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PinePhone Pro Announced

pine64.org

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Re: PinePhone Pro Announced

#31

Post by tediousdemise »

jjmellon wrote: post #17

I received a Pinephone in the latest shipment, about three weeks ago. I also got the convergence dock to be able to attach a monitor, keyboard and mouse. I am extremely motivated to get off Android on my phone, and yet my Pinephone has already been discarded (and I never even put a SIM card in it). There are far too many out-of-the-box bugs and glitches to consider this a usable product. For example, the convergence…

I noticed many of the same issues, but the most concerning one for me was that the modem (behind the upper rear of the phone) gets extremely hot. This has to be terrible for battery life and general longevity.

Re: PinePhone Pro Announced

#32

Post by CubsFan1060 »

wbsss4412 wrote: post #23
CubsFan1060 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably. But I don't think those requirements are unreasonable. It feels like it largely boils down to "I buy a smartphone to accomplish certain tasks easily". If you eliminate many of those tasks, is it a useful device for those people anymore?

I don’t think you’re incorrect in making your point here, yet your framing is a bit unreasonable. Pine phone isn’t supposed to be the equivalent to a modern smartphone. It’s a small project that has an entirely new platform with no major corporate backing. What you’re asking of it isn’t realistic until it has significant enough time and traction to fully mature.

That's probably a very fair point.

I wonder what the minimum modern requirements would be for a viable "mainstream" phone.

Common messaging apps (SMS, WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Slack). Social media apps (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok). email (Though an average stock email app is probably sufficient). Google Apps (gmail, google maps, etc..). Navigation (google maps is sufficient for most) Probably some set of games.

I suspect the real viable option is being able to run Android apps natively without any special configuration.

Re: PinePhone Pro Announced

#33

Post by KingMachiavelli »

> The result of this cooperation is the RK3399S – a RK3399 variant made specifically for the PinePhone Pro.

Looks like the RK3399 was used in some chromebooks so hopefully that means it has great upstream Linux support. We can hope it doesn't require any device overlays or weird kernel patches.

Re: PinePhone Pro Announced

#34

Post by Klasiaster »

For me the main pain point of the current PinePhone is not its performance, it's the driver and firmware issues. Mainline Linux does not work well with the current PinePhone and various patches are not upstreamed or not even written yet to fix the remaining bugs. The cameras don't work with most software, the out-of-tree WiFi driver has stability issues to the point where I rather use LTE or USB, the USB-C firmware is flunky, the modem firmware crashes and needs a lot of workarounds.

I hoped they chose components for the PinePhone Pro that work out of the box in terms of firmware and having no downstream Linux patches in the near future, but it seems quite similar to the current PinePhone, only slight improvements. The camera OV5640 is the same (hopefully someone came up with better v4l2 integration since the second camera is different?), the modem EG25-G is the same, no info on the used USB-C chip, but at least there is a better WiFi chip.

Re: PinePhone Pro Announced

#36

Post by officeplant »

I've had the Braveheart and later Mobian releases of the Pinephone. Currently have a Pinebook Pro. I'm super excited for the Pinephone Pro to finally get moved to rockchip hardware even if it is just a downclocked 2016 SoC with a few more tweaks for Pine64.

The progress they are making is great but still far from daily driving for me personally. I'm just glad the community exists. Even with the bugs and flaws the products may have it is better than nothing.

Re: PinePhone Pro Announced

#37

Post by betwixthewires »

jjmellon wrote: post #17

I received a Pinephone in the latest shipment, about three weeks ago. I also got the convergence dock to be able to attach a monitor, keyboard and mouse. I am extremely motivated to get off Android on my phone, and yet my Pinephone has already been discarded (and I never even put a SIM card in it). There are far too many out-of-the-box bugs and glitches to consider this a usable product. For example, the convergence…

In the article we are discussing, the gist of your concerns is addressed. The pinephone (and mobile Linux in general) is extremely immature and only really for hobbyists and people developing for it. You expected a daily driver, right now it is a toy for nerds.

Lack of users, investment and too many competing distros were all given in the early days of desktop Linux as reasons why it was simply not worthwhile. The thing is, this phase of development, where some devices exist that only nerds play with for a while, is necessary for there to ever be a mature Linux mobile UX. When you buy one of these devices you're not buying a Linux phone, you're choosing to participate in the process by which a Linux phone becomes a reality. And that process is picking up steam, Ubuntu tried it, many people have run Linux on their android devices with unlocked bootloaders, but pine (and librem and others) have actually created a market environment where things are actually advancing, and in my opinion advancing much faster than desktop Linux did.

Re: PinePhone Pro Announced

#38

Post by amarsahinovic »

rich_sasha wrote: post #30

Honest question: what is the path to something resembling wider-audience usability (i.e. not a toy project)? Or is that not really a plan? I'd LOVE an open, Linux-based phone. But I also need a phone that does video calls, has a working browser, messenger etc. One that works with at least a good bunch of most common apps. Is that likely to ever happen? Or is this a very interesting project, but really aimed at tinker…

I recently backed Astro Slide on Indiegogo[0] and they do say it will be able to boot Linux alongside Android 11. The designer behind Astro Slide is Martin Riddiford who was also the designer of Psion Series 5[1].

[0] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/astro-slide-5g-transforme...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Series_5

Re: PinePhone Pro Announced

#40

Post by CubsFan1060 »

db579 wrote: post #27
CubsFan1060 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably. But I don't think those requirements are unreasonable. It feels like it largely boils down to "I buy a smartphone to accomplish certain tasks easily". If you eliminate many of those tasks, is it a useful device for those people anymore?

Really depends how you define the task doesn't it? If it's "I have the ability to message other people" there's plenty of ways to accomplish that on this device. If you define the task as "I need to message other people specifically on a Google/Apple messenger application", well then it's always going to be out of Pine64s hands to some extent?

How about "I need to message other people in a way that doesn't make everyone I know have to change the current way they do things".

I wasn't necessarily referring to iMessage. But, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Slack.

To be fair, I've also failed to find a list of supported apps. The best I found was: https://www.reddit.com/r/PINE64official/comments/okjeuk/apps...

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