Pimoroni's New Pico Display Takes It to the Max
Lego-sized flat-screen TV
It seems that Pimoroni is working on a follow-up to the Pico Display pack. This larger unit was teased via Pimoroni's software Lead Phil Howard in a series of tweets that show his progress testing the display on a Raspberry Pi Pico. The display is still without a name, but the current working title is "Pico Display Pack Max," as confirmed by Pimoroni co-founder Jon Williamson.
Looks like one of those mazes you get on the back of kids menus pic.twitter.com/7jzClUTgwvJune 17, 2021
We reached out to Howard for more information and learned that the screen is a 320x240 resolution screen powered by an ST7789 SPI TFT driver. The specs look similar to Adafruit's own 2-inch screen. Pimoroni's screen is approximately 2 inches in size and features an IPS display capable of 60 fps. Flanking the screen are four buttons (A, B, X, Y) and a single RGB LED, which uses three PWM GPIO pins to mix colors. All of these features are the same as the smaller Pico Display.
In the tweets, we can see the board connected to a breakout, Pimoroni's Omnibus, which suggests that the board follows Pimoroni's Packs' design aesthetic that connects to all of the Pico's GPIO like a backpack. The display is larger than a Raspberry Pi Pico, which would make it the largest pack in the range. We also note that Howard is using Telnet and connecting to a test URL, so we assume that a Pico Wireless is also connected to the breakout board.
How much and when we can buy one is still not known. But we know that it will be more expensive than the smaller $20 model.
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Les Pounder is an associate editor at Tom's Hardware. He is a creative technologist and for seven years has created projects to educate and inspire minds both young and old. He has worked with the Raspberry Pi Foundation to write and deliver their teacher training program "Picademy".