Demo which shows the function of a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W with 7 inch display to use it as a portable handheld computer

Last Updated on April 5, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org

• They keyboard which is used here is a keyboard which is similar to one we also used before and it is great to write on, it has has back-light.
• we do not know who it is to write on the PinePhone keyboard. We have not done it yet.
• The keyboard has back-light, the PinePhone keyboard does not have back-light.
• The keyboard works fine with this setup.
• keyboard goes over a dongle which is plugged into the only usb2 connetor of th pi zero.
• it has built in audio speakers, the audio goes over Bluetooth.
• If the cover is opened, the Raspberry Pi zero w2 can be seen at the upper right.
• GPIO pins for OLED display and powering the keyboard
• The battery was removed from the keyboard and it is powered from the laptop battery.
• A powerful fan is included, is one of the best which is available for this device, is the device overclocked?
• We suppose the display has no touch support since it would require another usb connection to the Pi, which is not available.
• We do not know much more about the software than that Raspberri Pi OS runs on this setup.
• The fan is powered over GPIO pins.
• The small OLED display at the left side of the keyboard is connected over ther GPIO pins to the Pi.
• The keyboard is also powered from th GPIO pins.
• The device runs for ages with a single battery charge.
• previous versions can be found on the link below and on John Warren’s YouTube channel with 7 videos and 77 subscribers.

• John Warren think it is not as good as a mobile phone. We disagree, for us personally it is better than for instance a Linux phone.
• The Raspberry Pi Zero 2W is easier to setup than a PinePhone, and there can be found more information about the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W than for the PinePhone for projects like this.
• We think a project like this is more suitable for us personally than a PinePhone.
• We have reviewed before an Off-road mobile PC with a Raxda zero running Debian in this journal. But we do not have a YouTube demo which proofs it’s function. And we later on found much disadvantages of the Raxda Zero single board computer, who where not mentioned by the off-road mobile PC developer.

Radxa Zero off grid, hackable mobile computer version 2 with Debian & Bluetooth keyboard & mouse developed by Ex solder Mark John Cockerill who uses it for off-road applications – but where can we find a YouTube demo which proofs that this device works?

• According to our own little experience, there can be a lot of information be found for instance on YouTube and on personal websites, wo want to sell us a product, but the quality of this information varies strongly.
• We often experienced that reviewers do not mention issues with devices which we only later found out about.
• This makes them to product sellers rather than product reviewers.
• Product sellers who keep silent about issues of their devices, but still want to sell those to us.
• It is a lot of work to warn from all these incomplete information, and to evaluate a new device
• countless YouTube videos shows all kind of devices which can do almost anything.
• But are they used, tested and reviewed objectively by someone?
• We do not think this is the case, that is why we share here in detail the problem we have in evaluating such a device, starting from the Pinephone over UBports phones to Raspberri Pi Pads to Raxda zeros and all kinds of low power single board computers. When will this evalution process finally end?
• Another issue is for touch to work we need either need a DSP display or a HDMI plus usb 2 connection, but the Raspberri Pi zero w2 has also RCA composite out, which is not helpful to solve this problem.
• if we compare for instance the pictures of projects with the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W which are available in th web to how many pictures are available for the Pinephone, then we realize there are much more Raspberry Pi Zero 2W project available than Pinephone projects.
• We think thta the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W is more suitable for our projects than a PinePhone or a Raxda Zero.

This demo is not in detail an instruction we plan to rebuild. But if we compare this instruction to the instruction for the off-road PC with the Raxda zero, it is much more detailed, and it becomes obious that much more can be done with a Raspberry Pi zero w2 than with a Raxda zero. Especially also if we consider how poor the software support for the Raxda zero is.