Pine64 revealed today some details about the successor of the original PineTab released in 2020. The PineTab2 is featured in a metal chassis powered by a 2.0GHz Rockchip RK3566 SoC in addition to a detachable keyboard, dual cameras and other peripherals.

The RK3566 SoC (22nm process) has seen this year in various different products like the Radxa E25, Anbernic RG503 and even the PineNote also developed by Pine64. 

• Rockchip RK3566 — Quad-core Cortex-A55 (up to 1.8 GHz); Arm Mali-G52 EE GPU; 0.8 TOPS NPU

 
RK3566 block diagram
(click image to enlarge)

The announcement page specified that unlike the original PineTab which ships with 2GB LPDDR3 RAM, the new model will be available with 8GB RAM/128GB Flash and 4GB RAM/64GB Flash storage. The device will include a MicroSD card reader for extra storage. 

As the original model, the PineTab 2 will offer one Micro HDMI port for video output and one 3.5mm headphone jack with mic input on the left side as shown below. 

     
PineTab2 side view (left) and PCB (right)
(click images to enlarge)

The PineTab2 provides a 2-megapixels front-facing camera and a rear-facing 5-megapixels camera. Other peripherals featured on this device are two USB Type-C ports, one USB 3.0 port and one USB 2.0 port. Pine64 mentioned that the USB 2.0 is intended for charging. 

PineTab2
(click images to enlarge)

The metal chassis is supposed to be easy to disassemble since the company will be offering replacement parts in the future for repairs or upgrades. The detachable keyboard which can also work as a protection case will be part of the order instead of being an optional purchase. 

The Wi-Fi/Bluetooth module hasn’t been specified at the moment, but 2 modules are being currently tested. Since this product is in a prototype phase, the peripherals described might change in the future including the 6000mAh battery currently equipped. 

Pine64 also stated, “PCIe is exposed on the PCB but don’t expect most NVMe SSDs to fit inside the chassis. The exposed PCIe won’t be an advertised feature so consider it a nod to hackers who may be able to make use of it.”

Further information

Pricing is still unknown, but is expected to be affordable. The launching date is estimated to be after Chinese News’s Year ~(Jan 22nd, 2023). Developer units will be available before CNY. For more information, refer to the Pine64 blog and their Discord for active updates.