RadioSlate: A Tablet with Built in LimeSDR or HackRF
A new project called "RadioSlate" has recently been announced by Yian IT, a Chinese IoT company. RadioSlate will be an SDR-enabled tablet designed to be used with a HackRF or LimeSDR software defined radio that will be mounted internally behind the screen under some metal shielding. The tablet uses a 1024 x 600 touchscreen and runs an Intel M3 8100Y 1.1 to 3.4 GHz dual core CPU with 8GB of RAM, 64GB of storage and it supports both Linux and Windows. Batteries will not be included, but it supports batteries in the standard 18650 form factor which can be purchased anywhere.
The project is due to be crowdfunded on CrowdSupply in the near future, and you can currently sign up to receive updates and be notified when the project launches. They write:
RadioSlate is a sturdy aluminum tablet with an industry-favorite software-defined radio (SDR) board—your choice of HackRF or LimeSDR—tucked away behind its touchscreen. Whether you’re a Ham radio operator, a network engineer, a mobile base station designer, a security auditor, or some other variety of SDR enthusiast, RadioSlate lets you do your thing, even if that thing requires you to go outside and walk around, get unusually close to transmitters and receivers, keep one hand free for other tasks, or manage all of the above without drawing undue attention to yourself.
Explore the spectrum, while on the go, without having to drag along your laptop, an SDR board, and cables.
Why is this even a thing? http://websdr.org/ there is no transmit, you can just go listen here for free on any tablet, any specs, any resolution. http://websdr.org/
I don’t care about the “low” resolution, this isn’t for watching movies, just SDR. I don’t see any connectors for antennas, that’s a much bigger concern. I do like the idea of a tablet with hackrf one built-in. This is perfect for l33t.
Why is this even a thing? http://websdr.org/ there is no transmit, you can just go listen here for free on any tablet, any specs, any resolution. http://websdr.org/
Because websdr isn’t where you are. If you’re interested in what’s in the air where you are this could be interesting.
Chinese engineering… They know the buzz words, but not the meaning.
No battery included, provide own 18650. That is alright. But:
“Capacity: approximately 24.000 mAh at 3.7V or 12.000 mAh at 7.4V” ??
Cheap does not mean good. Sorry guys…
Looks like 10x 18650 batteries. Bulky, but should fit in the case and get the job done.
The 1024×600 display seems a very odd choice for such a well powered Intel x86 tablet? Surely 1280×720, 1366×768 or 1920×1080 would be a better choice?
If you assume that there is a price increase with using more pixels and a major price reduction for using displays created by older manufacturing machines (because no one is buying them).
1024×600 is 614400 pixels
1280×720 is 921600 pixels ~1.5x more
1366×768 is 1049088 pixels ~1.7x more
1920×1080 is 2073600 pixels ~3.4x more
They deliberately chose an older display resolution, to reduce the price point, to make it more attractive so that more people will buy it without spending much time thinking. Just like shipping with no batteries, also reduces the price (and complexity of shipping globally, batteries are problematic to ship).
And they are using nearly two year old Intel CPU which will have lower performance because of the software mitigations used to reduce the exposure to the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities, again to reduce price point – those will be cheaper (See the small print note at the bottom of the below url ‘Benchmark results were obtained prior to implementation of recent software patches and firmware updates intended to address exploits referred to as “Spectre” and “Meltdown”‘).
Maybe there is the possibility of an external HDMI port to use a bigger screen, the GPU does support 4096×2304@24Hz and 3840×2160@60Hz (ref: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/processors/core/m3-processors/m3-8100y.html or the backup of that exact page created today in case the page is modified https://web.archive.org/web/20200717212929/https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/processors/core/m3-processors/m3-8100y.html )
Do not get me wrong, balancing decisions around price is complex, get it right and you will ship a lot.
The one bit of the design that may drive me away is the onboard storage, is it soldered to the PCB or does it have socket so that the eMMC module can be easily replaced/upgraded (like all the Odroid boards), when it eventually fails read-only after a few years.
Even 4 years ago the Teclast X98 tables with x86 processors and IPS 2048×1536 displays came with a price tag of $200. They also had fairly good connectivity options. I wish they made something like that, but designed in 2020.