the same happens with x86 all the time. If you really want a fully deblobbed computer, you can try one of the POWER boxes from Raptor.
Disagree. I didn't hear about it back in September, and am glad to know they're at least working on this. So, posted it in an attempt to spread the awareness. :)
Please note:
- Purchase is restricted to people who have signed up to be developers.
- This is a hardware prototype with no drivers or operating system.
- You are expected to install an operating system yourself and write the drivers needed to make the device work.
If you do something really stupid and somehow fry your SD card in your Raspberry Pi, that's fine because you can always pop in another SD card. I wouldn't want to accidentally burn out the internal storage on this tablet and have no way to replace it.
> Flip the device around so that the display faces down
> Lay the pen on the right side, with its tip pointing towards the speaker grill, and its magnet pointing towards the upper right corner of the label on the back.
> Turn the device on (...)
Now, you may disagree with that philosophy, but Apple is wildly successful for it. Personally, I don't like Macs anymore, but I do absolutely respect that attitude.
What about Inkplate? No one ever mentions that.
It boots into a PIM-style UI built on Android. The stylus works great for taking notes on it. It has a browser too!
The hardware and case feel high quality.
The Pine/Linux community are working on porting Linux kernel/distros to it.
Define “great”. When you draw a line, how large is lag (distance) between a point of touch and where last pixel is drawn?
Slow-mo video of handwriting or fast sketching would be useful.
Who, exactly, is working on porting a mainline kernel to it? I've not seen much development on the most important part (the rink display driver).
* https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PineNote_Development
* https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/RK3566_EBC_Reverse-Engineering tracks the status of that.
I want an 8.5x11 device with large-size microUSB. Nothing fancy, no markup, no net connection, huge battery. Simple page turning (could be touch or button). Simple file handling. Memory of where I stopped reading.
You could sell these things in volume, the first venue being libraries and bookstores.
Students with school library access could use them to carry all of their papers. Profs could use them for research.
Sci-hub would be a perfect research match.
remarkable: Don't know enough about it but maybe the same caveat applies.
The trouble with sheet music is full size is quite large. 8.5" x 11" is probably "close enough" much of the time but even that is bigger than most eink displays.
Is there such a thing as a non-proprietary display?
:-(
I understand they’re clear about this being “for developers” but this just seems unfair.
I write often, and I think I could adapt to code without colors with a little effort.
What are the options in case there indeed is some sort of defect on the PCB?
To me, Pine products are for hackers & makers. I've three pinecils, both pinepowers, a couple "woodpecker" serial dongles, and some related accessories. Everything I've bought has worked great and been worth every cent. I wish they keep doing exactly the kinds of things they've been doing.
If you want something finished and mostly open, a reMarkable tablet already works. If you want something with android and are okay with GPL being completely ignored, let me point you towards Boox.
I guess Pine is fine being in the semi-useless and unfinished products business.
What a joke. You can get a remarkable 2 for less than the cost of this device when "Most of the device’s functionality, including the e-paper display, do not work at this time".
Nobody has attempted to reverse engineer the boot blobs. Hard to do.
My question is: why rockchip? Why not focus on amlogic or mediatek? What does rockchip offer the open source community that other vendors don't?
Although given Mediatek has been moving up a lot in the world and powering some really nice budget devices (Lenovo Chromebook/Chrome Tablets come to mind) I really hope for some sort of mediatek SBC to materialize as ARM adoption grows.
For now chromebooks remain one of the only ways for me to get linux (via crostini) ARM devices with any sort of performance vs slowly tinkering around on a Pinebook Pro.
Also, comparing stats[1] they are different devices[2]. The PineNote has a more powerful CPU, 128G of storage vs the Remarkable 2's 8G, and a bigger battery.
[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29304365 [1]https://pine64.com/product/pinenote-developer-edition/ [2]https://remarkable.com/#Specifications
So you get more hardware and freedom for the $. I think also that price point, coupled with the warnings, forces people to think hard before they make the jump to try it out.
It just seems very expensive to me considering how lacking it is even in terms of basic drivers but I suppose if people who are into this stuff think it's fairly priced then it's all good! Replies to me certainly seem to confirm that!
Remarkable 2 is $399 without a stylus.
The only way Remarkable 2 is "cheaper" is with an $8/mo subscription-- $299 + $8/mo.
I never did, but clients of mine paid for some and I can tell you they aren’t cheap either - quite the contrary.
This is ridiculously cheap for early access developer hardware.
If this is hobbyist kit it's very pricey.
Many people contribute to mainline and to distros because they believe in those projects, no-one expects that these projects co-finance their hardware.
People will spend a lot more money than 400$ in other things, this is how they choose to spend both their money and time.
Will they eventually release a consumer version that packages up all of the software other folks have written on their own dime? Or do they only release these as developer kits?
That has been the Pine M.O. for their product line. The PineBook was a 'developer' release about 4 years ago. Now it is sold commercially as a full fledge ARM laptop.
The PineTime has now reached a stable hardware but still under SW development and the PineNote is I think the first HW revision that they are shipping.
https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Kobo_Clara_HD_(kobo-clara...
No, you're not. In fact, if you're not a developer who specifically signed up in advance to get your hands on the hardware in order to start building the stuff that will make it usable, you can't buy it right now at all.
Producing electronics at small quantities is expensive. Prototypes are expensive. Economies of scale is everything when it comes to producing cost-effective electronics.
Correct that's the way Pine64 works. Really it's the way the vast majority of niche ARM powered dev boards work. It is often stated on the product pages for people that don't seem to understand this. Their devices are often sold for very little margins above cost as they are mainly to drive developers to the platform. (as development on these devices benefits the SoC manufacturers)
If you want something more consumer friendly come back in two+ years when some of the kinks have been worked out.
These people try to make these products in the open and without huge funding so it can actually reamin open.
There is no indication they will ever leave this stage. I believe they generally sell at cost, even for working products. The purpose is to advance the technology, not to make a profit. But, the manufacturing and NRE costs need to be paid somehow.
It's not ideal, but its better than nothing.
To then follow that up with allowing most of the multi-million dollar development to be done by hobbyists who have purchased your non-functional hardware and you have a recipe for... something.
“ The main purpose of Pine Store creation is servicing PINE64 community. Most of the profit generated from Pine Store uses for production cash flow, new product engineering fee, sponsor community event expense, maintain server cost, and also supporting other open source communities.”