Banana Pi / Pro 3.5″ TFT LCD Module Review
Conclusion
The Banana Pro / Pi 3.5″ RGB LCD Module from Lemaker is a nice, small TFT display that mounts directly above the Banana Pi.
This small display will work well for many embedded applications, but is of limited use for desktop applications as a modern desktop can’t really fit into 320×240 pixels. Using QT or similar tool kits it will be possible to write nice embedded applications, and the quality of the displayed image is very good. I will likely find many uses for this display.
If the module wil be priced well, I suspect it will sell like proverbial hotcakes.
(Click on image for larger version)
What I liked:
- Lemaker’s support
- sharp, bright, colorful high contrast picture
- good horizontal viewing angle
- low power consumption – only 66mA more than an HDMI monitor and RF keyboard/mouse through an HDMI KVM
- mounts perfectly securely on a Banana Pi
What I did not like:
- lack of documentation (understandable for a pre-release product)
- no touch screen
- vertical viewing angle
- my forgetting to take off the plastic screen protector!
I can see many uses for such a small display in embedded applications such as:
- hand held instrumentation
- hand held game system
- status display embedded into a case
- data entry terminal
- sensor monitoring
- media player control
Improvements I’d like to see:
- touch panel
- 640×480 driver that scaled down to 320×240 averaging 2×2 pixels to each LCD pixel
Related Articles:
- Banana Pi Review
- Banana Pro Review
- Banana Pro / Pi 7″ TFT LCD Module Review
- Banana Pi USB WiFi Adapter Tests
Banana Pi 3.5″ LCD resources:
- Banana Pro/Pi 3.5 inch RGB LCD Module product page at Lenovator.com
- Lemaker Wiki Page for LCD Module
- github link for LCD driver binary files
Article Index
- Introduction, Specifications, First Look
- Installing the flex cable, Installing the driver
- Display quality, Power Consumption, Price & Availability
- Conclusion
