alt Hacker NewsSo it could be possible to make a small portable screen device with this, or maybe not because (I think) the RPI is not optimized to work on a battery.
I would prefer a touchscreen with it.
I am not talking about a smartphone, because smartphones are often more powerful, more expensive. I would just prefer a device to do simple computing, with full access to the OS.
Smartphones tend to have android and powerful hardware, and a 4G or 5G antenna. I would just be happy with wifi and enough power to run some C or python code.
I am just curious what is the cheapest screen device that is possible to make with this, as long as it has wifi, a touch screen and be completely open. So far RPI is nice, but it's not really what I want.
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Maybe you’ll find a “cheap yellow display” interesting https://github.com/witnessmenow/ESP32-Cheap-Yellow-Display
It has a display, WiFi, Bluetooth and you can write whatever software you want for it.
It’s based on an ESP32, which is a microcontroller not a full computer like a raspberry pi
Funny enough, seeing all types of different suggestions under the sun here in the sibling posts; it's also unsurprising, since I myself can't tell where the gap is between what the Pi offers vs. what you're hoping for, as that would have been the first thing I suggested.
In addition to all the other suggestions, you might look at PINE64's offerings. Maybe one of their tablets, their PinePhone, or one of their SBCs or SOCs.
Some of the gaming handhelds that have mainline Linux support might be the ticket.
Ah, and the Vivid Unit: https://www.vividunit.com/Main_Page
If you’re looking at something with a screen, the ESP32 ecosystem has tons of options. Look up Waveshare and Elegoo ESP32 modules.
You buy any cheap Android phone and run Termux on it.
You know the fun thing is, something like the Allwinner A133 - which is one of the most popular SOCs in lower-end tablets today - is like $5, or $3 in quantity.
It turns out it's actually not as hard as you'd expect to whip together your own board with one of those + LPDDR4 RAM + eMMC storage + fixings, and get yourself something like what you're talking about for... I dunno, sub $50? Maybe even sub $20 depending on how much RAM you put on it and what other capabilities you give it.
I'm in the middle of designing just such a board right now. Totally recommend taking a stab at it if you have any EE chops at all (or want to learn!)