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M5Stack Tab5 Review – Part 1: Unboxing, teardown, and first try of the ESP32-P4 and ESP32-C6 5-inch IoT devkit

M5Stack Tab5 Review Camera Test

I’ve just received a review sample of the M5Stack Tab5 ESP32-P4 IoT development kit, which looks like a small tablet with a 5-inch touchscreen display, a 2MP front-facing camera, an ESP32-C6 WiFi 6, Bluetooth, and 802.15.4 wireless module, and various expansion interfaces. Today, I’ll go through an unboxing, a (partial) teardown, and have a quick try with the default firmware and GUI, before checking out how to program the device in the second part of the review. M5Stack Tab5 unboxing I received the Tab5 in its retail package along with an M5Stack-branded transparent sticky tape roll. Not sure why, but thanks M5Stack, sticky tape is always useful, so appreciated! The bottom side of the package has all the key features and specifications that we already covered in our article about the Tab5. The package contains the Tab5 itself, a 2,000mAh/14.8Wh battery, and a cable with six wires for the ExtPort2 […]

M5Stack Tab5 is a tablet-like ESP32-P4 IoT development kit with a 5-inch touchscreen display and front-facing camera

M5Stack Tab5

The M5Stack Tab5 may look like a small tablet, but it’s an ESP32-P4 IoT development kit with a 5-inch touchscreen display, a 2MP front-facing camera, an ESP32-C6 WiFi 6, Bluetooth, and 802.15.4 wireless module, and a range of interfaces. Those include USB Type-A and Type-C ports, an RS485 interface, a STAMP pad to connect an LTE Cat M/NB-IoT or LoRaWAN module, and expansion connectors including a Grove module, a 30-pin M5Bus header, and a GPIO_EXT connector. The Tab5 is also equipped with a built-in speaker and dual-microphone array, and the ESP32-P4 development kit is powered by a removable battery with charging support. M5Stack Tab5 specifications: Microcontroller – Espressif Systems ESP32-P4NRW32 CPU Dual-core 32-bit RISC-V HP (High-performance) CPU @ up to 400 MHz with AI instructions extension and single-precision FPU Single-RISC-V LP (Low-power) MCU core @ up to 40 MHz with 8KB of zero-wait TCM RAM Memory 768 KB HP L2MEM […]

Updated PineTab-V RISC-V tablet ships with Debian 12-based Linux image

PineTab V RISC-V Tablet Debian

Pine64 has launched an updated version of the PineTab-V RISC-V tablet with the same StarFive JH7110 SoC, 8GB RAM, and 128GB eMMC flash, but a few small hardware changes, and a Debian-based Linux image maintained by StarFive themselves. The PineTab-V is not exactly a new RISC-V tablet since it was launched in 2023, but at the time it was reserved for developers since it shipped with nothing… Users had to install the OS (that did not support the display yet) themselves, and work on the software/OS to improve it. The new model still targets developers and enthusiasts/early adopters, but at least now there’s a Debian 12 image optimized for the PineTab-V. The hardware is mostly the same, except Pine64 added an accelerometer, a status LED, an ID for the PineTab-V in the EEPROM, and a fix for slow charging while the tablet is turned off. PineTab-V (2025) specifications: SoC – […]

Thundercomm TurboX C6690 SoM runs Android 15 on Qualcomm DragonWing QCS6690 SoC for terminal equipment

Thundercomm CC6690 SoM

Unveiled at Embedded World 2025, Thundercomm’s TurboX C6690 is a SoM (System-on-Module) powered by a 4nm Qualcomm Dragonwing QCS6690 octa-core SoC, and designed for Android 15-based terminal equipment such as industrial handheld devices, industrial tablets, edge computing, and smart retail applications. The LGA system-on-module features a multi-chip package that combines 8GB LPDDR4x memory with 256GB UFS storage, and offers MIPI and DP (USB) display interfaces, four MIPI CSI camera interfaces, a USB 3.1 interface, a PCIe Gen2 interface, and various low-speed I/Os such GPIO, I2C, UART, and SPI. Thundercomm TurboX C6690 SoM specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Dragonwing QCS6690 CPU – Octa-core Qualcomm Kryo CPU 7-series (1x Kryo Prime core @ 2.9GHz, 3x Kryo Gold @ 2.7GHz, 4x Kryo Silver @ 2.0GHz) GPU – Qualcomm Adreno GPU 7-series DSP – Qualcomm Hexagon DSP with HVX and HMX ISP – Qualcomm Spectra ISP 665 image processing VPU Video Encode – Up to […]

Intel N50 fanless open-frame panel PCs features 7” and 10” PCAP touch display, HDMI 2.0a, RS-485/232

BCM OFT10W ADLN Open Frame touch LCD computer

BCM Advanced Research has recently introduced two new fanless open-frame panel PCs powered by an Intel Processor N50 CPU – the OFT07W-ADLN (7-inch) and OFT10W-ADLN (10-inch) – which are low-cost all-in-one embedded computers designed for tablet-like usability. Both modules feature 8GB LPDDR5 memory, 64GB eMMC storage, and an M.2 E-key slot for Wi-Fi/Bluetooth connectivity. These panel PCs come with PCAP touchscreens (800×1280 for 7-inch and 1200×1920 for 10-inch) with various connectivity options including USB, HDMI 2.0a, RS-232/485, and Gigabit Ethernet. With 12-24V DC input supply, fanless operation, and a durable steel frame, these compact open-frame panel PCs are meant for space-constrained applications like HMIs, self-service kiosks, gaming consoles, medical terminals, smart vending machines, digital signage, and more. BCM OFT07W-ADLN and OFT10W-ADLN specifications: SoC – Intel Processor N50 dual-core processor up to 3.4 GHz with 6MB cache, 16EU Intel UHD Graphics; TDP: 6W System Memory – Up to 8GB LPDDR5 onboard Storage – […]

CNX Software’s 2024 Year in review, website statistics, and what to expect in 2025

CNX Software Happy New Year 2025

That’s it! 2024 is almost over, and it’s time to reflect on what happened during the year. So I’ll look at the highlights of 2024, share some CNX Software website traffic statistics, and speculate on what may be ahead of us in 2025. Looking back at 2024 Raspberry Pi was super active this year with 22 product launches that included boards and modules like the Raspberry Pi 5 with 2GB RAM,  Raspberry Pi Pico 2 and Pico 2 W, Raspberry Pi CM5, expansion modules like the Raspberry Pi AI camera, AI HAT+, and M.2 HAT+, new accessories such as the Raspberry Pi Touch Display 2 and the Raspberry Pi Monitor, and the new Raspberry Pi 500 keyboard PC among others. As usual, there was also plenty of announcement of accessories from third parties, and some boards with the new Raspberry Pi RP2350 Arm/RISC-V microcontroller. There weren’t any ground-breaking Arm processors […]

Orange Pi CM5 “Tablet” Base Board drops Ethernet for WiFi 5, adds battery support, M.2 socket, 26-pin GPIO header…

Orange Pi CM5 Tablet Base Board

The Orange Pi CM5 was launched as an alternative to Raspberry Pi CM4/CM5 last July with a Rockchip RK3588S octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 SoC, up to 16GB LPDDR4x, 256GB eMMC flash, and three board-to-board connectors maintaining partially compatibility with the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4. At the time, Orange Pi also introduced the Orange Pi CM5 Base Board with HDMI 2.1, one Gigabit Ethernet port, two 2.5GbE ports, USB 3.0/2.0 ports, four camera connectors, and more. The company has now launched the Orange Pi CM5 “Tablet” Base Board without Ethernet ports, making use of WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 for networking instead. It keeps many of the same features but adds a 26-pin GPIO header, an M.2 Key-M socket for SSD storage, DP 1.4 and MIPI DSI display interfaces, and various audio interfaces. However, it does with “only” three camera interfaces. It’s quite thick to be used in a typical tablet, but […]

Allwinner A733 octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 AI SoC supports up to 16GB RAM for Android 15 tablets and laptops

Allwinner A733

Allwinner A733 is an octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 processor with an optional 3 TOPS NPU and support for up to 16GB RAM designed for Android 15 tablets and laptops such as the Teclast P50Ai with a 10.92-inch touchscreen display. With two Cortex-A76 cores, six Cortex-A75 cores, an Imagination BXM-4-64 MC1 GPU, and an NPU, the Allwinner A733 looks very similar to the Allwinner A736 we noted in a roadmap last year. But there’s no news about the A736, so maybe the name was dropped and the Allwinner A733 was launched instead. Allwinner A733 specifications: CPU Dual-core Arm Cortex-A76 @ up to 2.00 GHz Hexa-core Arm Cortex-A55 @ up to 1.79 GHz Single-core RISC-V E902 real-time core GPU – Imagination Technologies BXM-4-64 MC1 VPU 8Kp24 H.265/VP9/AVS2 decoding (no mention of AV1) 4Kp30 H.265/H.264 encoding AI accelerator – Optional 3 TOPS NPU Memory 192 KB SRAM + 512 KB shared SRAM 32-bit LPDDR4/LPDDR4x/LPDDR5 interface […]

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