CutiePi Is World’s Thinnest, Hackable Raspberry Pi Tablet, Available for Pre-Order Now

CutiePi

CutiePi tablet was launched today on Kickstarter as the world’s thinnest Raspberry Pi tablet that promises to be fully open source, ultra portable, and incredibly intuitive.

Dubbed by its creator as the “first truly usable Raspberry Pi tablet,” CutiePi is powered by a custom, OSHWA-certified open source board based on Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3+ Lite with 1GB RAM, which uses the same BCM2837 SoC as the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ single-board computer.

“Because we care, we designed our own hardware. And because we are cool and care even more, we’ve made everything open,” said Phoebus Torralba.

The tablet uses an 8-inch, 5-point multi-touch IPS LCD display that features an 1280×800 resolution and, as you can see from the image gallery below, a handle, which can be used to carry the tablet and as a stand.

A 5000 mAh Li-Po battery is included as well for up to 5 hours of stand-by time. CutiePi also appears to be world’s thinnest Raspberry Pi tablet featuring a 12mm profile with the following dimensions: 213(W) x 134(H) mm. The tablet weights only 360g.

Connectivity-wise, CutiePi comes with Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n wireless, Bluetooth 4.0, six GPIO pins, one USB type-A port, one USB type-C port for charging, one micro HDMI port, and a microSD slot.

On top of all these open hardware, CutiePi utilizes a highly optimized mobile user interface built using the Qt open-source application framework, called CutiePi shell, and based on the official Raspberry Pi OS (formerly Raspbian).

The CutiePi UI gives users the ability to do everything they’re doing on any other tablet and more. You can to basic things like connecting to a Wi-Fi hotspot, logging into websites, as well as advanced things like running commands in a terminal.

For now, the tablet comes with a set of built-in apps designed for a touch screen, but future updates will add support for the Raspberry Pi OS desktop and apps via XWayland. If you want to see it in action, check out the video below.

If you’re convinced, you can pre-order the CutiePi tablet right now from its Kickstarter page from $169 USD for the super early bird special. If the crowdfunding campaign proves be successful, the CutiePi is scheduled to ship to backers in Q4 2020.

Update: CutiePi surpassed its goal of $35,014 USD in just a few hours from the launch of the Kickstarter campaign. Estimated delivery is now set for November 2020.

Last updated 4 years ago

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