PineNote Developer Edition – E-Paper Tablet

https://pine64.com/product/pinenote-developer-edition/

by justinclift • 5 years ago

152 92 5 years ago

kylecazar• 5 years ago

Little confused. So eventually the PineNote will come with a custom Linux distro for end-users, I presume, that works out of the box with the hardware. But what are devs at this point supposed to flash, any flavor of mobile Linux?

the_biot3• 5 years ago

I think this is intended for kernel driver developers, not user application developers.

foxfluff4• 5 years ago

You flash whatever you want to develop.

powersnail• 5 years ago

At this point, whoever buy the device are the ones who figure out what is supposed to be flashed. That's basically how Pine64 works: they make the hardware, and let the community work on the software, including the OS and drivers. It worked decently for phones, albeit slow, the software seems to be coming along gradually.

rjsw• 5 years ago

The PineNote is very close to the design of the Quartz64, there is a Linux BSP for that, you would flash a Quartz64 distribution and use a serial console.

breakfastduck2• 5 years ago

I totally get releasing products like this to a 'developer audience' when its not fully working / complete but charging that much for it in that state...

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".

sporedro• 5 years ago

Ya I’m a little confused, why is this thing $400 for something that doesn’t even work? Is the target audience developers who want to develop drivers and stuff for this? If so shouldn’t it be as cheap as possible? I don’t see the point in trying to make money at this stage when your target is people interested in a non functional product.

natpalmer1776• 5 years ago

I believe Pine64 is making profits off of people buying developer devices that have little-to-no actual functionality as a means of funding the development of the products in question.

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.

metabagel3• 5 years ago

“at this stage”

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.

foxfluff4• 5 years ago

How do you know they're making money?

Producing electronics at small quantities is expensive. Prototypes are expensive. Economies of scale is everything when it comes to producing cost-effective electronics.

arthur6667• 5 years ago

It is about funding further development. The first risc-v development boards costed >600$ for essentially something like a raspberry pi.

These people try to make these products in the open and without huge funding so it can actually reamin open.

officeplant6• 5 years ago

Is the target audience developers who want to develop drivers and stuff for this?

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.

metabagel3• 5 years ago

You’re comparing a closed source commercial product with an open source community driven project.

CameronNemo9• 5 years ago

Remarkable tablet has a closed soure eink display driver in userspace. Rockchip has a closed source eink display driver in kernel space. At least remarkable isn't violating the GPL.

boudin• 5 years ago

You're just not the target audience, they make it clear that it's a device in its early stage of development. The goal is clearly to build a community that will help building an open-source ecosystem around this kind of device.

CameronNemo9• 5 years ago

The kernel drivers should already be open source. Just not upstreamed because rockchip doesn't develop upstream first, they only do it later and partially.

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?

jandrese• 5 years ago

It seems insane that they're trying to build a community of support, but then have little to no documentation for so much of the hardware. If your product depends on the community for success maybe you should try to help that community succeed?

intricatedetail• 5 years ago

Remarkable does not offer encryption, so it is mostly an expensive paperweight unless you don't care about your data.

officeplant6• 5 years ago

One might say a remarkable paperweight.

agentultra2• 5 years ago

As a developer I'm a little confused. Are they skirting around having to pay developers to build the software for their device? I'm supposed to pay $400 USD for a development kit that comes with no tooling or support and... what? Do I get to release software for the platform under the Pine brand? Will Pine buy my drivers and software back? Will there be an ecosystem where I get a share of profits for the work?

If this is hobbyist kit it's very pricey.

DoingIsLearning2• 5 years ago

Your outrage seems misplaced. People are excited to have an open platform to play with, that is not trapped in some form of digital garden.

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.

yjftsjthsd-h• 5 years ago

I'm supposed to pay $400 USD for a development kit that comes with no tooling or support

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.

zeta0134• 5 years ago

On the flip side, for those of us who enjoy this sort of hardware hackery, this is a reasonable price for this collection of parts all conveniently wired up and ready for the fun part.

breakfastduck2• 5 years ago

I can appreciate that, as I have paid for similar 'hacker focused' projects e.g. playdate.

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!

troyvit• 5 years ago

I dunno. After reading HN's more recent take on the remarkable 2 and its move towards a subscription model[0] I can see a use case.

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.

tln• 5 years ago

PineNote Developer Edition is $399 with stylus included.

Remarkable 2 is $399 without a stylus.

The only way Remarkable 2 is "cheaper" is with an $8/mo subscription-- $299 + $8/mo.

rbanffy5• 5 years ago

Have you ever bought any evaluation boards from any chip manufacturer?

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.

excitednumber• 5 years ago

Does anyone else worry about pine64 being hq in hk? (reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PinePhone)

officeplant6• 5 years ago

Not really as they have always been fairly open about working closely with factories in Shenzhen that product the products if you subscribe to their monthly email digest. Their previous US based offices seemed kinda pointless.

amelius• 5 years ago

But what happens if China takes over control in HK?

fsflover2• 5 years ago

They publish schematics for their devices.

coffeecat• 5 years ago

If you're worried about that, you can go with Purism. But, because their employees make San Francisco salaries, and they lack expertise and connections within China's supplier/manufacturer scene, Purism can't even come close to competing with Pine64 on price.

techietim• 5 years ago

There is no real point in posting this now: you needed to sign up as a developer back in September in order to purchase this:

Developers will need to use a coupon code to complete the purchase.

CameronNemo9• 5 years ago

Perhaps this page would be better to post: https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/RK3566_EBC_Reverse-Engineering

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.

the_biot3• 5 years ago

Good point. That page says the BSP ships with a GCC-produced driver blob, without source. Would be good to hear from the Pine64 folks on whether they've contacted the vendor and demanded source.

justinclift• 5 years ago

There is no real point in posting this now ...

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. :)

lettergram• 5 years ago

I really wish I could just get a half decent pinephone ...

fsflover2• 5 years ago

I have it. What's the problem with the Pinephone?

kayodelycaon2• 5 years ago

One more step towards a truly open eInk tablet! :D

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.

41209• 5 years ago

How exactly does it boot.

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.

ocdtrekkie2• 5 years ago

Currently, the only ways to flash software are from the factory Android installation (UART shell, adb, or fastboot) or by using rkdeveloptool

https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PineNote_Development

throwaway815232• 5 years ago

One more step towards a truly open eInk tablet! :D

What about Inkplate? No one ever mentions that.

gedy• 5 years ago

I have an Inkplate but it's really more a programmable display, and not tablet-like hardware/features like this.

1-6• 5 years ago

"Most of the device’s functionality, including the e-paper display, do not work at this time."

paulcole2• 5 years ago

I wish Pine would make 1 finished consumer product instead of 10 things no average person should even consider buying.

kayodelycaon2• 5 years ago

I'd argue that anyone wanting a fully open source anything isn't an average person.

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.

paulcole2• 5 years ago

With good consumer products, it doesn't matter if they're open source or not to the average person.

I guess Pine is fine being in the semi-useless and unfinished products business.

foxfluff4• 5 years ago

Why not buy from brands that make consumer products?

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.

jbawn• 5 years ago

I've been happy with my Remarkable and am looking forward to more of these devices coming to market.

spaniard892772• 5 years ago

Make an e-ink display for Pinebook, please. It would be a game changer for working outside, despite all the faults e-ink displays have.

I write often, and I think I could adapt to code without colors with a little effort.

CameronNemo9• 5 years ago

Couldn't you just use a stand/keyboard that also acts as a cover with this device?

spaniard892772• 5 years ago

It's not the same, a proper laptop with a proper keyboard is another game entirely.

rbanffy5• 5 years ago

If only PixelQi still existed…

1024core• 5 years ago

Most of the device’s functionality, including the e-paper display, do not work at this time.

:-(

tsuujin• 5 years ago

For ~$400.

I understand they’re clear about this being “for developers” but this just seems unfair.

renzo883• 5 years ago

The pricing is pretty competitive compared to other devices with a similar resolution. These are low margin devices, with very high BOM.

tohnjitor2• 5 years ago

Looking forward to further development of this so I can display sheet music PDFs. Sheet music specific e-ink tablets are a bit expensive.

grogenaut• 5 years ago

would a remarkable work for you or a boox?

tohnjitor2• 5 years ago

Boox: Totally would if the price came down a bit. I know that's a big ask with eInk displays being proprietary but a guy can dream.

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.

foodbag2• 5 years ago

I received my PineNote today.

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.

CameronNemo9• 5 years ago

The Pine/Linux community are working on porting Linux kernel/distros to it.

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).

foodbag2• 5 years ago

There's no centralized development that I know of. The Wiki tends to lag reality, but two pages are related:

* https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PineNote_Development

* https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/RK3566_EBC_Reverse-Engineering tracks the status of that.

coolspot• 5 years ago

The stylus works great for taking notes on 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.

mschuster91• 5 years ago

I'd be interested in buying and tinkering with one... I'm not afraid getting my hands dirty with embedded Linux stuff, the only thing I am afraid of is that I end up with a board that (despite saying "production run") has some issue on the PCB that makes core functionality (e.g. CPU, RAM, display, USB-C or WiFi) unable to work in hardware.

What are the options in case there indeed is some sort of defect on the PCB?

joebiden2024• 5 years ago

Can these output video as well?

mynameisash• 5 years ago

I really want an 8.5x11 or bigger, very low power e-ink device that I can use as essentially a photo display. I was inspired by this[0], but as I'm not a hardware guy at all, trying to make one is out of my reach. Hopefully this PineNote will become that device sometime.

[0] https://youtu.be/gECj1AE9D2c

daly• 5 years ago

I spend all of my days reading PDFs.

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.

infinite8s3• 5 years ago

It's too bad it needs Linux as a base, would be great to build a Smalltalk-based system using something like the circle library for low-level access (https://github.com/rsta2/circle). Hopefully someone can reverse engineer the binary blob for controlling the eInk display.

the_biot3• 5 years ago

Oh, is THAT what's stopping you from building a Smalltalk-based system using something like the circle library for low-level access. Damn, so close!

infinite8s3• 5 years ago

Well, something like the smalltalk-78 that Alan Kay demos here (https://youtu.be/AnrlSqtpOkw?t=242) would be an ideal starting interface for e-ink based tablet.

PineNote Developer Edition – E-Paper Tablet

Related Stories