Pine64 November Update – ANSI Pinebook Pro and PinePhone Preorder(pine64.org)
pine64.org
Pine64 November Update – ANSI Pinebook Pro and PinePhone Preorder
https://www.pine64.org/2019/11/05/brave-heart-edition-pinephones/
88 comments
You stripped the first part of that paragraph: “ When fulfilling the purchase, please bear in mind that we are offering the Pinebook Pro at this price as a community service to PINE64, Linux and BSD communities. We make no profit from selling these units...”
While that doesn’t state anything definitively, it sounds like they plan to either increase prices later on, or that the first batch (of PRE-orders keep in mind) is being released early in order to get feedback from customers.
In either case it doesn’t sound like they’re planning to operate as a charity forever.
While that doesn’t state anything definitively, it sounds like they plan to either increase prices later on, or that the first batch (of PRE-orders keep in mind) is being released early in order to get feedback from customers.
In either case it doesn’t sound like they’re planning to operate as a charity forever.
I think you're reading more into it than what is there, but I hope that's the case! Seems like a neat product and I hope they sell it at a sustainable price rather than stay at the bottom and get sunk when people file chargebacks.
They reinvest the cash right back into development and production units. There is risk that this company will evaporate, however: https://www.pine64.org/philosophy/
None of us is as smart as all of us ~ Ken H. Blanchard At the core of our philosophy is the notion that PINE64 is a community platform. [...] The goal is to deliver ARM64 devices that you really wish to engage with and a platform that you want to be a part of.
As such, if you can help them source better quality IPS panels, I know a guy you should talk to.
None of us is as smart as all of us ~ Ken H. Blanchard At the core of our philosophy is the notion that PINE64 is a community platform. [...] The goal is to deliver ARM64 devices that you really wish to engage with and a platform that you want to be a part of.
As such, if you can help them source better quality IPS panels, I know a guy you should talk to.
it sounds like a neat product, I'm just wishing they would charge more to cover the risk/rate of chargebacks rather than simply ask people not to sink them.
Yes of course, it would be nice if a bad batch didn't slow future development to a crawl. Pine64 works in batches, they don't ship promptly, they are also heavily preorder based for in-development projects, and they directly work with developers, as the people who buy them are also the developers of the software which runs on them.
If you get a dead pixel, they will sell you another panel. The laptops are modular, check out how they handled the NVME adapter problems: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8117
I feel quite confident after seeing their work.
If you get a dead pixel, they will sell you another panel. The laptops are modular, check out how they handled the NVME adapter problems: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8117
I feel quite confident after seeing their work.
Charging more would make this laptop less accessible to the vast majority of people. The Novena, Talos & many other libre hardware projects were always so expensive as to be botique afterthoughts, rather than "I can spend $100 and get a nice netbook".
Well, personally I would prefer them to make profit. I would be willing to pay a bit more since the product seems quite interesting - not actually in the current state, but what the product could be if the business actually flourishes.
Better would be something like "Disclaimer: the product can have up to 10 dead pixels which are not covered by warranty."
Better would be something like "Disclaimer: the product can have up to 10 dead pixels which are not covered by warranty."
I hear what you're saying, but to be clear, Pine Microsystems is not operating a pizza shop. It is much more like a hackerspace or community workshop then a merchant. They offer a direct-from-manufacturer business model, where a non-membership based community of interested stakeholders directly contribute to most if not all of the products. Check out the engineering blog posts.
If you are looking for a turnkey solution, not all of Pine64's offerings are able meet your needs (but do snag a $1.99 CH340 Serial console.) and if you preorder the "Braveheart" phone, there is no stable off the shelf OS prepared for it. You cannot buy this and mail it to ahead your hotel and give a demonstration to the board by next Thursday.
That said, and I don't think this is superlative at all, Pine64's efforts currently exemplify the internet dream of a "Global Village" economy.
If you are looking for a turnkey solution, not all of Pine64's offerings are able meet your needs (but do snag a $1.99 CH340 Serial console.) and if you preorder the "Braveheart" phone, there is no stable off the shelf OS prepared for it. You cannot buy this and mail it to ahead your hotel and give a demonstration to the board by next Thursday.
That said, and I don't think this is superlative at all, Pine64's efforts currently exemplify the internet dream of a "Global Village" economy.
Right there on the pinebook order page:
> Small numbers (1-3) of stuck or dead pixels are a characteristic of LCD screens. These are normal and should not be considered a defect.
And:
> [...] make no profit from selling these units. If you think that a minor dissatisfaction, such as a dead pixel, will prompt you to file a PayPal dispute then please do not purchase the Pinebook. Thank you.
> Small numbers (1-3) of stuck or dead pixels are a characteristic of LCD screens. These are normal and should not be considered a defect.
And:
> [...] make no profit from selling these units. If you think that a minor dissatisfaction, such as a dead pixel, will prompt you to file a PayPal dispute then please do not purchase the Pinebook. Thank you.
me too! that's exactly what I'm suggesting, that they should charge more to cover the %age of jerks that will file paypal chargebacks rather than ask people to be kind
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This kind of stuff is frustrating to me.
Projects that respect their customers are usually on the edge of oblivion because they don't have a profit or ownership motive. But they are vulnerable to others copying and cost-reducing their work. Customers usually choose the cheaper copy.
Projects that are sucessful assure themselves a profit by closing their products and restricting things. Customers are limited in what they can do, or have to be content with buying a crippled product.
sigh.
Projects that respect their customers are usually on the edge of oblivion because they don't have a profit or ownership motive. But they are vulnerable to others copying and cost-reducing their work. Customers usually choose the cheaper copy.
Projects that are sucessful assure themselves a profit by closing their products and restricting things. Customers are limited in what they can do, or have to be content with buying a crippled product.
sigh.
Works well so far. Computers are still laughably overpriced overall.
The problem is that without making a profit, you have no buffer to handle unforseen risk.
That isn't what profit means. Savings you are holding for a rainy day are not profit.
Except accounting-wise, and tax-wise, that is what profit means. Retaining a surplus into future periods is generally going to be a taxable event.
I suppose you could create a reserve against projected liabilities such as warranty returns (which is commonly done in for-profit companies). But that is pretty well explicitly not for a rainy day or the unexpected; it’s for the rather firmly expected.
I suppose you could create a reserve against projected liabilities such as warranty returns (which is commonly done in for-profit companies). But that is pretty well explicitly not for a rainy day or the unexpected; it’s for the rather firmly expected.
The simplest definition of profit seems to imply that someone paid more for something than was put into it. How does one get savings with no profit?
edit: I'm trying to ask a question; and I should add, it is my understanding that's how profit is defined. Why would this be downvoted? Do I really have to paste a definition of profit in here?
edit: I'm trying to ask a question; and I should add, it is my understanding that's how profit is defined. Why would this be downvoted? Do I really have to paste a definition of profit in here?
Probably meant: business should make profit, from that profit the business can save some money for the rainy day. And I agree.
However I don't know who are behind PINE64 - maybe they have some long-term investor backing them up, and they try price at this point as low as possible to get the community going.
Actually, I would be interested in investing to this pine thing.
However I don't know who are behind PINE64 - maybe they have some long-term investor backing them up, and they try price at this point as low as possible to get the community going.
Actually, I would be interested in investing to this pine thing.
That's why they sell at short separated periods.
You should have seen what they cost three decades ago.
They need to charge slightly more then. Having enough profits to ensure financial security for the organization is not unethical
Incase you're ordering the PinePhone & looking forward to jump on Linux development; check out Ubuntu Touch by UBPorts[1].
UBPorts community have done a commendable job in continuing Ubuntu Touch development after canonical left it. Even Nexus 4 receives regular updates, albeit old kernel due to libHybris
Ubuntu Touch is the most accessible Linux phone now because of their support to older available devices. Unfortunately, they don't get enough attention as Purism or PostmarketOS gets.
Hopefully, PinePhone should change it.
[1]:https://forums.ubports.com/topic/2403/pinephone
UBPorts community have done a commendable job in continuing Ubuntu Touch development after canonical left it. Even Nexus 4 receives regular updates, albeit old kernel due to libHybris
Ubuntu Touch is the most accessible Linux phone now because of their support to older available devices. Unfortunately, they don't get enough attention as Purism or PostmarketOS gets.
Hopefully, PinePhone should change it.
[1]:https://forums.ubports.com/topic/2403/pinephone
"Commendable job" is about the only praise I can give, sadly.
I just spent the last two weeks attempting to get an Ubuntu Touch phone to work as a mobile transceiver / network hub for a BLE peripheral that my company is developing. Our device works very well with the standard Linux bluez stack and tools (bluetoothctl, hcitool, etc.), so we thought that this would be the easier route for a one-off project than developing an Android app from scratch, given Android's BLE quirks (e.g. minimum notification interval of 11.25 ms instead of the 7.5 ms that the BLE spec requires -- we have a high bandwidth device that needs the shorter interval).
It was a nightmare, and we eventually gave up and wrote an Android app.
I just spent the last two weeks attempting to get an Ubuntu Touch phone to work as a mobile transceiver / network hub for a BLE peripheral that my company is developing. Our device works very well with the standard Linux bluez stack and tools (bluetoothctl, hcitool, etc.), so we thought that this would be the easier route for a one-off project than developing an Android app from scratch, given Android's BLE quirks (e.g. minimum notification interval of 11.25 ms instead of the 7.5 ms that the BLE spec requires -- we have a high bandwidth device that needs the shorter interval).
It was a nightmare, and we eventually gave up and wrote an Android app.
Can you go into actual development issue? Was it the QT or were you trying to run a Linux binary.
We were trying to interface with bluez (the Linux kernel Bluetooth stack, which exposes a D-Bus API) in order to communicate with our device, and no method we tried was able to get past opening the initial connection (no MTU negotiation, no connection interval selection, no service discovery, etc.). It was an old kernel, so it could have been bugs in the bluez implementation from that era, or bugs in the firmware blob of the BLE chipset (it worked on the same hardware running Android, but we didn't verify whether the BLE firmware blob was the same).
The argument in favor of this approach was that it was supposed to look and feel "just like normal Linux" which is where we do most of our development work. Unfortunately, this just isn't the case. I think the two biggest issues are:
1. ubports uses an Android kernel, and although it's 99% pure Linux, Android kernels usually disable a lot of things that your typical Linux machine expects and that some libraries rely on (e.g. most IPC mechanisms). This is really frustrating to work around.
2. This one could just be my lack of experience with these things, but the AppArmor security policies and the weird container setup slowed me down a lot and made the system unpleasant to work on. This didn't really cause an issue, but it made working with the system unpleasant.
The argument in favor of this approach was that it was supposed to look and feel "just like normal Linux" which is where we do most of our development work. Unfortunately, this just isn't the case. I think the two biggest issues are:
1. ubports uses an Android kernel, and although it's 99% pure Linux, Android kernels usually disable a lot of things that your typical Linux machine expects and that some libraries rely on (e.g. most IPC mechanisms). This is really frustrating to work around.
2. This one could just be my lack of experience with these things, but the AppArmor security policies and the weird container setup slowed me down a lot and made the system unpleasant to work on. This didn't really cause an issue, but it made working with the system unpleasant.
> Unfortunately, they don't get enough attention as Purism or PostmarketOS gets.
I didn't know of this project, however my first thought at putting the ideas "ubuntu" and "phone" together would be: another phone that doesn't respect you.
This comes from the way ubuntu forces stuff you might not want, like the amazon app, telemetry and stuff like snap.
I might be thinking unfairly.
(meanwhile purism takes great pain to think of the user compassionately via GPL)
I didn't know of this project, however my first thought at putting the ideas "ubuntu" and "phone" together would be: another phone that doesn't respect you.
This comes from the way ubuntu forces stuff you might not want, like the amazon app, telemetry and stuff like snap.
I might be thinking unfairly.
(meanwhile purism takes great pain to think of the user compassionately via GPL)
Amazon searches were a huge mistake of theirs, but they don't force anything, you don't have to use snap or submit telemetry. Much bigger problem with Canonical is they think it's okay to have some tightly integrated bits and pieces that are proprietary and not to contribute some fixes upstream.
> you don't have to use snap
I have to disagree. My experience trying to disable or remove snap led me to believe they designed it to be hard.
I have to disagree. My experience trying to disable or remove snap led me to believe they designed it to be hard.
UBPorts Ubuntu Touch apps are GPL, they have their Appstore called OpenStore.
That UBPorts forum is the worst implementation of a discussion thread I've ever seen. Infinite scroll vs. pagination makes it impossible to ever go back and find something quickly, for instance.
I used ubports for a bit. Liked it a lot, very stable. If it had anki and authy I would have stuck with it, and they had plans at the time to support android apps via emulation
Any real, day-to-day usage feedback on the PineBook Pro? I've looked around on their forum + reddit, and outside of a couple of reviews (mainly only a day or so into ownership), I haven't found much. This one seems to be the most in-depth so far: http://students.engr.scu.edu/~sschaeck/misc/pinebookpro.html
There aren't very many units out in the wild yet, I just received mine on Friday and I ordered late August.
There's some good and bad here, the hardware is surprisingly good for a $250 open source laptop (cost + shipping + taxes) but it's nowhere near as polished or usable as a comparable $250 Chromebook. The software is squarely beta quality so expect to spend time tracking updates, flashing firmware and doing things like patching u-boot from someone's github repo, etc.
Daily use annoyances: the touchpad is mediocre, battery drain while the machine is asleep is higher than I expected. Lots of things that should be possible (ARM hibernation support) aren't because rockchip based their kernel on 4.4 and the mainline upstreaming effort is slow moving.
Desktop performance is solid though, as is streaming video playback. Basic system performance is great, storage is fast, system is responsive etc.
There's some good and bad here, the hardware is surprisingly good for a $250 open source laptop (cost + shipping + taxes) but it's nowhere near as polished or usable as a comparable $250 Chromebook. The software is squarely beta quality so expect to spend time tracking updates, flashing firmware and doing things like patching u-boot from someone's github repo, etc.
Daily use annoyances: the touchpad is mediocre, battery drain while the machine is asleep is higher than I expected. Lots of things that should be possible (ARM hibernation support) aren't because rockchip based their kernel on 4.4 and the mainline upstreaming effort is slow moving.
Desktop performance is solid though, as is streaming video playback. Basic system performance is great, storage is fast, system is responsive etc.
Yes. I have one. It’s a $199 laptop. It is nowhere near as nice hardware wise as the Macs I use. It works, but everything’s slow and clunky.
Yeah, I'm not expecting a ton given the price point, I have my "real" machines for work.I would like an open and functional option for traveling, conferences etc though. Maybe it is because of delivery timelines or something, but I don't see many people reviewing these outside of initial unboxing type details...
This is a new product launch, the current users are reporting on the earliest units. The first normal pre-order batch should be shipping this week, and then I believe there are 2 more batches to be shipped until after the Chinese new year. The current preorder is the last for these units for several months.
The Pinebook Pro specs compare to a somewhat powerful 6-core arm SBC: 5V power input, easy to charge off a solar panel on your boat, IPS LCD panel, MALI gpu, 4gb Ram (SoC is maxed out, this could be upgradable: Original $99 Pinebook upgrade kits are coming in Q1 2020), 64GB MMC, wifi, no ethernet (use $9 dongle, case too thin), USB-C, a UART accessible from the headphone jack with a $7 dongle breakout thingy, optional $7 M.2 NVME daughter board. This is a (almost) fully opensource chromebook with a magnesium shell, and hardware privacy switches. 2 blobs afiak for Mali GPU and Bluetooth/wifi module. Hackable. Inexpensive accessories already exist with good availability. Replacement parts available, BSD according to the wiki.
Personally, I like reasonably powered home computing devices, I just put the stuff with all the fans in the closet. Maybe doing a huge compilation or git merge on the Pinebook hardware is gonna be slow. Full video and smartphone graphics should be fine. Connecting your Pinebook to a Pine64 cluster for big jobs is something you can do today and sounds like a summer project.
This client hardware seems pretty decent for two large bills. A specced Librem 15 is $2000 and could be eye watering if it falls off your boat again.
The Pinebook Pro specs compare to a somewhat powerful 6-core arm SBC: 5V power input, easy to charge off a solar panel on your boat, IPS LCD panel, MALI gpu, 4gb Ram (SoC is maxed out, this could be upgradable: Original $99 Pinebook upgrade kits are coming in Q1 2020), 64GB MMC, wifi, no ethernet (use $9 dongle, case too thin), USB-C, a UART accessible from the headphone jack with a $7 dongle breakout thingy, optional $7 M.2 NVME daughter board. This is a (almost) fully opensource chromebook with a magnesium shell, and hardware privacy switches. 2 blobs afiak for Mali GPU and Bluetooth/wifi module. Hackable. Inexpensive accessories already exist with good availability. Replacement parts available, BSD according to the wiki.
Personally, I like reasonably powered home computing devices, I just put the stuff with all the fans in the closet. Maybe doing a huge compilation or git merge on the Pinebook hardware is gonna be slow. Full video and smartphone graphics should be fine. Connecting your Pinebook to a Pine64 cluster for big jobs is something you can do today and sounds like a summer project.
This client hardware seems pretty decent for two large bills. A specced Librem 15 is $2000 and could be eye watering if it falls off your boat again.
About the PineTime
> Since this is a community driven side-project, we have started considering making the dev-kits available to everyone in the store.
That would be awesome. I've been looking for an open watch to play with recently. I hope they go forward with that idea.
> Since this is a community driven side-project, we have started considering making the dev-kits available to everyone in the store.
That would be awesome. I've been looking for an open watch to play with recently. I hope they go forward with that idea.
Battery life seems promising too! (They aim for 10 days.)
This might actually turn out more useful than many of the boutique smartwatches.
This might actually turn out more useful than many of the boutique smartwatches.
I would like to order both a PinePhone and a PineTime (plus a couple more for friends), but I have no idea if they will be available for order/shipping at the same time[1].
And ideally, I would like a pineTime as well. I would like to write a program to alert me when I'm forgetting my phone while travelling, for instance :)
[1] Asked here: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8158&pid=51528#p...
And ideally, I would like a pineTime as well. I would like to write a program to alert me when I'm forgetting my phone while travelling, for instance :)
[1] Asked here: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8158&pid=51528#p...
Yeah. Hoping they do produce more PineTime dev kits, as Go can now be compiled directly for it (via TinyGo) and a friend has a good project in mind it would suit.
Got my Pinebook Pro preorder in. Will order a PinePhone when it opens as well. Using both as a way to test the waters of using Linux as my daily "consumer PC" replacement, since the price makes it fairly painless to do so.
Don't forget about the open source community designed PineTime! (est price: $25)
They are also developing an open source tablet, PineTab. They already have several full lines of SBC Raspberry Pi killers as well. Several are designated LTS Long Term Support with guaranteed availability (See offer for details, restrictions apply, Pine64 can not be held responsible for any sweet hacks or enjoyable Sundays caused by its devices. Hack Responsibly.)
They are also developing an open source tablet, PineTab. They already have several full lines of SBC Raspberry Pi killers as well. Several are designated LTS Long Term Support with guaranteed availability (See offer for details, restrictions apply, Pine64 can not be held responsible for any sweet hacks or enjoyable Sundays caused by its devices. Hack Responsibly.)
However, from what I can see [1] there is just some prototype hardware and some datasheets, is there an SDK somewhere? Or at least a toolchain?
[1] https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PineTime
[1] https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PineTime
No, your job is to write the SDK. Eventually someone will write one and then you can go to the next level.
Note that they have carefully looked for the type of people who will write a sdk for it, and ensured they have a pinetime. Thus in a few months/years I expect to see a couple different SDKs come out. Once there is a useful SDK with a useful app ready for release they will start selling hardware to anyone with it. Until then they will only make the pinetime hardware available to the type of person who is likely to take what currently exists and move it up a level. (note that the first set of hardware has shipped, they might or might not make a second round for more developers)
Note that they have carefully looked for the type of people who will write a sdk for it, and ensured they have a pinetime. Thus in a few months/years I expect to see a couple different SDKs come out. Once there is a useful SDK with a useful app ready for release they will start selling hardware to anyone with it. Until then they will only make the pinetime hardware available to the type of person who is likely to take what currently exists and move it up a level. (note that the first set of hardware has shipped, they might or might not make a second round for more developers)
This thing is slated for possible production in Q1 2020. In the mean time, they are seriously considering producing their pre-production devkits for general availability in the Pine store, as they are rather easy to produce. If you are interested, send them a message. There is more details about PineTime in the latest update: https://www.pine64.org/2019/11/05/brave-heart-edition-pineph...
Also the wiki at the bottom lists the SoC Datasheet, specs, schematics, etc. You might be able to find a similar platform (nrf2840) on alibaba or something. I'll bet the PineTime people can tell you on IRC or Slack.
Also the wiki at the bottom lists the SoC Datasheet, specs, schematics, etc. You might be able to find a similar platform (nrf2840) on alibaba or something. I'll bet the PineTime people can tell you on IRC or Slack.
Oh, I definitely haven't forgotten PineTime. I'm wearing a Fitbit Ionic right now, and I've basically committing to never intentionally giving Google my data, so a change of wristwear is now assured in the near future.
I hadn't even heard of the PineTime. I'm really intrigued...
Get involved if you have the time :)
PineTime is a community project and its hardware will be produced and sold by Pine64. The Pine People are gaining some great experience in this space, it is truly a pleasure to join in!
PineTime is a community project and its hardware will be produced and sold by Pine64. The Pine People are gaining some great experience in this space, it is truly a pleasure to join in!
A bit unfair since your win10 counterpart was probably not an ARM processor, so keep that in mind :)
I'm far less worried about raw performance, as I am in the workflow and software availability in general. I need to see if I can take out a Linux machine where I would take a Windows machine, and not go "darn, I can't do what I need to because I'm not running Windows". (And if I hit "darn, I can't do what I need to because I have an ARM chip", that's not a knock on Linux as an option.)
I can always get a more powerful Linux machine at another time. ;)
I can always get a more powerful Linux machine at another time. ;)
> (And if I hit "darn, I can't do what I need to because I have an ARM chip", that's not a knock on Linux as an option.)
Some binaries might not be available depending on what you do or what distro you use, but generally you could always compile the software yourself, it could take a while so as long as you are not in a hurry.
Some binaries might not be available depending on what you do or what distro you use, but generally you could always compile the software yourself, it could take a while so as long as you are not in a hurry.
This. The fact that very few extensible editors came prebuilt with Arch for my Chromebooks a couple of years ago was the reason I picked up Vim, for example.
Though this probably is less of a problem now if you like VS Code.
Though this probably is less of a problem now if you like VS Code.
I'm very interested in these machines. Hopefully someone will post a review of them on HN once available. I'm especially interested in hearing how the trackpad is, considering people on HN are always complaining about Linux and trackpads.
I wish the site had better photographs. The keyboard pictures are awful, and the Javascript they use to show the pictures prevents me from zooming in to see any detail.
I wish the site had better photographs. The keyboard pictures are awful, and the Javascript they use to show the pictures prevents me from zooming in to see any detail.
On the Pinebook Pro, the trackpad and keyboard aren’t great. I’m hesitant to say horrible, but it is a very cheap machine so you get what you pay for. I have one of the ISO keyboard “batch 2” machines. I got it last week and the keyboard issues have made it largely unusable for me.
Ignoring the trackpad, the keyboard will sometimes refuse to register keypresses or will repeat keys. This is particularly problematic when you type fast (like a password). On mine, the tab key also gets stuck rather often. The trackpad doesn’t have much control for fine movements, which makes resizing windows... interesting. And the trackpad frequently activates spontaneously which causes cursors to move around.
Aside from a small issue I had with a loose bezel, the rest of the machine is very nice. It is a good sized (14”), very sturdy design. The screen is pretty good too. Maybe if the keyboard and trackpad firmware gets fixed, then it could be a usable machine.
Ignoring the trackpad, the keyboard will sometimes refuse to register keypresses or will repeat keys. This is particularly problematic when you type fast (like a password). On mine, the tab key also gets stuck rather often. The trackpad doesn’t have much control for fine movements, which makes resizing windows... interesting. And the trackpad frequently activates spontaneously which causes cursors to move around.
Aside from a small issue I had with a loose bezel, the rest of the machine is very nice. It is a good sized (14”), very sturdy design. The screen is pretty good too. Maybe if the keyboard and trackpad firmware gets fixed, then it could be a usable machine.
Is the keyboard better than the XP’s 13? I hate typing in that thing. I miss my 2015 MacBook w Ubuntu, the hardware was so incredible
I haven't used the XPS 13 so I can't compare them but while the keyboard the PBP is cheap it isn't bad. The touchpad on the other hand makes me want to stab someone every time it misses a two finger right click.
I've been eyeing the 2018 Matebook X Pro as a replacement work laptop, everything I've heard about it has been overwhelmingly positive.
I've been eyeing the 2018 Matebook X Pro as a replacement work laptop, everything I've heard about it has been overwhelmingly positive.
I’m glad your keyboard is working out better for you. Mine is just so inconsistent, but part of that is the touchpad too. Maybe I would have a different opinion if I just disabled the touchpad completely (and if my tab-key would stop sticking).
But I do think it highlights one of the issues you’ll have with any low-cost machine — quality control. There just isn’t enough of a margin to assure a standard level of quality. Now, this is admittedly a pre-production batch, so perhaps some of these issues with quality will be worked out, but given the cost, I’m not too confident.
But I do think it highlights one of the issues you’ll have with any low-cost machine — quality control. There just isn’t enough of a margin to assure a standard level of quality. Now, this is admittedly a pre-production batch, so perhaps some of these issues with quality will be worked out, but given the cost, I’m not too confident.
I was excited to get one of these myself. I joined the waiting list towards the end of last year and finally got mine around July-ish. As others have mentioned, the keyboard is only serviceable and the trackpad is very cheap only having like corner left/right clicking. I enjoyed mine all of about a week or so before I encountered issues where it won't boot up when I turned it on. Tried looking for a solution for a while but eventually just gave up...It's not really worth the extra effort.
> people on HN are always complaining about Linux and trackpads.
On my machines, regardless of OS, I turn the trackpad off. I prefer a mouse set to max sensitivity, so that my hand doesn't move, just my fingers, and barely at that. And then I try to use keystrokes as much as practical.
People who sit at my laptop get dizzy and fall off the edge.
On my machines, regardless of OS, I turn the trackpad off. I prefer a mouse set to max sensitivity, so that my hand doesn't move, just my fingers, and barely at that. And then I try to use keystrokes as much as practical.
People who sit at my laptop get dizzy and fall off the edge.
I have one. Trackpad sucks. Keyboard is ok but not great.
Does anyone know if the Pinephone will be able to work on Verizon's network? I am very interested in getting a Pinephone to try out and maybe make some apps for but I don't want to buy another SIM and plan from somewhere else.
The chip in the phone is an approved module for Verizon, so theoretically, it can, and the bands needed are supported. Whether or not your Verizon customer service rep will activate the phone is an entirely different question that we'll only find out once we have them in hands and give it a shot.
https://opendevelopment.verizonwireless.com/design-and-build...
https://opendevelopment.verizonwireless.com/design-and-build...
Awesome! I already have an activated Verizon SIM so hopefully it'll just work with the Pinephone. If not maybe I can just pick up something from Ting.
I have been clamoring for this product for years. If this looks good to you, check out their other offerings. They are extremely compelling. Also, the $1.99 serial console is very nice.
Does anyone know who are the people behind Pine64? Where is the company based/incorporated.
I couldn't find any info on the website.
I couldn't find any info on the website.
The blog and an interview [1] have been by Lukasz Erecinski. Although Wikipedia mentions TL Lim:
> Although the original Kickstarter page mentioned a company called "Pine64 Inc.", all devices are manufactured and sold by Pine Microsystems Inc. based in Fremont, California. Its founder is TL Lim, the inventor of the PopBox and Popcorn Hour series of media players sold under the Syabas and Cloud Media brands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Microsystems
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bibXkrT8AqU
> Although the original Kickstarter page mentioned a company called "Pine64 Inc.", all devices are manufactured and sold by Pine Microsystems Inc. based in Fremont, California. Its founder is TL Lim, the inventor of the PopBox and Popcorn Hour series of media players sold under the Syabas and Cloud Media brands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Microsystems
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bibXkrT8AqU
Really cant wait to get my hands on a pinephone, it looks absolutely amazing. Hopefully I will be quick enough to get a BraveHeart model for christmas, I would rather not test my technical skills with assembling the developer edition.
Hardware switches for almost everything and open source software :D
Hardware switches for almost everything and open source software :D
> Hardware switches for almost everything and open source software :D
I just flipped through the various pinephone PDFs linked from the November update and saw no evidence of hardware kill switches. Maybe they're buried in the schematics, but the exploded phone diagram has nothing for them.
Can you link where you saw mention/proof of this?
I just flipped through the various pinephone PDFs linked from the November update and saw no evidence of hardware kill switches. Maybe they're buried in the schematics, but the exploded phone diagram has nothing for them.
Can you link where you saw mention/proof of this?
https://www.pine64.org/2019/09/05/september-update-the-pinep...
>The detachable back panel – which covers the privacy switches, pogo pins and the removable battery – is made of a durable soft-touch plastic.
https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone
> Privacy Switches: LTE (include GPS), Wifi/BT, Mic, and Camera
edit: You can see them at the first link (picture "PinePhone mainboard + daughterboard (prototype) "), its the little switches above the sdcard reader
>The detachable back panel – which covers the privacy switches, pogo pins and the removable battery – is made of a durable soft-touch plastic.
https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone
> Privacy Switches: LTE (include GPS), Wifi/BT, Mic, and Camera
edit: You can see them at the first link (picture "PinePhone mainboard + daughterboard (prototype) "), its the little switches above the sdcard reader
Thanks.
Well, I guess that's better than nothing.
I can't see myself removing the battery cover and flipping dip switches every time I want to utilize GPS and cellular networks, and again when I'm done, though.
But it does let them check the "hw kill switches" box...
Well, I guess that's better than nothing.
I can't see myself removing the battery cover and flipping dip switches every time I want to utilize GPS and cellular networks, and again when I'm done, though.
But it does let them check the "hw kill switches" box...
I mean i think its about what you expect of the device. Many users would likely be unhappy with having the buttons pressable on the outside due do being prone to an accidental disable-able. Its a fringe feature. Having the option to reversibly disable these components is exactly what i am looking for. So while I will be unlikely to use GPS and LTE or the simcard for that matter, I am not sure about WIFI, cam and microphone yet. Either way, It sure as hell beats soldering them off. Hopefully the cover is also as easily removable as promised. But even if not, i would still get one if all killswitches were 0 Ohm resistors.
I think just posting the link here gave the wrong impression. Its an open Linux phone with HW-Killswitches. If that sentence on its own doesnt have you grin like a kid on Christmas, its likely not yet the device for you. But as was often said when talking about the Pinephone, its a start. At this point the target demographic is still developers not people who are looking for an open source replacement of their current smartphone. Its why the batch is called "brave heart". While there are operating systems booting on it already, the expectations Pine set when the developers edition came out were rather low.
I think just posting the link here gave the wrong impression. Its an open Linux phone with HW-Killswitches. If that sentence on its own doesnt have you grin like a kid on Christmas, its likely not yet the device for you. But as was often said when talking about the Pinephone, its a start. At this point the target demographic is still developers not people who are looking for an open source replacement of their current smartphone. Its why the batch is called "brave heart". While there are operating systems booting on it already, the expectations Pine set when the developers edition came out were rather low.
> Many users would likely be unhappy with having the buttons pressable on the outside due do being prone to an accidental disable-able
The Purism Librem 5 addressed this while still having the kill switches easily accessible externally, with recessed switch bosses appropriate for regular external use.
On the Pinephone it looks more like an afterthought to try get some feature parity with the L5.
I'm excited to see more Linux phones on the market with non-android user space. But it's about 15 years too late for me to jump to buy anything running Linux without actually wanting to daily drive the end result, like back in the Zaurus days (I had three different models). I basically don't use a smartphone because of the current situation, not since my Nokia N9 broke, and that Linux phone was incredibly disappointing on the hackability and security/privacy fronts, though I did enjoy using it.
The Purism Librem 5 addressed this while still having the kill switches easily accessible externally, with recessed switch bosses appropriate for regular external use.
On the Pinephone it looks more like an afterthought to try get some feature parity with the L5.
I'm excited to see more Linux phones on the market with non-android user space. But it's about 15 years too late for me to jump to buy anything running Linux without actually wanting to daily drive the end result, like back in the Zaurus days (I had three different models). I basically don't use a smartphone because of the current situation, not since my Nokia N9 broke, and that Linux phone was incredibly disappointing on the hackability and security/privacy fronts, though I did enjoy using it.
The Librem 5 is another price point and I think its trying to achieve another goal. I dont think they are in any real competition. For the pinephone, if one of your main goals is the final pricepoint, how much % of your devices cost (and development time) are you going to invest into a (unfortunately) niche feature? And are you risking the robustness of your phone for it? I think the way its done is the cheapest, yet still functional way, which this phone is all about.
The Pinephone is at its core a proof of concept made cheaply available to jump start development for open source linux smartphones. Once its shown to be working we can talk about every day competitors to existing smartphones, but thats at least a generation away. Librem is trying to achieve this to begin with by marketing it to privacy and security conscious users. I am really curious if that will succeed, but i fear people will expect it to match the comfort of their current smartphones at that price, which is a really difficult thing to do. Looking at history, it took a while till Linux became a realistic option as an OS for a home computer for people who dont consider them self geeks. The pinephone isnt reaching for the moon but makes the first step.
To the other point, this will be my first smartphone as well and is intended for daily use, just not with GPS, LTE and SMS.
The Pinephone is at its core a proof of concept made cheaply available to jump start development for open source linux smartphones. Once its shown to be working we can talk about every day competitors to existing smartphones, but thats at least a generation away. Librem is trying to achieve this to begin with by marketing it to privacy and security conscious users. I am really curious if that will succeed, but i fear people will expect it to match the comfort of their current smartphones at that price, which is a really difficult thing to do. Looking at history, it took a while till Linux became a realistic option as an OS for a home computer for people who dont consider them self geeks. The pinephone isnt reaching for the moon but makes the first step.
To the other point, this will be my first smartphone as well and is intended for daily use, just not with GPS, LTE and SMS.
As a dissatisfied customer, I bought a bought a bunch of A64-LTS with Poe, eMMC and battery holders.
Turns out their eMMCs are defective. Here's what's happening:
The eMMCs ignore the first read instruction, and then work from the second one on. On Linux boot, initrd makes a read request that never returns, and hangs.
If you boot off of a mSD, it woris well. You can still mount the eMMC, but you cant boot with them.
I did receiver a report that someone found a bootable (doesn't ignore first read) eMMC. But that was 1.
(Disclosure, I opened a PayPal dispute and sent back the eMMCs of my own expense. But the never responded so I got all $293 back. This goes along with 0 communication even when I was trying to do the right thing. I'm also trying to start a hardware business, and chose this platform because of no embedded radios, etc, and 1gigE on its own SPI bus.)
Tldr. Defective hardware, don't buy.
Turns out their eMMCs are defective. Here's what's happening:
The eMMCs ignore the first read instruction, and then work from the second one on. On Linux boot, initrd makes a read request that never returns, and hangs.
If you boot off of a mSD, it woris well. You can still mount the eMMC, but you cant boot with them.
I did receiver a report that someone found a bootable (doesn't ignore first read) eMMC. But that was 1.
(Disclosure, I opened a PayPal dispute and sent back the eMMCs of my own expense. But the never responded so I got all $293 back. This goes along with 0 communication even when I was trying to do the right thing. I'm also trying to start a hardware business, and chose this platform because of no embedded radios, etc, and 1gigE on its own SPI bus.)
Tldr. Defective hardware, don't buy.
I didnt find anything about this in the Pine Forum or via google, just this thread on Armbian
https://forum.armbian.com/topic/7783-cant-install-pine-a64-l...
Do you have any more information or a link where to follow up on this? Skimming the threads in the forum
https://forum.pine64.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=67
has more then one person saying that they managed to boot from the EMMC.
edit: nevermind found it
https://www.reddit.com/r/PINE64official/comments/df6yxz/pine...
edit2: Are you sure you didnt run into a problem with Armbian? Did you test it with any other OS? There seem to be more people who had an issue which sounds similar, not being able to boot from EMMC but from SDCard with armbian.
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1745265
https://forum.armbian.com/topic/7783-cant-install-pine-a64-l...
Do you have any more information or a link where to follow up on this? Skimming the threads in the forum
https://forum.pine64.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=67
has more then one person saying that they managed to boot from the EMMC.
edit: nevermind found it
https://www.reddit.com/r/PINE64official/comments/df6yxz/pine...
edit2: Are you sure you didnt run into a problem with Armbian? Did you test it with any other OS? There seem to be more people who had an issue which sounds similar, not being able to boot from EMMC but from SDCard with armbian.
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1745265
Sorry got busy in the interim.
Yes, I tried eMMC boot on every emmc capable OS that the Pine-fork of Etcher suggested. And I also tried openBSD as well on suggestion from freenode #pine64 user, to no avail.
I then was able to order a usb3->eMMC adapter, and was able to debug the USB and determine my assertions were correct: those eMMC chips ignored the first read operation.
I didn't have a jtag for the allwinner chips, but I also did have a serial console. I'd like to say I went above and beyond for testing what I'm defining as defective merchandise.
Now, the A64-LTS, the rtc batery holder, and the POE injecters are pretty darn good. I was just hoping for better overall performance with using eMMC.
Yes, I tried eMMC boot on every emmc capable OS that the Pine-fork of Etcher suggested. And I also tried openBSD as well on suggestion from freenode #pine64 user, to no avail.
I then was able to order a usb3->eMMC adapter, and was able to debug the USB and determine my assertions were correct: those eMMC chips ignored the first read operation.
I didn't have a jtag for the allwinner chips, but I also did have a serial console. I'd like to say I went above and beyond for testing what I'm defining as defective merchandise.
Now, the A64-LTS, the rtc batery holder, and the POE injecters are pretty darn good. I was just hoping for better overall performance with using eMMC.
Thanks for the detailed reports, thats really a shame.
Any idea of the expected price?
USD $150 [1]
[1]: https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone
[1]: https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone
No shit. Good price. Thanks!
At that price it can have 2 dead pixels and I'd still buy it.
[deleted]
lol @ q3 cpm & cpm1a screenshot on that Pinebook Pro image...
This just sounds unsustainable