What do you need to get started with a Raspberry Pi? Well, you might claim that you’ll only need a power adapter and a micro SD card to unleash the potential of the Pi. However, if you are among the majority of the users who use this as a compact computer, you will always need a screen to monitor what your Pi is doing and interact with it instead of using SSH. So what kind of screens will match the credit-card-size Raspberry Pi? The answer from UCTRONICS is simple: you need a portable screen for a portable computer!

Touch Display for Pi: Let's begin with UCTRONICS 3.5" screens

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UCTRONICS released pocket size 3.5" screens for the Raspberry Pi several years ago, and it was quite a success for us. The compact 3.5" display perfectly matches the form factor of the Pi itself and seems really integrated. When we were designing that touchscreen, we were thinking of building an alternative to the official display with the MIPI DSI connector, but starting with a lower-end model so that users have easier access to a small screen specifically made for Pi. We did it, and you can achieve most of what you will expect from the official display at a third of the price, and with its smaller size, you can bring your all-in-one Raspberry Pi Project outdoor more easily. Does this product seem promising enough for us to stick to it? The answer is NO.

Where does this tiny screen fall short? There are at least three factors that handicap this product. The first huge shock is from the Raspberry Pi 4, which has switched to a Micro-HDMI connector and rules a lot of the well-integrated compact HDMI screen out of the market, including ours. You may be lucky enough to survive this with the official touch display, but the Pi 4 almost sets a new starting point for all accessories and peripherals with the hardware changes and updates. The second is the touchscreen driver issues. That screen uses SPI for driver controller, and we’ve only offered the touchscreen support on the Raspbian, which drives away quite a lot of retro gamers who use the RetroPie system for portable retro gaming. The third one is the viewing area because some people expect larger fonts and icons, but that is hard for a 3.5” screen.

New Optimal sizes for handheld screens: 5" and 7"

Now that the 3.5-inch screens do not work correctly with the newest RasPi, UCTRONICS has released the new 5" and 7" sizes with the micro-HDMI to HDMI adapter cable and USB touch controller for the Pi 4. Those screens might not be so pocket-sized anymore, but it’s still portable enough to hold in hand.

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Slim IPS Screen 4 pi (HDMI) with USB driver-free touch controller

The new UCTRONICS touchscreens are competitive enough with the IPS display panel, the HDMI connector with micro-HDMI adapter, and the USB touch controller.

IPS display panel

IPS is short for In-Plane Switching, and it’s a widely adopted display technology based on TFT. So, what will the IPS display bring to users? In a word, it’s thin with a wide viewing angle. The 178-degree viewing angle on our new screens will decrease the color degrading when viewed from a larger angle.

HDMI connector with micro-HDMI adapter

The HDMI is a mainstream video/audio connector and used in a lot of devices. The HDMI connectors on our screens mean that you can quickly connect them to Windows computers and laptops, or even game consoles like PlayStation and Xbox. The micro-HDMI to HDMI connector also ensures that Pi 4 users can have fun with them.

USB touch controller

Compared to our previous screens that use the SPI for touch controller, those with USB touch controllers provide universal compatibility, and you can connect the USB cable to the target video device to add touchscreen support, whether it’s a windows device or even a Samsung smartphone, let alone the Raspberry Pi 4.

Raspi (Raspberry Pi) Multi-touch Display/Dual Monitors/Screen Rotation

 

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Sometimes the users want more than just a small screen that displays things, and our screens also have more to offer. These UCTRONICS screens come with 5-finger touch support, and the small micro-HDMI adapter makes sure that you still have access to another micro-HDMI port on the Pi 4, so you can still have dual monitors with our display connected. Aside from the Raspberry Pi, they also work as a general-purpose touch screen for other HDMI devices.

Aside from that, sometimes you want the displayed image upside down but don't want to toggle the Raspbian config file, so our 7" inch display offers a rotation button, and you can use the onboard rotation button to rotate the screen to what you prefer.

Both the screens are available for order now on uctronics.com, and you can check them at the following links:

UCTRONICS 5 Inch HDMI Touch Screen for Raspberry Pi 4, Windows, and More…

UCTRONICS 7 Inch HDMI Touch Screen for Raspberry Pi 4, Windows, and More…