Pine64 launches the cheapest Linux Tablet ever priced at just $99.99 • Hacker News Board

Re: Pine64 launches the cheapest Linux Tablet ever priced at just $99.99

#111

Post by acetoxy » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 10:33 PM UTC

founderling wrote: post #20

I wonder why they price their products so cheap. They seem to be totally overrun by demand. And give a terrible user experience when you try to order from them. Friends of mine have ordered (and paid!) Pine64 products weeks ago and get no information when they will be shipped. When you send them an email, it either gets ignored or you get a reply by someone who does not speak English. Telling you something like "Yes…

I just wanna say I had a great experience with the customer support after I ordered my Pinebook Pro. They were super helpful and polite!

Re: Pine64 launches the cheapest Linux Tablet ever priced at just $99.99

#112

Post by the-dude » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 10:37 PM UTC

SahAssar wrote: post #103

the-dude wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GNU/Linux, please.

Do you disagree or are you just memeing?

Neither, it just seemed appropriate. Android/Linux vs GNU/Linux.

Re: Pine64 launches the cheapest Linux Tablet ever priced at just $99.99

#113

Post by a1369209993 » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 1:46 AM UTC

evultrole wrote: post #48

founderling wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the statement about dead pixels help people who ordered and paid a phone but get no information on when it will be shipped? Regarding general population vs hackers: Do you imply that hackers value low price higher then others? Are hackers particularely poor? I thought hacker often means coder which usually means higher income then the general population. Personally, I would totally prefer to pay 50% more and…

The price is low because they are generally selling things at cost as a service. This isn't a standard "make a device for $50 then sell it for $400 because we can" company because they don't want to be. Orders are delayed because, and this may surprise you, there is a global pandemic right now which is affecting factory workers in China, causing production and Q&A issues because of restricted staff, visitors, and shi…

> Just go buy a finished product from a store

Not that you're wrong about the rest, but we can't actually do this; there are no stores that will sell you a working smartphone or smartphone-based tablet. (That is, with compiler, shell, kernel- and driver-patching, etc that constitute a operating system.)

Re: Pine64 launches the cheapest Linux Tablet ever priced at just $99.99

#114

Post by shorts_theory » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:24 AM UTC

ciupicri wrote: post #7

shorts_theory wrote: post #6

Excellent. This could be a great device as a Qt PoS or inventory management system.

Do you have any specific software in mind?

I was working on a PyQt inventory management system for our robotics club (https://github.com/arc-bphc/sims-gui) back in undergrad. We weren't able to finish this project, but our plan was to have a Raspberry Pi 3 with Ubuntu MATE connected to a 7" touchscreen for running the inventory management software. This tablet would have made life much easier for us.

Re: Pine64 launches the cheapest Linux Tablet ever priced at just $99.99

#115

Post by throwaway777555 » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 2:26 AM UTC

No USB 3 ports? Only USB 2? That's a little disappointing. Aside from that, this looks pretty cool. I haven't been huge into using tablets, but mostly because I don't like the locked down ecosystems of iOS and Android. This might change my mind about them.

Re: Pine64 launches the cheapest Linux Tablet ever priced at just $99.99

#116

Post by nightowl_games » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 6:20 AM UTC

VikingCoder wrote: post #109

$84.95 RCA Voyager Pro 7 16GB Tablet with Keyboard Case Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) in Purple [1]. I've seen other RCA Voyagers going for $50 or less, even at Walmart. * 7.0" touchscreen * 1.3GHz Quad-Core processor * 16GB of storage memory * Google Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS * Webcam, WiFi and Bluetooth And then install Termux [2], which is a nifty Linux that runs on Android. [1] https://www.amazon.com/RCA-Voyager-Key…

These things were hell to support as an Android game dev. Lots of GPU driver bugs. Horrible performance.

Re: Pine64 launches the cheapest Linux Tablet ever priced at just $99.99

#117

Post by dingaling » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 7:45 AM UTC

lacker wrote: post #90

mNovak wrote: post #89

Slightly off topic, but I'm still always shocked when I see small businesses running iPads just to plug in a Square card reader, or run some basic form-fill application.

You can get a refurbished iPad for $100 and a new one for $280. And you know all your employees will be familiar with the interface. Why bother using anything else?

> And you know all your employees will be familiar with the interface.

That's quite an assumption. About half a billion iPads have been sold, so about 6 billion people have probably never used one. I certainly haven't and I live in the UK.

Re: Pine64 launches the cheapest Linux Tablet ever priced at just $99.99

#118

Post by efreak » Sun, Jun 14, 2020, 11:30 PM UTC

dingaling wrote: post #117

lacker wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get a refurbished iPad for $100 and a new one for $280. And you know all your employees will be familiar with the interface. Why bother using anything else?

> And you know all your employees will be familiar with the interface. That's quite an assumption. About half a billion iPads have been sold, so about 6 billion people have probably never used one. I certainly haven't and I live in the UK.

I live in the US. I've used iPads in The doctor's office. I know how to input text on them and tap onscreen buttons; I haven't any idea how to get to the home screen to launch another app, much less do anything else. The most technical thing I've I've ever done with an iPad or iPhone is entering a URL in the address bar.