Pine64’s New ARM and RISC-V Tablets Run Linux

Pine64 makes plenty of hardware geared towards fans of Linux and open-source hardware. Now the company is about to release a new ARM-based Linux tablet, as well as its first RISC-V tablet.

The PineTab 2 (pictured above) was already announced last year, as a successor to the company’s original limited-run Linux tablet, and pre-orders for it start tomorrow. At the same time, the company will open orders for the PineTab V, which also runs Linux but with a RISC-V processor instead of ARM. On the outside, they look the same — Pine64 says the only thing differentiating the two is the chassis color. However, the PineTab 2 goes safe with an ARM chip (the RK3566, more specifically), while the PineTab V goes with a RISC-V CPU, a JH7110.

One is for those who want to go safe, with a well-documented CPU architecture, while the other is for those who want to start playing around with what could very well become a popular architecture in the future. This follows Pine64’s previous announcement of the Star64 RISC-V single-board computer, and it’s, in many ways, building on top of that.

If you’re interested in picking one up, pre-orders for both tablets start tomorrow, April 13.

Source: Pine64