The JingPad A1 is a tablet with an 11 inch AMOLED touchscreen display, support for digital pen input, and a detachable keyboard that lets you use the tablet like a laptop. It also has an operating system that’s designed for both tablet and laptop mode.
That’s because the JingPad A1 will be the first tablet to ship with JingOS, an operating system developed by Chinese company Jingling that’s a custom Linux distribution designed for tablets but capable of running desktop applications (as well as some Android applications).
First unveiled in March, the tablet will go up for pre-order soon through an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. Jingling hasn’t announced a price yet, but an Indiegogo preview page is now live, and folks who sign up with an email address may be able to save 40-percent when orders open up in May.
Jingling has also released a promotional video that gives us a better look at the tablet and its accessories including a pen with support for 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity and a keyboard with a kickstand and hinge that should provide a laptop-like experience when the tablet is docked.
The tablet has a 2368 x 1728 pixel display with a 4:3 aspect ratio, a Unisoc Tiger T7510 octa-core processor, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. It also has a cellular modem. Jingling says the tablet supports 4G LTE wireless networks in most countries, but only promises 5G support for “some countries.” A detailed list is expected in June.
Here’s an overview of the JingPad A1’s hardware specs:
| Display | 11 inch AMOLED 2368 x 1728 pixels 266 pixels per inch 4:3 aspect ratio “almost 90%” screen-to-body ratio 109% NTSC color gamut 350 nits |
| Processor | Unisoc Tiger T7510 4 x ARM Cortex-A75 CPU cores @ 2 GHz 4 x ARM Cortex-A55 CPU cores @ 1.8 GHz PowerVR GM9446 GPU @ 800 MHz |
| RAM | 8GB |
| Storage | 256GB |
| Cameras & mics | 16MP rear 8MP front Dual-mic array |
| Battery & Charging | 8,000 mAh 18W charger (3 hours for full charge) |
| Connectivity | 4G/5G modem (Not supported in all countries, a list is coming in June, 2021) Bluetooth 5.0 Dual-band WiFi USB Type-C OTG |
| Input | Capacitive touchscreen Pen with 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity (optional) Keyboard with 6-rows and touchpad (optional) |
| Software | Linux-based JingOS Support for Android apps |
| Dimensions | 6.7mm thick (0.26 inches) |
| Weight | 500 grams (1.1 pounds) |
As for software, the tablet will ship with the latest version of JingOS, a Linux distribution that’s based on Ubuntu Linux and which incorporates elements of KDE Plasma and Plasma Mobile (although Jingling hopes to move away from Plasma Mobile eventually and use only its own user interface).
But according to comments in the official JingOS Discord server, the JingPad A1 has an unlocked bootloader and the company will encourage members of the Linux community to port other operating systems, so it’s possible we could see Ubuntu Touch, postmarketOS, or other Linux-based operating systems running on this hardware at some point. Although without mainline Linux support for the tablet’s processor, developers may have to use Halium so that Linux distributions can talk to the tablet’s hardware using Android drivers.
I must say that kickstand is brilliant. Perfect solution to the weight imbalance inherent with any tablet docking keyboard.
they ve just published a video of the keyboard in their discord
it has a cover with strong magnets which attach to the back of the jingpad, similar to the ipad magic keyboard (it’s apparently made by the same factory that makes the ipad magic keyboards …)
To anyone who is willing to use a Chinese OS, all I have to say is ‘good luck’ with that.
and you would trust the Linux kernel itself right? That btw has commits/code from gasp shocker* employees from Huawei. Yes, that Huawei. Do the research.
Not necessarily agreeing with the OP, but comparing the security of the Linux kernel with that of JingOS it nuts.
There are 100,000’s of eyes on Linux kernel dev, including multinational corporations, banks, nation states and legions of software professionals. JingOS’s Github page, on the other hand, currently has 4 contributors listed on it.
So, Huawei (or whoever) could upload a commit to the Linux kernel with a misspelled comment and it’d be caught in under a minute. But they could upload a suite of backdoors to JingOS and they’d be sure to go undetected for, well, a bit longer.
yeah you might want to double check that. There is a huge possibility/probability that the kernel itself is already compromised and a multi staged exploit/backdoor is running wild disguised as “bugs”. Check out the timeline on why a US University was banned censorship? from contributing to the kernel. Hint this was already known since Feb of this year.
There is a false equivalence that more eyes/more open source is the same as more secure -as the op said, “to anyone ..good luck with that”. JingOS has a small team, what of it?
Didn’t you just make Arch’s point? We know about the Univ of Minnesota intentionally posting bugs to the kernel precisely because of all the eyes on the kernel dev. That’s the diff betweensmall and large.