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Comment by lelanthran | Hacker News Reader

> I think RK3588 does, and it's a big win.

I'll put that down as a TIL :-)

I'm really wanting a clamshell-like device with console controls in addition to the qwerty keyboard, with a large 7" screen (even if resolution is lower than 1920x768) based on the RK3588.

I want what the Pandora/GP2X could have been: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora_(computer) but with a larger screen and a more easily acquired SoC. Using replaceable 18650s (and charging via USB-C) is on my requirements as well.

I want to play games, basically, but set up my own linux distro for it, complete with mame and some ROMs.

If it can do games other than mame, then so much the better!

Anyone have any ideas?

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ClockworkPi's uConsole comes pretty close:

https://www.clockworkpi.com/uconsole

I have a couple of these - they work great for dev systems and its occasionally fun to load up PICO8 and have a bit of a bash..

I also have a couple of OpenPandora's but I stopped using them when I got a Steam Deck.

I suppose you can DIY this with the RK3588 - but I haven't used it myself.

I had previously experimented with the CM5, and found out that you can't really use it for anything portable without attaching a heavy battery. With its excellent software stack, CM5 could have been everywhere if they had gotten this right.

It seems to be a really hard problem. Deep sleep even with Raspberry Pi Zero and Pico product lines has been problematic. I hoped they would make Pico 2 deep sleep better, but it still needs external deep sleep RTC like DS3231 to make it truly useful.

The Raspberry Pi SoCs optimised for cost rather than power consumption (or maximum performance). This is an engineering trade off, not a criticism. More power partitioning requires more area, more complexity in design and verification, and more expensive external components to support the internal voltage domains.

Another comment mentions the RP2xxx microcontrollers. If you look at those, they are optimised for compute power and data throughput rather than low power operation. I think it's a reasonable choice - the Pico boards are pretty sturdy and the original target is people running MicroPython, Arduino, etc rather than looking for µA standby currents.

I miss netbooks as well.

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