SunFounder RasPad 3.0 - an All-in-One Tablet for Raspberry Pi 4B with 10.1" Touchscreen and Built-in Battery for IoT, Programming, Gaming, 3D Printing Projects

Tips:* Pre-bend the stiff USB-A connector cable into "big omega" shape. Otherwise it would be very hard to align PI with the screw holes.* You need to long-press the power button to turn on the tablet.* The screen has a protective film (there is no tab, so it's easy to miss the fact).This is my first Raspberry Pi tablet, so I have nothing to compare.Package:(+) The tablet has nice packaging which contains everything needed including screwdriver.(+) There are spare screws.The tablet had batteries and can be charged by the included power brick.Case:Overall the device looks pretty nice.The screen has big bezels like the first tablets.The tablet is somewhat heavy at 954 grams.(-) Port markings are very hard to see. Light gray on light gray.Ports:* 3x USB3* (+) Full-sized HDMI* Headphones port* Ethernet* Power(-) The external USB ports all come from a single USB3 A port, so the total throughput might be limited compared to PI.Screen:The screen looks good. I see no issues.I've tried to watch a full-screen 60FPS YouTube video and it looked nice. The only problem (software problem, not device) is Vsync (screen tearing) - I need to find an option to turn it on…Touch works pretty good.Screen auto-rotate works as expected. (It's pretty sluggish (understandable, given the system performance))The screen has brightness control buttons and OSD that shows up when you make adjustments.The screen can also show low-battery sign which is useful.Sound:Sounds OK. I did not notice anything bad. But I'm not an audiophile.Fan:Initially I completely forgot about the fan. Only when I turned off the tablet I've realized that the fan was audible. The fan was pretty quiet and the sound was OK. Although on one startup I heard a growling sound for a second, but it disappeared right away. For now the fan seems pretty quiet and usually does not bother me. Let's see how it sounds in the future.Update: sometimes the fan is buzzing a bit.I've checked the fan grill (which is smaller than the fan) and I feel almost no wind. I wonder whether the fan shroud is efficient.Battery:There is a 3-LED battery level indicator on the side.The tablet can be charged while on.It took me several hours to charge the batteries.I have not formally tested how long the tablet can work on battery.Power button:Short-pressing the button makes the PI sleep/hibernate immediately. Another press and it wakes up.Additional thoughts about the design:The product has interesting and complex engineering. Most ports are forwarded via cables (USB-A, USB-C, Ethernet, 2x micro-HDMI, microSD). So, for example, there are 3 Ethernet ports in total (1 on the PI, one internal, one external). But I wonder whether all of that difficulty was necessary.What if the back box was the size of Pi with few very slim connectors (slim like the microSD extender) grabbing several ports: 1 USB-A, USB-C. The screen could have been connected via DSI cable or a slim 90-dgree micro-HDMI connector.Full testing log:The instruction manual has couple of small issues* Error: The manual says "attach the fan with the four M2.5x9 screws." but the proper screws are not m2.5 - they are smaller.* Nit: the fan screw caps are too big to fit the hole or too small to go well over the hole.* "Go see a tutorial at https://raspad.rtfd.io", but the page is not the main docs page. Main docs page is at https://docs.raspad.com/en/latest/(+) The Ethernet cable is neatly reversed for easier insertion.(-) USB connector cable hard/thick and is shorter than ethernet cable. But also longer than the needed distance. So it strongly pushes the Pi away from the proper location. You have to make a bend in the hard and stiff USB A cable to align Pi with the screw holesThe other cables have pretty OK length. But they are also a little bit longer and somewhat stiff.I had to use a lot of force to push the PI to align with the holes and feared a bit that the pressure could tear the USB-A ports off from the PCB.The MicroSD extender is an interesting solution. Nitpick: The microSD extender ports are not fully aligned, but this does not matter.Accelerometer module is nice and tiny.I've connected the tablet to the power brick. One green led started blinking.I've tried to press the power button, but nothing happened. Turns out you need to long-press the button to start.I've turned the tablet on.It booted and I hear "To install the screen reader press control alt space"I've read the instructions and installed the "onboard" virtual keyboard, the screen auto-rotator and the launcher.The virtual keyboard works, but there can be some glitches. For example, the keyboard buttons that happen to be on top of the window boarder often do not work. that At one point the screen went dark and the login prompt appeared. I was unable to log into the system and had to restart the device.All of this is unrelated to SunFounder or RasPad though - just the state of Linux software.The launcher makes Raspberry Pi menu more touch-friendly by making UX bigger. It's a bit sluggish to activate though.Overall, this seems to be a usable Raspberry Pi tablet shell.

First things first, this does not come with a raspberrypi. You'll have to provide your own RaspberryPi 4 for this.Second, this is pretty much just hardware for the pi. The software they recommend has changed since its launch and is a little finnicky to install or get it to work, but it works alright. It's simply a different UI for the Pi Desktop which you can activate or deactivate easily.Assembly instructions were pretty good and nicely colored. Touch screen, fan, and battery all work well right out of the box even without additional software. The screen and form factor pretty much justifies its price.This isn't going to make it easier for anyone who isn't familiar with raspberry pi, but it's a great addition for someone who already has a good foundation for raspberry pi and its related projects.

I’ve played with Raspberry pi’s for years, while I tinker with Arduino a lot for making custom electronics I’ve never used the raspberry pi’s GPIO pins for projects before. Mostly because I didn’t feel like learning a new coding language after I finally got the hang of C++. I’ll force myself to learn one of these days. Raspberry Pi’s have a lot of cool open source projects out there ready to go which is how I’ve used them so far. RetroPie for gaming, Kodi as media and SMB server, OctoPrint for 3D printing and monitoring, basic Linux desktop computing, security camera, Ham radio SDR receiver, etc.The RasPad 3 solves the headache of having a dozen cables coming out of it while constantly connecting it to a wall outlet. I purchased a small 10” hdmi monitor for my Pi and I hate trying to get it plugged in and stay still without the tension on all the cables making the monitor and raspberry pi do flips. I also hate having a keyboard and mouse requirement. Sure you can do headless installs, but that sometimes brings other headaches. I might finally try and learn python now since I can tinker with this in the comfort of my couch instead of the floor or a big messy desk. I have the CrowPi 1 and it was pretty cool until I found this. The CrowPi 2 turns the raspberry pi into a laptop with a keyboard built into it and I almost bought that, but I ultimately decided to get this because it was simpler and I didn’t intend on messing with the GPIO even though there are exit holes for the ribbon cables if you wish to do so.I plan on using this tablet for many things since it’s so convenient, but I mostly wanted an SDR computer for receiving radio signals. You can use any laptop for this function, but setup is a pain. There’s enough room in the case for me to fit an SDR USB adapter and mount an SMA antenna panel mount connector. I can finally have a portable high tech radio receiver that I can boot and hold with just one hand.Battery life is as I’d expect. It doesn’t last very long compared to modern tablets, but it really depends on what you are doing. RetroPie battery life is short, but fun. Maybe 1-1.5 hours in RetroPie. I did have it overclocked to the max though. Basic desktop interface lasts the longest. Haven’t fully tested battery life in that scenario. The power input to charge the battery and power the raspberry pi is 15v at 2A. Unfortunately, this is a really uncommon voltage compared to most power supplies. Likely due to the 3 cell 18650 batteries in series which brings the battery voltage to 11.1v. It probably uses the extra voltage to keep the Pi running while it is charging the battery. I wish this would work on a 12v power supply since I have tons of those. You might want to buy a spare power supply in case you lose this one. I rig my Ryobi batteries to power everything I have so I just took a buck converter and 3D printed a socket to connect it to my Ryobi battery and drop the voltage from 20v to 15v to charge this device off the grid and/or extend the battery life.I followed the guide on their website to get started. It was pretty straight forward I got everything to work in the latest Bullseye OS except for the right click touch functionality. I couldn’t find a solution to this and found a forum where other people had the same problem. I ended up downloading the older Buster OS and the touch right click function worked. This is a must have feature if you don’t want to use a mouse. If I have to use a mouse or a keyboard it is no longer a tablet. I hope they solve this issue soon on the latest OS. This is why I docked a star. The screen rotate function works great on both of the operating systems. The onscreen keyboard works great as well.I wish they had a solution for making the auto rotate feature work in RetroPie.Overall I am very happy with this. I’ll mess around with the Pi more since I can do it on the couch now. This might be a good way to introduce my kids to python after I finally dive into it myself.

So, first of all, despite my rating, this is still the best you're going to find for this sort of thing. Only a very few touchscreens can integrate the RPi and controller components internally so you can actually grip and hold them safely and none of those had a built-in battery. I thought at first about rigging up something cramming a DC-DC converter and battery into what little room there was in some (which generally wasn't much) but didn't have much confidence in there being enough room and many have problems like wanting 12V to the screen (so it would take two converters, each losing energy due to conversion inefficiencies.) This is the only option I saw at all that had a case with touchscreen, RPi mount, connections, and battery all in one internally with no drilling or soldering required.That said, there's a lot of room for improvement. Especially given the pricetag on this. Most particularly I'd say cooling is the worst issue. First of all, the fan is mounted on the back side (which it's likely to be sitting on a lot of the time, possibly reducing airflow.) I think on a side would be better (possibly with one of those little turbine fans due to lack of spacerather than the usual box fan style.) Second, the fan is mounted pointed towards the RPi and can't be turned the other way (it's designed with larger holes on one side to slide it over the screw mount columns, so if you turn it over the screws no longer fit and if you get longer screws it can't fit with a heatsink on the RPi's CPU due to lack of room.) It's generally better to pull than to push with case airflow and I think this case is no exception. Also, mounting with columns like that was a bad idea anyway. (They did this so it would angle relative to the back of the case to be straight over the RPi, but by not being flush against the case it allows more air recycling and it would have been better for there to be more room and it angled a bit anyway.) Third, there aren't many ways for air to get out (or in if you did somehow turn it the other way) and most of it squeezes out around the USB and network connectors where there isn't a lot of room. (If you look at the picture you see two parts on the bottom that look like they are for airflow, but those are actually where the speaker boxes point out and they're enclosed, preventing air flow through them.) Fourth, the fan is *AWFUL*. They shipped mine with the switch set to S (slow) rather than F (fast) so it would be quieter, but I can still hear it rattling a bit. It's clearly an exceptionally cheap and low quality fan with very little actual quality control. When set on S it does not sufficiently cool however, so I have to run it on F and listen to it really rattle away unfortunately. I will probably replace the fan ASAP, but it will require case modification to put in a most because of the way it mounts and that's obviously warranty voiding. (I'll also set it to pull air instead of push and provide more air inlets when I do.) Unfortunately, the screw mount columns are of a fairly soft plastic (I guess the whole case is really) and one broke off on me (I guess I overtightened?) but if I modify it I'll have to drill new holes anyway. Finally, the actual airflow control is basically non-existent. The fan is pointed at the RPi which I guess they thought would be enough (and certainly the RPi doesn't run terribly hot if you don't seriously push it or overclock) but the rest of the case gets basically only incidental airflow since they didn't really use careful placement of fan and holes to create a good airflow through the case. This particularly concerns me less over the RPi itself and more over their actual control board that's used for most of how this thing actually operates. It gets *insanely* hot and even produces a strong smell of the PCB or the components being pushed a fair bit (not actually burning out thankfully, but I think it's guaranteed a relatively short lifetime.) More airflow over it is an absolute necessity and should not have been neglected. Luckily what little air actually does exit the case is going out through it since it's where the USB and network connectors are (otherwise they probably really would burn out.)I do also feel like the accelerometer and its associated software is a bit lacking. For starters, the accelerometer is a weird design where it's a PCB that slides onto the GPIO pins rather than having an actual proper connector, so it will likely have the possibility of intermittent loss of connection from time to time. I bent the connectors the tiniest amount (less than a millimeter) and got it on very tightly so it should never come loose for me, but this is definitely not an ideal way to get a good connection and it really should have a proper connector. (I'm definitely not going to solder it though.) Once in place it still takes up enough room that many connectors for the GPIO pins no longer will fit right, so the connector-less design isn't really beneficial. Given the pricerange of this thing, I think an offset PCB might have made a lot more sense (plus it would have given them the benefit of being able to use different GPIO ports for the accelerometer itself, making it more convenient for those who actually do use them for tasks) and would have cost very little extra in production. I've seen a lot of RPi addons basically do this sort of thing. Also, the software used to actually control rotation is a constantly running Python script (not a very efficient way to do this sort of thing IMO -- while it's certainly convenient and easy, a small C++ or similar program can be far more efficient,) it doesn't work with the latest Ubuntu (22.04 which is a LTS release,) some people have troubles getting it to actually calibrate properly with it sometimes missing rotations, and finally it lacks customizations or control options (for example, I'd like to be able to lock rotation sometimes, but it's basically all or nothing.)I'm also having a bit of trouble with the touchscreen precision for some things like window decorations. Raspberry Pi OS uses a window manager now that doesn't even let you customize them at all. Even with a stylus it's very hard to minimize/maximize or close a window. For a lot of stuff I actually had to outright just give up and plug in a mouse (particularly during initial setup.)Finally, in regards to complaints, I'm not so sure the batteries are up to snuff. I haven't pulled the pack apart to look them over and don't have a good battery tester, but I'm pretty sure they're fairly cheap generics. Many of the generics can sound great on paper, promising a really high supposed capacity, then fail to even deliver that capacity and have a lower number of charge cycles before their capacity significantly decreases besides. I felt like battery life so far hasn't been all that great and it's not all the RPi's fault (though, yes, it is true that the RPi is not really made with running on a battery specifically in mind and much about it isn't necessarily as battery friendly as it should be. As the FAQ says, in particular it does not have a good power off function and no real suspend, so it definitely should be turned off entirely when not in use.)All that said, the overall product is basically good, just with a lot of room for improvement. It's pretty much your only option for an all-in-one "tablet" screen+case+battery+control board combo of course, but even if there were others it may not be the worst. I will say that it's also very good that their touchscreen is completely driverless and just works right out of the box. I've had to fight with drivers and bad installers to get touchscreens to work with a RPi many times and I'm truly grateful to not have to this time. With most of the software I ever ran on it it even autodetected the correct screen resolution and it does get kind of tiresome manually setting the screen every time (especially since you usually have to do so with it at a very wrong default resolution stretched like 1024x768 or something.) While I do feel like they shortchanged the design on things like the fan and air and the accelerometer choice, I will also say that the way they handle connecting USB, audio, the external HDMI connector, and the micro-SD card is excellent. I have to really give them kudos for even thinking of having a separate micro-SD card slot in the case so you don't have to disassemble it to change the card. Also, it was actually really cool that they did a full sized HDMI connector on the case itself so you don't need to carry an adapter and have it sticking out if you need to plug in an external screen. The audio is controlled via the screen's buttons (which can be slightly awkward due to having only three instead of five, but it works and you get used to having to hit + first to then hit -) as it uses the HDMI audio (which also has the advantage of being driverless and pretty much automatic.) Whoever designed these features must have spent countless hours actually working pretty hard to think of everything. Also, I'm really glad they went ahead and used a higher voltage for the power supply (most RPi accessories fall into the trap of using 5V solely because the RPi is powered by 5V, but this is actually really bad since it wants a huge amount of current to do this. Raising the voltage makes for a much better balance and more efficient overall operation of things like charging and honestly the RPi itself should really give up and go to 12V or something anyway.) Someone was working hard on these parts of the design and it paid off.I think, with some warranty-voiding modification (which I will do once I'm completely sure it's not going to suddenly blow up on me) it could be pretty excellent. I'm not sure what yet to do about the accelerometer software thing (you don't really want to jump through a bunch of hoops to rotate the screen, so removing it is also not a great option) but I think case airflow can be fairly easily improved -- though I will have to buy a third party fan because the stock one is just too awful to keep. I may also replace the batteries with higher quality ones (I'm particularly fond of Panasonic, though they aren't cheap) later down the road as well.BTW, as a small side-note, the FAQ says that the RPi's USB interferes with the WiFi and using ~5GHz is the only real answer (which can be a problem since the RPi has a very weak antenna and ~5GHz doesn't travel as well as 2.4GHz,) however, in my own experience, most WiFi problems with a setup like this actually seem to be caused by, of all things, placing a heatsink on that smaller chip. That smaller chip doesn't get pushed as hard by system operations (and as far as I know isn't affected at all by things like overclocking) so really doesn't need a heatsink all that badly anyway. Removing (or, more accurately, simply not adding in the first place) the heatsink from it has improved WiFi functionality for me in most RPi cases. With a heatsink on it I did indeed have troubles with 2.4GHz with this, but without it it seems to be much more reliable.

This kit Having a 10.1 inch screen and clearly laid out manual was a treat to work with. I was very impressed how easily it came together. Using the raspad site I configured the rotating accel shim and keyboard interface very easily. The rotating feature worked thou the delay was a bit longer than I would expect. Now looking at the gpio would have liked it to be more like the pi400 gpio where you don’t have to open the case to access the gpio pins. Maybe future version feature? The weight of the unit is very heavy. This is due to the glass screen and the three 18650s. was very disappointed there was a place for a camera, but csi slot on bottom to push a cable thru. There doesn’t seem to be a rtc feature also for time keeping. Looking at the raspad site I didn’t see a padded case to store the unit and power supply. Maybe one can be made later.Over all it’s a very well designed system. I see many good uses for this unit in the future.