Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop • Hacker News Board

Re: Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop

#21

Post by AgloeDreams » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

lanewinfield wrote: post #10

An "annoying touchpad" is likely a dealbreaker for me. It's the holy grail for Linux to me and I feel like it's never been solved by anybody but Apple (w/o Linux). That being said, I could exist in the command line most of the time...

Google's modern Pixelbooks have it pretty close, coming from someone who uses a Magic Trackpad all day at work. Not perfect, but really close. As I understand, Apple's magic trick was basically feeding the trackpad inputs through the iPhone's touch logic.

Re: Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop

#22

Post by jolmg » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 5:52 PM UTC

AgloeDreams wrote: post #14

jolmg wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an 10,000 mAh battery, though. That's huge, isn't it? I don't know any other laptop that has a battery that big. Looking online, Macbooks seem to have around 6,000 mAh.

Amps is a bad measure because it only measures size and not voltage. What you really want is Watt/Hours, this is a 38Wh Battery, in context, a 13 inch Chromebook Pixel (a pro linux laptop, sort of) was ~70Wh, a Macbook Pro 16 is 99Wh.

You're right. I see now that the high mAh is due to the low voltage.

Re: Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop

#23

Post by l3db3tt3r » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 5:53 PM UTC

lanewinfield wrote: post #10

An "annoying touchpad" is likely a dealbreaker for me. It's the holy grail for Linux to me and I feel like it's never been solved by anybody but Apple (w/o Linux). That being said, I could exist in the command line most of the time...

I was kind of wondering what the "annoyances" were exactly. Left open-ended it is hard to say if it is a deal breaker or not.

Re: Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop

#24

Post by ColanR » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

lanewinfield wrote: post #10

An "annoying touchpad" is likely a dealbreaker for me. It's the holy grail for Linux to me and I feel like it's never been solved by anybody but Apple (w/o Linux). That being said, I could exist in the command line most of the time...

I wonder if we should return to the trackball. I have an old KVM keyboard that has one built-in, and it's not so bad. Seems like it wouldn't get in the way like a touchpad does. Why is it that we stopped using those?

Re: Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop

#25

Post by Scarbutt » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

Are there any $200 laptops like this one but x86 powered?

Re: Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop

#26

Post by boutad » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

purplezooey wrote: post #13

Is the screen IPS?

Yes, that is listed on the product page.

https://www.pine64.org/pinebook-pro/

Re: Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop

#27

Post by jolmg » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

lanewinfield wrote: post #10

An "annoying touchpad" is likely a dealbreaker for me. It's the holy grail for Linux to me and I feel like it's never been solved by anybody but Apple (w/o Linux). That being said, I could exist in the command line most of the time...

I wish the author expanded on what "annoying" meant. Is it not responsive, too big, too small, jerky, etc?

Re: Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop

#28

Post by bochoh » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

Scarbutt wrote: post #25

Are there any $200 laptops like this one but x86 powered?

Not sure if this would fit your requirements but this seems to be a great little machine perf / $. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Vega-HDMI-Front-RAM-FHD-Black-4GB...

Re: Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop

#29

Post by eclectocrat » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 6:00 PM UTC

smacktoward wrote: post #2

Seeing all that empty internal space makes me wonder if they couldn't increase the device's appeal by fitting it with a bigger battery. 8-10 hours of charge time is good, but a $200 laptop that could go for (say) 20 or 30 hours on a charge would really turn heads. I suppose it's possible that would require some kind of custom battery, and this is just the most appropriate battery for this enclosure they could get off…

Yes, yes, and yes. I would pay a lot of money for a _small_ laptop with 30 hours of battery life. Something like a MacBook Air 11 inch would be ideal. Hopefully someone tries and cram a huge battery in this unit someday.

Re: Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop

#30

Post by 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 6:01 PM UTC

> You can’t fault the Pine64; everything has to be built for ARM and that’s still a work in progress. I eagerly await the day Visual Studio Code is available for ARM.

Thankfully this is changing rapidly, thanks in part to raspberry pi desktops.

Most, if not all, popular server apps are already available in ARM. Desktop apps will take time.