Using this for a tablet would be a very disappointing and slow experience. There are many better SoCs to use. If someone was set on using a Raspberry Pi, the full size compute modules would be a much better choice.
These are for embedding in very simple devices. You wouldn’t want to use it for anything like web browsing or trying to run a modern GUI app.
And I am guessing that a part of the reason for a lack of any such RaspPi tablets is that marketing such a tablet would come with the need to negatively differentiate it from any similarly priced android tablet.
However I can think of many use cases, mainly for folks in the maker space, that are not content consumption or gaming or long battery life. I am thinking of dashboards or smart home control panels.
Right now I have a few raspi4s mounted on the back of an official touchscreen encased in an adjustable plastic stand. Been working great for years, but the size is clunky and processing power is more than what I need it for, which is just displaying a web page with some information and buttons.
Would love a thin display to mount on a wall near a door or have others lying flat on a table next to a beside or couch. Basically always plugged in but with an included battery for the odd moment when I need to carry it somewhere.
So many other uses i could think of.
Ive looked at Amazon Fire tablets, but the locked-down android and really android of any kind is just not something I am interested in.
Ive seen raspberry pis used for just about everything else but not this
If all the device needs to be is a dumb terminal locked to displaying a web page, it's really hard to beat the value proposition of modding a dirt cheap Amazon/Android tablet. Most Pi home-built solutions with an addon touchscreen, battery etc will be less elegant solutions that cost more a lot of the time.
Locking a cheap android tablet to a single page is super common in home-brew home automation builds etc, even in builds where Pis are used. You can trivially turn a great many Amazon tablets into home automation dash/remotes/web kiosks.
> but the locked-down android and really android of any kind is just not something I am interested in.
When all you want is the browser, Android is as good a place to start as virtually any other on a device like this.
I have a fire tablet that I’ve tried that with, but for various reasons I prefer to have Linux on all the things. As a long time Android phone user Android still gives me an irrational ick, non-standard android even more so.
Ideally all my home devices would controlled and managed by the same underlying OS and tooling
I have to stop being such a prude, it just frustrates me that after so many years I can’t buy a cheap Linux tablet
much better, you can make one yourself! and considering touch displays out there (Waveshare have nice ones) already have supports to hook up your pi without much CAD tinkering, it's all about making a case and developing your system for a battery (which also are quite popular and have already made solutions). if we stop being prudes all we get is Jeff and Jobs locked devices! take a look at the cyber-deck scene on Reddit