Orange Pi 2G-IoT is a low cost ARM Linux board with 2G, and WiFi & Bluetooth connectivity, basically with the guts of a smartphone minus the display and battery. Shenzhen Xunlong has now released a 800×480 display with capacitive touch support for the board available in black or white, and selling for $9.98 plus shipping.
The board is too thick to make a smartphone out of it, but it reminds of the very expensive Qualcomm MDP’s (Mobile Development Platform), so Android app developers may find some use to test their apps on lower end hardware. It could also be used for control panels that do not need to be very thin.
Orange Pi 2G-IoT display specifications:
- 3.5″ TFT Display with 800×480 resolution
- Capacitive touchscreen
- Case with the Back, Home, and Recent buttons
- Dimensions – With case: 57.14 x 96.85 x 2.0 mm; Display only: 51.84 x 86.4mm
Software support is a mystery, and while I’m pretty sure it will work in Android, I don’t know if Linux distributions will support the display, at least at the beginning. The complete kit with the board and display would cost $20 plus shipping.
Via Raffaele Tranquillini on Embedded Electronics Projects G+ community
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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The screen looks to me like it’s of 16:9 or 16:10 ration and not 4:3
@Miha
800/480 is 1.6666 or exactly 15:9 or approx 16:10.
Their must be loads of phablet board designs around, pity no business seems interested in adding a gpio to one.
@Willy
I edited the post between your two comments. Hence the confusion.
Can android really run on 256M ram these days?
@Someone from the other side
That is not as easy answer as you might think. As CNX pointed out it is the guts, parts of a smartphone. Many Android 4.x. Smartphone have low amounts of ram, in the low budget phone section. Look up the 2013 , Cubot GT72
This Orange Pi 2G is based on a India phone.
How is Android ‘these days’ related to an Android 4.x device as the one here? 🙂 According to specs Android starting with 4.0 requires 340 MB available to kernel/userspace (GPU reservations and stuff like that already considered so good luck with just 256 MB total DRAM available)
On the other hand: Should this touch display ever be supported by Linux it’s at least cheap (and since it’s cheap the ‘buy cheap, buy twice’ people will buy it anyway)
Hi.
Is this a MIPI screen ?
Can it work without that huge board ? Or maybe can it be trimmed ?
Thanks.
Back in 2014 to 2015 people where hacking phones for IOT , remember http://janos.io/
@Greg
I don’t think it’s a MIPI interface. Orange Pi 2G-IoT specs only mention an “LCD interface”, and the display page on Aliexpress clearly stated it only works with that board.
OMG crap
what about a camera module ?
@benjamin
GC0309
Definitely an MDP type display. I’ll probably build up one to play with with android with this like everyone else.
@theguyuk
Are the Orange Pi SOC’s “denatured” phone SOC’s or are they tablet type chips?
Most all of the Qualcomm chips, for instance, will have all the silicon to run the phone incorporated, but will be inaccessible to the user, with only the Application Processor available.
But a lot of the other SOC’s seem to be only the application processor and nothing else. Mainly with features to support a tablet application, but placed on the small processor footprint boards.
@Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)
ah OK, then feel free to remove mine to remove some of the confusion 🙂
$10 is an extremely low price for this 800×480 screen with CTP. Does anyone know who the supplier is? We are paying more than $10 for a lower resolution screen in volume.
Or is this surplus from an old phone and not in production anymore?
@jim st
Afraid I don’t know.
I know the soc comes from China but so far there are two India phones that used it, that I have found.
can I run a non-android linux on it? that will be fun
@jim st
There are no Orange Pi SOC’s (plural) since Xunlong uses different ones on their various boards. Allwinner A20 and A64 (tablet), Allwinner H2+, H3 and H5 (most probably H6 will follow, as well as Rockchip RK3399 — these are all TV box SoCs), the RDA Micro 8810PL can only be found on this board and what you might have learned about other Orange Pi (vendor software/support sucks but great community around) might not apply here anytime soon or at all. Current community efforts are of course based on Linux/IoT and not Android.
@xxiao
https://forum.armbian.com/index.php?/topic/3232-orange-pi-2g-iot/&do=findComment&comment=32882
@tkaiser
But will the Android LCD and touchscreen drivers work in Linux?
@Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)
No idea, just wanted to give a hint in which direction ‘community efforts’ go with this board and where to contribute. But maybe @parrotgeek1 will comment here… (at least he looked through the entire kernel sources already). Or maybe asking in Orange Pi forum…
The intex aqua 2 phone has this CPU and memory , storage. It runs Jelliybean 4.2.2 and sells in India. So in theory you could put Jellybean on the Orange 2G . But is it worth it?
The intex aqua 2 is reported to have a
Single Core 8810PL 32bit Processor
– 256MB RAM With 512MB ROM
– 2.8 Inch QVGA Touchscreen Display With 120PPI
– Dual SIM
– VGA Rear Camera With LED Flash
– VGA Front Camera
– 2G
– WiFi
– Bluetooth 2.1/FM
– 1100 MAh Battery.
GPU: Vivante GC860
Just for the record: Orange Pi 2G-IoT ships with Android in NAND and boots from it by default (‘in theory’?). To let it boot from SD card you need to fiddle around with the dip switches (and need a ‘compatible’ SD card, some cards do not work most probably due to timing issues). All information easily available through above link to thread in Armbian forum.
@tkaiser
In theory you can put Android on a Orange 2G but is Android worth it with so little memory and rom. If you want Android buy the several phones available, get screen, battery and case plus charger etc. Secondhand they are even cheaper still. There is also the Videocon Challenger V40LD Android 4.4 cost about 50 dollars officially.
@Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)
The display has a 16bit parallel interface with additional lines on the 40 pin connector for the i2c touch interface. Should be possible to interface it to other SBC’s by developing a breakout broad.
@jasbir
That would be interesting. Is there a data sheet if the display and die connector somewhere?
@Axel
The schematics (www.orangepi.org/download/2G-IOT-V1.4.pdf) show the pin outs of the connector and the 16bit interface point to RGB565 as the input.
Has anyone received one of these yet? Is there a part number on the display to know where it is sourced from?
The reference design uses a display from: http://kingdisplay.net.cn
KD50G2-40NM-A2
But that is a 5in 800×480 panel.
When I search for 800×480 panels at lcd88.com no one makes a 800×480 panel smaller than 5in. Highest resolution 3.5in display I see is 640×480. 480×320 is common.
If this is a 5in 800×480 panel, $9.95 is a steal. Those are $20+ panels.
High res 3.5 tft get used on DSLR cameras or video
@Jon Smirl
I’m guessing its a 3.97″ panel based on the dimensions quoted, something like this http://www.topfoison.com/product/3.97inch-tft-lcd-module.html.
@Jon Smirl
@jasbir must be right right. You can also find the display with the same dimensions on 1688 dot com @ https://detail.1688.com/offer/535906307068.html
Here is similar display for 39RMB ($5.70)
https://detail.1688.com/offer/532585341364.html
3.97in matches the dimensions Opi gives for the glass.
So they must be able to source for the 4inch CTP for under 15RMB.
So far I am unable to locate one for that price.
@Jon Smirl
If you go on dhgate, type in iPhone 4s lcd, amongst the results you will see below ten dollar versions. I know bigger than you look for but it shows someone is making cheap LCD displays.
“. The display of the iPhone 4 is manufactured by LG under an exclusive contract with Apple. It features an LED backlit TFT LCD capacitive touchscreen with a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch (ppi) on a 3.5 in (8.9 cm) (diagonally measured), 960×640 display. “
@Jon Smirl
4.3″ display + CTP for $12.50 https://world.taobao.com/item/520764853383.htm?fromSite=main&spm=a312a.7700824.w4002-15799482692.12.GFhWXq
7″ Orange Pi display with HDMI input, audio output port for $22 -> https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/7inch-TFT-LCD-Screen-for-Orange-Pi-H3-chip-Boards/1553371_32831758014.html