I recall seeing pictures and notes about a PinePhone with a physical keyboard. Is that actually under development as well? Or is that just someone's experiment?
PinePhone Pro Announced
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Re: PinePhone Pro Announced
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Can you open banking websites? The only downside of not using an Android/iOS app (in my case at least) would be "mobile deposits" (depositing a check by taking a picture of it).
A lot of banks in the UK offer better IX through their apps when compared to websites, some don't offer a fully featured web client at all (Monzo and friends).
Re: PinePhone Pro Announced
#153I can’t wait for pinephone to succeed- hopefully this more powerful hardware + faster ram will help to address latency issues in the UI. Right now it feels like your brain is literally slowing down when interacting with a normal pinephone compared to an iPhone. Not a fair comparison at all I know.
Isn’t that silly? I could run linux (with GUI) just fine on my Pentium 3. This phone is like 8 times faster just based on clock speed, not to mention memory. How can it not drive a UI without lag?
It’s certainly interesting that input latency seems to have taken a back seat in almost all modern systems. I have a touchscreen windows NT computer with PS2 ports, both the keyboard and touchscreen have noticeably less latency than any other device I have. However, it’s really slow when actually opening a program!
Re: PinePhone Pro Announced
#154Question Why are projects like this starting from scratch and not forking from the abandoned Ubuntu phone OS?
I suspect Pine ships Manjaro ARM because that distro will apply nearly any patch to the kernel if it makes something work, no matter how hacky or unsustainable the patch is. Right now their kernel has 43 patches, and they are not even organized or annotated well. https://gitlab.manjaro.org/manjaro-arm/packages/core/linux
They ship Manjaro ARM because the people behind PINE64 are manjaro fans and they think that Manjaro has a good business setup. It would have been much nicer to have PostmarketOS shipped stock.
Re: PinePhone Pro Announced
#155This isn’t for me and I don’t ever expect Linux phones to actually take off, but I’m heartened that Pine64 exists and that they are doing this stuff. I have a Pinebook that I got as a toy machine and was very impressed with the execution. And unlike Purism, Pine64 has good customer/developer communication and isn’t making impossible-to-keep promises about deliverability or even capabilities. So not for me, but I’m gl…
I don't have any comments on the Purism customer support because I haven't bought their phone, but as a Pinephone owner it's good to have them around. Purism has been investing a lot more in the software side of things. They work well with upstream. Their new projects are good too, phosh and libhandy came from Purism and are both extremely useful on the Pinephone.
I’m not trying to discount Purism’s software work, but hearing so many people wait four plus years to have phones delivered or more than a year for a laptop - unable to get refunds, it leaves a bad taste. My own limited experience is that I wound up on their press list and then they sent me an unsolicited request to “invest” in their company (by way of a convertible note…lol, no thanks) and apparently they’ve done this to customers they still owe products to.
So it’s cool they contribute to upstream. Still strikes me as a very poorly run business.
Re: PinePhone Pro Announced
#156Honest 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
I made a comment elsewhere in the thread about the Gemini PDA. Do not trust this company to deliver proper GNU/Linux support. Ever. They keep using MediaTek chips and horrible shims to use Android drivers on GNU/Linux and none of it works well at all. It's not even close to the experience you would get with a PinePhone or Librem 5. You are giving up a lot to get those better specs. After getting a Gemini PDA I am never buying anything from Planet Computers again.
Re: PinePhone Pro Announced
#157Damn, and I just put in an order for the PinePhone 1.5 days ago. Just emailed them to see if they can make this work, and upgrade appropriate for the difference.
Well, the "Explorer Edition" units haven't gone on sale yet. Right now only developer units are on sale, and those are strictly for developers who will contribute to the kernel, firmware, drivers, and shell. But I'm sure they will be willing to process a refund for you if your device hasn't shipped out yet, otherwise you'll have to return it minus the cost of shipping.
Re: PinePhone Pro Announced
#1584GB mem.....? Really 4GB? That's it? Would it really have been that bad to at least offer a 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB Memory upgrade. Just feels like a huge let down. I get it the price of electronics(i.e. memory) is more expensive, but this makes it look like a joke in comparison with other "phones". And if it were marketed as a mini computer 4GB of ram isn't saying much. Hexacore processor, 128GB Emmc storage awesome but…
My iPhone 12 (4 GB RAM) is usually faster than my Windows PC (16 GB, Ryzen 2600).
is that a joke? they run completely different things
Re: PinePhone Pro Announced
#159I 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.
I never liked Android, having owned a few. The hardware is quickly obsolete, interface has this clunky feeling, apps don’t work properly, often because devs don’t see the same rewards as their iOS brethren. And however you spin it, it’s all proprietary sponsored.
A linux phone might have the same problems, but at least its far more closer to the Open Source side of things.
Re: PinePhone Pro Announced
#160"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.
That's the vendor lock-in to the walled garden app stores. It works, and if you want to break the cycle, you need something new.