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PinePhone Pro Announced

pine64.org

51–60 of 375 posts

Re: PinePhone Pro Announced

#51
Forget being able to use it for office. Is it able to take a decent picture or video yet?

The performance of those apps on the original pinephone is just hideous.

Also, is it just me, or was the original already pretty chunky, and now they’ve added 2mm making it 11mm thick.

Re: PinePhone Pro Announced

#52
post #7

I curious about the opinion of HN on the absence of 1080p (it's still 720p). Specially this part of the blog post: > The decision to maintain the original PinePhone’s screen resolution of 1440×720 was made early on; higher resolution panels consume more power and increase SoC’s load, resulting in shorter battery life and higher average thermals. A few extra pixels aren’t worth it.[1] While I understand the point they…

As a new PinePhone owner this month, screen res is a non-issue. No one is buying this phone as a daily driver right now. There's very few apps available. GPS was 50 miles off when I tried it. For devs interested in a new project, PinePhone needs your help!

MVP = Linux on a smartphone

That said, I haven't read the announcement closely but wonder why they used the "Pro" moniker. Just say it's the new version of the PinePhone? What problem does naming it "Pro" solve?

Re: PinePhone Pro Announced

#53

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 wouldn't want to say you must try again, but if you're interested in playing more with the toy for nerds, the Mobian wiki [0] is full of helpful tips.

You're right, lots of things don't fit the screen. Running

    scale-to-fit firefox on [1]
would fix your issues with Firefox not scaling correctly, for the most part. The other person that replied to you is right - it's currently a toy for nerds more than a drop-in replacement. With compromise and some effort (such as running your own Matrix server to replace Signal / Whatsapp / Discord), it can be done. But I'd hope to inspire you to try again, while tempering expectations for just how ready mobile Linux currently is :)

[0] https://wiki.mobian-project.org/

[1] https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php?id=tweaks&s[]=scale...

Re: PinePhone Pro Announced

#54

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…

It is likely to happen, yes. It just takes time. Remember, desktop Linux was aimed at tinkerers for gears before it became useable by your average person.

The big difference is that at that time desktop machines had pretty standard hardware, and hardware was largely interoperable, whereas with mobile these guys basically have to develop hardware, set the standard, and software developers have to develop the software specifically for the hardware. It's a lot harder, but if you look at the pace of things since librem and pine started, the development of this is moving at a faster pace than desktop Linux did.

Re: PinePhone Pro Announced

#55

"If you depend on proprietary mainstream mobile messenger applications, banking applications, use loyalty or travel apps, consume DRM media, or play mobile video games on your fruit or Android smartphone, then the PinePhone Pro is likely not for you." Yikes. I appreciate they are up front about it, but that eliminates literally everyone I know.

This is the reality today. The device is still developer-only. I just bought one thinking I could ditch my iPhone -- not yet. It's hard knowing that there are no good options besides Android and iOS. I'm aware of de-Googled Android versions but those are less appealing given the Google base. We need an open source solution.

Re: PinePhone Pro Announced

#56

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 th…

> right now it is a toy for nerds

I have some standards for my toys though. If it’s sold as a phone, it should actually work as a phone (even a shitty one).

If they were selling it as a mini linux computer with integrated screen I wouldn’t mind so much.

Re: PinePhone Pro Announced

#57

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…

For me, the deal breaker is not being able to run any banking apps. That's not a fault of the PinePhone, but a sad reflection of the state of affairs.

Re: PinePhone Pro Announced

#58

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…

Why do you want to move off Android? Depending on the reason, your needs would probably be better met with an alternative Android distribution on Android hardware.

Re: PinePhone Pro Announced

#59
I don't think I'm ordering this at $399. This is over twice the price of the previous PinePhone (admittedly it was borderline useless), and solidly out of "novelty buy" territory. If I wanted a tech toy, I'd order a handheld emulation device with (questionably comfortable) physical buttons and working games/emulators for $50.

Re: PinePhone Pro Announced

#60

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…

Never say never, but I'm not optimistic for it. The biggest issue is app compatibility. Even with a huge budget and namesake like Microsoft Windows, you can see how Microsoft's mobile OS projects have essentially disappeared when trying to compete against iOS and Android. Maybe someone will get Android apps running natively on a Linux distro, but then you're still missing the unlicensed framework around Google Play that breaks many existing popular apps.

We also don't even have this with desktops or laptops today. CPUs are still proprietary and running closed-source software. On mobile it's even more locked down, where I can almost guarantee you will never have open software running on baseband controller or SIM card on any public network like Verizon.

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