Last year, I ordered a Raspberry Pi 7" touch screen, I think this was pretty close to release and it’s been serving me very well until now.
However there were two very minor issues,
First, The mounting case was “upside down” and required screen-rotation and the viewing angle was slightly affected.
Secondly, the control board for the screen at the time didn’t support changing the brightness setting.
I was thinking about picking another one up, I wanted to check if the case mounts the screen the correct way now, if the new screens come with the latest board that allows controlling of brightness and if it would be possible to pick up a spare control board to switch out my old one?
I believe the brightness control is still a bit of a hack, though there has been a number of enhancements in software to make it less arcane IIRC. @gadgetoid might know (if the sticky FAQ is not already fully up-to-date).
… the screen orientation is not recognised as a ‘fault’ from a product manufacture/assembly perspective. By that, I mean the way the screen/controller boards are produced.
The problem for us is that if we rotate the armature/frame then the connectors on the Pi (power/audio) would prevent customers resting the setup on a desk, which makes the whole thing rather pointless.
I’ve never really done more than briefly play with the brightness which I think still involves poking values into /sys, but at this point I’m sure all stock of the displays will include the latest version of the driver board which supports it.
As @RogueM points out, the screen orientation is not something we’re going to fix since there are benefits/drawbacks to both orientations and we made the choice for slimline/easier cable routing.
Interestingly I only recently got my hands on the official Pi touchscreen display and it mounts the screen in the same orientation as ours, presumably for the same reasons :D
If you can borrow your local hackspace’s laser cutter, you could possibly whip up some raised reverse legs for it.
I think I asked about the case last time, and was told that it’s pretty much the only way you can do it without having a large case, and they’re right to be honest, It doesn’t bother me much, I was just asking for clarity.
I think the screen has something like 5 degrees better viewing angle the other way, so it’s not a big deal.
If the LCD board can use brightness, it’s probably the 1.1 version, it’s just I use the one I have 24/7 and it’d be nice if I could turn it down late at night.
I have a version 1.0 on 24/7 too, running as a mini-desktop. Screen goes to sleep after a set time.
… I guess the fact I use pretty much all programs in night mode if able and have set a ‘dark’ desktop custom theme means it’s not a big issue for me, but yes, it’s not necessarily a solution for everyone :/