SoC behind the LCD?

[KC9UDX]

Since the PBP top and bottom are already so thin, I wonder if it would be possible for future Pinebooks to be designed with the main board in the top half in stead of the bottom.  I don't know if anyone else has ever done this (except tablets with attached keyboards).  It would make cooling far better.

[evilbunny]

Since the PBP top and bottom are already so thin, I wonder if it would be possible for future Pinebooks to be designed with the main board in the top half in stead of the bottom.  I don't know if anyone else has ever done this (except tablets with attached keyboards).  It would make cooling far better.

The entire bottom is used as a heat sink. I'm guessing anything else would require an active cooling solution.

[KC9UDX]

I understand that. But making the top cover a heat sink in stead ensures that it will almost always have airflow. The bottom surface is at best ¼" from another surface at all times. At worst, which is often for many of us, the area under the main processor is covered by our left leg (also a heat source).

[barray]

I doubt they will make such changes... It's possible, but they will for sure not make such changes to the design this late in the game.

But I think you're basically describing the PineTab layout anyway? Would just be nice to have a PineTab with PBP hardware inside, perhaps with a detachable keyboard that extends battery life.

[KC9UDX]

I don't expect anything soon, just hoping this is considered in future designs. I wasn't specifically thinking about a tablet, I thought maybe keeping connectors on the keyboard side. But it might not matter.

I like your idea about a tablet with PBP hardware. I especially think a very large battery in the keyboard would be ideal as ballast if it's going to be able to hold up the tablet.

[barray]

> I thought maybe keeping connectors on the keyboard side.

I believe the pogo pins on the tablet are USB, so in theory it would just be a case of there being a USB hub in the lower part - which would then extend to your various I/O (minus high speed connectors).

> I like your idea about a tablet with PBP hardware.

I don't know if you own a PineTab, but I can tell you that with just the A64 and 2GB of RAM in the laptop format it's severely under-powered. I've managed to get it to do a lot, including video playback, Firefox with 20 tabs, coding C+ and compiling all at the same time, but that's about all it has available. There really were no resources to spare.

I wrote a list of recommendations for the PineTab in an article, but we'll see... http://coffeespace.org.uk/projects/review-pinetab.html

[KC9UDX]

I don't have one. But aside from a PC which I use for x265 compression, my most powerful computer is an Amiga .

[DrYak]

I wonder if it would be possible for future Pinebooks to be designed with the main board in the top half in stead of the bottom.  {...} It would make cooling far better.

There is also another problem to consider:
- LCDs tend to not appreciate excessive heat much.
- Pinebook Pro (and future member of that family) tend to have the beefiest possible CPU of their generation (the current PBP didn't go for an Allwinner SoC like PineTab and PinePhone, but for a RK3399) which tend to put out a bit more heat.

(Future models will probably keep the trend, as hinted in the latest blog post. PBP successors won't probably rely on the RK3566 like upcoming Quartz and future PinePhones, but probably on whatever ends up in the RockPro64 successor and is top of the range -- RK3588 maybe.)

Or another way to put: there's an additional reason why current top of the line fanless Apple Mac Book Air put their M1 in the bottom half, unlike iPads.

[xyzzy]

I don't know if any extra passive airflow the top half gets will make up for putting two of the major heat producers, the LCD backlight and the SoC, next to each other.

Also consider the surface next to the laptop bottom is still a conductive heat sink. Might well be more effective than the airflow the top manages to get from convection. As long as your legs are cooler than the SoC, the heat still flows out.

[KC9UDX]

Well, that's easy to prove: turning the PBP on its end when the processors are cooking makes it not overheat, versus letting the heat try to dissipate through warmer-than-air legs with a denim insulator.