Pine64 has big plans for 2019. The company, which produces low-power, low-cost computers capable of running GNU/Linux and BSD software, plans to release its first smartphone this year, as well as a $199 laptop that will be its most powerful model to date.

Also on the horizon? A dirt cheap Linux tablet.

The upcoming PineTab is a 10.1  inch touchscreen tablet should cost around $99 if you buy it with an optional detachable keyboard. Or you’ll be able to buy just the tablet for $79.

As you’d expect from a device at that price point, this thing isn’t exactly a powerhouse.

It features a quad-core Allwinner A64 ARM Cortex-A53 quad-core processor, 2GB of LPDDR3 RAM, and 16GB of eMMC storage.

The tablet has a 10.1 inch, 720p touchscreen IPS LCD display, a USB 2.0 port, a micro USB 2.0 port, a 5MP rear camera, a 2MP front-facing camera, speakers, a mic, a card reader, and support for 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth. There’s a volume rocker and a home button on the tablet.

The detachable keyboard includes a touchpad and QWERTY keys.

Pine64 says it will show a “nearly complete” prototype at the FOSDEM 2019 conference, and that the company will be ready to start producing and selling tablets soon.

It’s unclear if the production units will have the same Windows key on the keyboard seen on the prototype.

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,547 other subscribers

10 replies on “PineTab Linux tablet coming in 2019 for $79 and up”

  1. I was just reading about putting Linux on a Microsoft Surface Go. It seemed that other than the camera not working, it was an easy and fully functional tablet. With some decent hardware ( not too cheaply made), this seemed like a decent option. Not sure if this comes close enough in what it offers too make me consider otherwise… The MS solution is slightly more expensive, but you can get 4 or 8gb memory too!

  2. Seems, they’ve gotten the enter-key wrong. As an admin(and human second) I make copious use of the “\” key, and refuse any keyboard like this. I’ve seen many such reviews of these sorts of boards, and gpu support is always lacking, as well as community. Might be more wise to get into the business of creating the hardware, minus the board, …with a universal board attachment option.

  3. I would definitely pay more than $199 to get a 1920×1080 resolution screen. I would want to use a tiling window manager like i3, but its almost impossible to use tiling WMs on 1280×720 resolution.

    1. The new Nook 10.1″ has a 1920 x 1200 resolution for $130. Can you install Linux on it???

  4. I’m pretty sure that 720p display is actually 800 by 1280, 16:10, and I know that you just copied the info from the official announcement, but I guess, no one cares.

  5. I wonder if it’s powerful enough to run a web browser so I can access the media on my Plex server? This would be a nice cheap tab to mount in the kitchen.

    1. you could probably straight up install kodi on the thing and access plex from there. this thing should be good enough for that

  6. I thought there’d be more comments here. To me, a Linux tablet is more interesting than another Linux laptop. I wonder how the PineTab will perform compared to the Fire and Nook tablets for general usage. I also wonder how Linux will perform in a touch-only environment. Ubuntu worked on my Surface 3 Pro a few year back, but wasn’t particularly happy. Hackers should have a field day with the PineTab.

  7. Does hardware acceleration work? Video decoding? I like the idea of a portable linux tablet, but the solutions seem half-baked.

Comments are closed.