Some days ago the Pine64 community (dedicated to creating open devices) announced that he is already working on the electronic book «PineNote», this after several years in which the community had been asking for the creation of such a device.
Currently the specifications that are pointed out of the PineNote, it is this will be equipped with a 10,3 screen inches above e-ink base, in addition to the fact that the device is based on SoC Rockchip RK3566 with an A processorQuad-core RM Cortex-A55, AI accelerator RK NN (0.8Tops) and Mali G52 2EE GPU (OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.1, OpenCL 2.0), making the device one of the highest performing devices in its class.
It's been asking us to create an e-ink device for years, and we actually looked to make one as early as 2017. I even remember publicly discussing ideas with community members at the time and researching which SoC would be the best fit for a device. of this type.
The device will be shipped with 4 GB of RAM (LPDDR4) and 128 GB of eMMC flash memory. The 10,3-inch screen is built on the basis of electronic ink (e-ink), supports a resolution of 1404 × 1872 pixels (227 DPI), 16 shades of gray, backlight with variable brightness, as well as two layers to organize input: touch. (capacitive glass) for touch control and EMR (electromagnetic resonance) for input using an electronic pen (EMR pen).
PineNote too has two microphones and two speakers for sound, supports WiFi 802.11 b / g / n / ac (5Ghz) and is equipped with a USB-C port and 4000mAh battery. The front bezel is made of magnesium alloy and the back cover is made of plastic. The device is only 7mm thick.
At the time, we were looking to create an alternative to the entry-level Kindle and other big brand e-readers. However, we quickly learned that big brands heavily subsidize their e-readers through book sales and even if we were to sell an open e-reader at a cost (or a loss), we still couldn't match the price of popular devices. .
Fortunately, the technology landscape and what can be achieved with e-ink has changed significantly since 2017. Since the announcement of Rockchip's RK3566, we knew our opportunity to create an open e-ink device had arrived.
As for the part of the development to feed the «PineNote» this one is based on linux with support for the Rockchip RK3566 SoC that was already included in the main Linux kernel during the development of the Quartz64 board.
The e-paper display controller is still under development, but will be ready for production. It is planned that the first batches will be published with Manjaro Linux pre-installed and Linux kernel 4.19.
It is planned to use KDE Plasma Mobile or a slightly modified KDE Plasma desktop desktop as a custom shell. However, development has not yet been completed and the final filling of the software will depend on how the selected technologies perform on the electronic paper-based display.
This month brings news that many of you have been waiting for years: Introducing PineNote, a high-end e-ink device based on the powerful Quartz64 single board computer.
But the good news does not end here, the PinePhone keyboard has gone into production, the developers have started work on the PinePhone rear cases, the development of PineDio is progressing and we have seen a new firmware version for the Pinebook Pro touchpad. There is a lot of ground to cover this month, so let's get to that.
Finally for those who are interested in the PineNoteYou should know that it is currently in a pre-production prototype stage and is due to go on sale (if all goes well) this year for $ 399.
If you want to know more about it, you can consult the details In the following link.