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.

For this review, I won't go into the features or what it has because almost every review has that. I will tell you the problem I had with the screen auto-rotation feature and the battery.Battery: I included a picture of the battery inside the Raspad for others to see. As you can tell the three 18650 batteries are heat shrunk together and then doubled sided taped to a basic split battery holder that's split between the Raspad's two halves. I personally would recommend a full battery tray so the batteries are easily replaceable. I think that many people would agree with me that it wouldn't take much to put the batteries inside a battery holder for a tad bit extra. It would make replacing them so much easier. In any case, the big downside is the fact that it will never last five or so hours under the constant use of typing up a document or surfing the internet. I've let the batteries purposely die to find out the max hours it will go before shutting off. The most I've gotten out of the batteries is 2.5 hours. I can safely go 2hrs before I must shut it down or it will shut down on its own because of dead batteries. And it didn't seem to matter if I used the screen on its brightest setting or its dimmest setting. It didn't matter if I was surfing the internet or just typing up a document with Bluetooth and Wifi shut off. 2-2.5 hrs max out of the batteries. As you can see in the picture, they are 3200 mAh batteries. I was not expecting that. I thought it would be 2000mAh. So, the easiest way to add capacity would be to extend the battery cable outside of the case via a y-splitter. Another three 18650 batteries would double the time. Of course, that would mean getting an outside charger. However, in my opinion, that would be the easiest way to add capacity if one needs it. Because the most mAh I've seen was the Samsung 3500mAh and that wouldn't add much to the already 3200mAh, so replacing the 3200 with the 3500 just isn't worth it. However, adding the 3500 to the 3200 via an outside connection would be worth it. That can be done easily.The other problem I had was the auto rotator while using the Raspberry Pi OS. The Raspberry Pi OS is the only one, so far, that fully supports the touch feature. However, soon after I started using it, I would get a large blue icon of a finger pressing a button flashing on the screen. ??? Then after that, it seems that the auto rotation would get confused and it would fip the screen 180* a random number of times between black screens for a couple of minutes before settling on returning to its default rotation. Opposite of where I wanted it, naturally. Okay, what I did first was remove the auto rotation pin board from the Pi itself. And it still happened. Only now I couldn't simply rotate the Raspad to get the screen right again. Okay, next experiment. I kept the pin board out and uninstalled the Raspad-auto-rotator program. It still happened. ????? Okay then. Let's go with the Ubuntu Desktop 23 that's in the Raspberry Pi Imager. No problems whatsoever. Of course, that also means that I don't have auto-rotation or fully supported touch either. However, because I'm using the Raspad like I would a laptop with the Logitech 400+ that's a keyboard and integrated touchpad, I don't need the rotation or the touchscreen feature. Ever since using Ubuntu Desktop 23 on the Raspberry Pi Raspad I've not had the large blue finger icon appear and the screen stays put in its default rotation. Because the default rotation isn't where I can have the Raspad sit up on its own, I've been using this stand from Amazon.https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09NYGPS4T?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_detailsThe stand will hold the Raspad easily without trouble with solid aluminum bars, not hollow ones, that easily hold the weight. The plastic holders will lay flat for easy storage in a laptop bag and can also be taken apart by screws if necessary. It's a very simple well thought out holder that can hold virtually anything. So, that's the stand I've been using.Those are the only two things that I'll be talking about in this review. Because everything else hasn't been a problem. And because a lot of people are curious about the battery, I wanted to show everyone a picture of the battery used. Plus, give my thoughts about an easy method of adding capacity and why simply swapping out the batteries for higher capacity ones won't do any good because the batteries that come with it are already high capacity. Therefore adding external capacity would be the easiest way to go.

I've been looking for a tablet/laptop solution for the raspberry pi I don't have to make and gave this a try. I haven't been a fan of tablets in the past, but this showed me tablets can be great, and it's Android OS I don't like.There are alot of good things to say about this, but my number one thing is power. I can run the raspberry pi at a decent overclock (1950 cpu, 750 gpu, overvolt at 5) and I don't get low power warnings like I have with other kits. A little overclock on a 4gb or 8gb pi 4 and running the new 64bit raspbian makes a big difference in performance. I'm gonna try putting a 2.5"ssd inside since there's room and a free usb3.0 slot and see what else I can squeeze out of this. It's not as heavy as I expected, and I didn't notice any thermal throttling. You don't need and external keyboard and mouse, but you have the option if you want.The one thing that was a bit tricky was the software for the screen keyboard and right click. I'm not horribly used to linux yet, so I had to take a minute and go step by step with the instructions on the website. If I can figure it out than anyone can.If you're looking for an all in one portable raspberry pi solution I highly recommend this.