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A Raspberry Pi Based Open Source Tablet is in Making and it’s Called CutiePi
CutiePie is an 8-inch open-source tablet built on top of Raspberry Pi. For now, it is just a working prototype which they announced on Raspberry Pi forums.
In this article, you’ll get to know more details on the specifications, price, and availability of CutiePi.
They have made the Tablet using a custom-designed Compute Model (CM3) carrier board. The official website mentions the purpose of a custom CM3 carrier board as:
A custom CM3/CM3+ carrier board designed for portable use, with enhanced power management and Li-Po battery level monitoring features; works with selected HDMI or MIPI DSI displays.
So, this is what makes the Tablet thin enough while being portable.
CutiePi Specifications
I was surprised to know that it rocks an 8-inch IPS LCD display – which is a good thing for starters. However, you won’t be getting a true HD screen because the resolution is 1280×800 – as mentioned officially.
It is also planned to come packed with Li-Po 4800 mAh battery (the prototype had a 5000 mAh battery). Well, for a Tablet, that isn’t bad at all.
Connectivity options include the support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. In addition to this, a USB Type-A, 6x GPIO pins, and a microSD card slot is present.
The hardware is officially compatible with Raspbian OS and the user interface is built with Qt for a fast and intuitive user experience. Also, along with the in-built apps, it is expected to support Raspbian PIXEL apps via XWayland.
CutiePi Source Code
You can second-guess the pricing of this tablet by analyzing the bill for the materials used. CutiePi follows a 100% open-source hardware design for this project. So, if you are curious, you can check out their GitHub page for more information on the hardware design and stuff.
CutiePi Pricing, Release Date & Availability
CutiePi plans to work on DVT batch PCBs in August (this month). And, they target to launch the final product by the end of 2019.
Officially, they expect it to launch it at around $150-$250. This is just an approximate for the range and should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Obviously, the price will be a major factor in order to make it a success – even though the product itself sounds promising.
Wrapping Up
CutiePi is not the first project to use a single board computer like Raspberry Pi to make a tablet. We have the upcoming PineTab which is based on Pine64 single board computer. Pine also has a laptop called Pinebook based on the same.
Judging by the prototype – it is indeed a product that we can expect to work. However, the pre-installed apps and the apps that it will support may turn the tide. Also, considering the price estimate – it sounds promising.
What do you think about it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below or just play this interactive poll.
via: https://itsfoss.com/cutiepi-open-source-tab/
作者：Ankush Das 选题：lujun9972 译者：译者ID 校对：校对者ID