Why not SOPINE?
#1
If this was discussed already, please forgive me. I only discovered Pine64 and Pinebook recently.

From what I've read about the Pinebook it looks like it basically uses a product specific laptop motherboard derived from the Pine64. When I first saw the product I was excited and assumed it contained a Pine64 or a SOPine. Then when a faster Pine64 SOC is released I could just swap boards for a cheap upgrade. 

I'm just curious why that route wasn't taken. $100 is a cheap laptop for sure, but I'd be willing to bet the keyboard, screen, and wifi etc are still good in 2 or 3 years and it would be nice to be able to re-use via upgrade. Maybe this is something you can consider for future models?
#2
hi, yes, electronically speaking the pinebook is an sopine in a nice case with nice keyboard and touch pad; but it does not use the sopine module nor base board.

The components are all mostly the same, AW SoC, axp803 PMIC, LPDDR3 memory, and similar layout ( although the card(s) are new. Whether it will be upgradeable or not is a question for the Pine engineers and TLLim;  however, I don't see why not.

I will be doing a tear-down video and posting to the forum after my unit comes out of warranty;  stay tuned.

marcus
marcushh777    Cool

please join us for a chat @  irc.pine64.xyz:6667   or ssl  irc.pine64.xyz:6697

( I regret that I am not able to respond to personal messages;  let's meet on irc! )
#3
(04-26-2017, 05:23 PM)bobpaul Wrote: If this was discussed already, please forgive me. I only discovered Pine64 and Pinebook recently.

From what I've read about the Pinebook it looks like it basically uses a product specific laptop motherboard derived from the Pine64. When I first saw the product I was excited and assumed it contained a Pine64 or a SOPine. Then when a faster Pine64 SOC is released I could just swap boards for a cheap upgrade. 

I'm just curious why that route wasn't taken. $100 is a cheap laptop for sure, but I'd be willing to bet the keyboard, screen, and wifi etc are still good in 2 or 3 years and it would be nice to be able to re-use via upgrade. Maybe this is something you can consider for future models?

I would imagine that the answer is as follows: Since there was already a reference design by Allwinner,  it was easier to improve on the reference design (btw, they sure did improve it!) than to create a design from scratch.
You can find me on IRC, Discord and Twitter


#4
(04-26-2017, 09:28 PM)MarkHaysHarris777 Wrote: Whether it will be upgradeable or not is a question for the Pine engineers and TLLim;  however, I don't see why not.

You know, I hadn't considered the possibility of swapping the entire board out of the chassis. But you're right; my vision of a small glue logic/power board + sopine really isn't necessary to provide an upgrade path. Let's hope that's where it goes.

(04-27-2017, 03:44 AM)Luke Wrote: I would imagine that the answer is as follows: Since there was already a reference design by Allwinner,  it was easier to improve on the reference design (btw, they sure did improve it!) than to create a design from scratch.

I guess what I was thinking would have been to use the reference design but route to an SODIMM connector instead of directly to the A64. But I was missing the obvious reason that wasn't necessary...


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)