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Raspberry Pi Touch Screen Released

Posted by Soulskill on from the so-your-kids-will-shut-up-about-angry-birds dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The Raspberry Pi has been enormously successful, but one frequent request has been for the Foundation to create a simple touchscreen to go along with it. Gordon Hollingworth said, "I honestly believed it would only take us six months from start to end, but there were a number of issues we met (and other products diverted our attention from the display – like Rev 2.1, B+, A+, and Pi 2)." Now, after two years of development, they've launched a 7", 800x480 LCD that runs at 60 fps. The capacitive screen supports 10 simultaneous finger touches and has a 70 degree viewing angle. The Raspberry Pi Foundation's blog post provides some interesting technical background on electromagnetic compliance and how to connect and use the display.

9 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Not for cars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    At 194mmX110mm it's just a wee bit too big for the standard double DIN stereo slot. Bummer.

  2. Available for a long time by elgatozorbas · · Score: 3, Informative

    Good that the Foundation has now released their own screen, but touchscreens for the rpi have been available for a long time, most of them looking more customized for the rpi than this one..

    1. Re:Available for a long time by FranTaylor · · Score: 5, Insightful

      most of them looking more customized for the rpi than this one.

      RTFA:

      "Using DSI keeps the Pi's HDMI port free, so people can use both the small touchscreen display and a big monitor or TV simultaneously."

      maybe you can provide a list of other touchscreen vendors that are using the DSI interface?

    2. Re:Available for a long time by spire3661 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I have screens that mechanically mate with the pi from adafruit, and they are great, but they take special custom Raspbian to make it work and consume most of the GPIO. I have the adafruit kippah mated to a 7" 40 pin screen and i also have a 3.5" resistive touch screen Pi hat. Another thing you are overlooking is its hard to find CAPACITIVE touch in this size, most of it is resistive. I physically own the hardware you describe and i am excited about this new screen. The DSI interface and capacitive touch make it very interesting to me.

      --
      Good-bye
  3. Re:ummm by FranTaylor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's already been PLENTY of RPi compatible touchscreens (PiTFT).

    unlike all the others, this one uses the DSI interface so you can get good performance (unlike SPI displays) and you can also plug another monitor into the HDMI port.

  4. Re:Amazing value! by FranTaylor · · Score: 4, Informative

    so total price is about the same as the $99 amazon tablet things which does support 1280x600 60Hz.

    amazon tablet things don't have a GPIO header with signals broken out and a mature user libraries in many languages for using them. Nobody is saying that a raspberry pi is the same as a tablet.

  5. Re:Amazing value! by FranTaylor · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I would love the Raspberry Pi to have a better processor that's comparable to modern tablets or the Intel Compute Stick.

    The new quad-core system is totally usable when running debian, even on an enormous monitor. Disk IO is sluggish but the processor and display are rocking. It's much snappier than the old pentium systems that I used for years.

  6. Re:Amazing value! by amiga3D · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They are committed to keeping the price at $35. For the money that's a lot of bang. The thing is that it's useful for all kinds of things at an almost throw away price. Sure, for $100 I can get something that'll run rings around it. I can buy 3 Pi's for that price and do all kinds of projects. Actually I set up a camera network around the house with 6 of the A+ models that are just 20 bucks apiece. They use next to no power and if it gets fried I'm only out 20 dollars. These things aren't really for normal computing, they are for hobbyists and educators.

  7. Re:Amazing value! by amiga3D · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's about equivalent to a Pentium III. I've been playing around with one and I made the mistake of trying to run Scorched3d on it. That was really pretty sad. Solitaire rips though! I have to say although it's usable as a desktop I can pick up a curb throw away computer that will easily out do it. The place the Pi shines is with things like home automation and car computers and things like that. The only limit is your own creativity.