Can you use whatsapp on a pinephone? I know there's web whatsapp but you need to sign into that with a native app. Honestly the browser, google maps (which works in the browser), whatsapp, SMS, phone calls, alarm, stop watch, camera... that's really about all I use on a phone. If I can find a linux device to switch that does that, I'll switch in a heartbeat. Phones are the least pleasant part of my "digital life" bec…
So, an operating system whose governance isn't against the user's interests (that means free software) - but an Android environment aboard too...
Can you use whatsapp on a pinephone? I know there's web whatsapp but you need to sign into that with a native app. Honestly the browser, google maps (which works in the browser), whatsapp, SMS, phone calls, alarm, stop watch, camera... that's really about all I use on a phone. If I can find a linux device to switch that does that, I'll switch in a heartbeat. Phones are the least pleasant part of my "digital life" bec…
Maybe look in to sailfish os. It has android app support and so far (almost 3 years) whatsapp has worked for me without issues. Don't know about google maps, haven't tried it but I did install microg and got my bank app to work on it.
I had one device who died after a couple of weeks: suddenly it refused to switch on. So I found the real source of pain from Pinephone project: the assistance. I sent a detailed report about the hardware failure and they sent me a message about how properly recharge the phone , something like : "you need the power supply, insert the plug in the 220V socket, insert the USB-c cable, etc", demonstrating that they didn't read my message at all. After some further rounds of nonsense instructions, that , anyway, I followed giving them feedback about the results, I asked for a replacement. At that point, they started to waste time, another department apparently stepped in. After my complaints, they asked me to send the device back without acknowledgment of receipt, via ordinary post service, in the USA (I'm in Europe and I received the phone from Asia), sending to an anonymous p.o. box. I told them that it was unacceptable because in that way I took all the shipment risks not having any proof that I sent the device nor that the parcel in case of problems. Luckily, I found a post service with proof of shipment, so I had at least a receipt proving I sent the device back. At the end, they refused to send me a replacement, starting to negotiate the amount of the refund, because they wasted so many time I risked to not be able to ask Paypal intervention, I asked Paypal to step in receiving a full refund.
Why is battery life such a difficult thing to achieve? Is it hard to implement in a driver? Or is the battery just low quality? I've heard energy management is often difficult to do right in Linux, but I just wonder why...
As I understand it mobile OS’s have to wake up as little as possible and then race to sleep, because with everything lit up the battery drains quickly. They batch work from different processes together to avoid waking up hardware. For example, background network operations from different processes are grouped together to avoid turning on the modem too often. iOS is better at this than android (at the expense of devel…
Oh ok, that's more clear.
So it happens at a higher level, in application management etc...
And then, why aren't those pinephone OS doing it better?
> five to seven hours of idle battery life > a lack of notifications, something I as a "my phone is in silent mode, no it does not even vibrate, I mean it when I say silent" > when I dropped my PinePhones I was lucky enough to not break them, I am not affected by a failing WiFi/BT chip (an issue not too uncommon by my anecdata) > I remember attempting to bring the factory image up-to-date around the date devices ship…
Author here. The blog post is not meant as a discouragement, but as a report. It does not help anyone if people get a PinePhone (or other Linux Phone) with the expectation that it's just going to work like their big-platform-high-volume smartphone, and then cry a river because mobile Linux is not as refined. Maybe I should have highlighted the personal success stories I have had more (contributing to mobile-config-fi…
Maybe you should make this clearer to your readers?
i bought one with a keyboard case, and I love it. the software definitely still has some rough edges, and I wouldn't try to use it as a phone yet, but as a little pocket computer it's kind of awesome. and it's full linux, you can install apache on it, you can compile stuff, you can use vim, whatever you want. GUI applications that haven't been mobile optimized aren't always perfect, but often surprisingly usable (especially with the keyboard) - e.g. i like to use mednaffen to play emulated games on the train on it, and it works pretty darn well for something that isn't even supposed to work at all at that resolution.
I've been using a PinePhone for about 18 months, since the battery life on my OpenMoko was abysmal (fair enough, considering I'd been using it for over 10 years!)
I'm running the default Manjaro + Phosh it came with, and upgrading through pacman. The phone functionality works fine (calls, SMS, phone book, etc.). One annoyance is that menus in Firefox don't display correctly, which makes addons like uBlock less useful :(
I've also been using the hardware keyboard, which extends the battery life comfortably, and makes it much easier to do long-form writing (due to the physical keyboard itself, and not having an on-screen keyboard wasting space). Unfortunately the keyboard battery no longer seems to be working; I'm not sure if it's due to a kernel update, or a hardware problem (I may have fried the charging circuitry by plugging it in wrong!)
My wife recently bought me a Pinephone Pro as a present. I liked the idea, but in practice I still haven't managed to use it because I'm stuck with basic problems.
E.g., the battery wouldn't charge in the phone. I bought an external charger, and this seems fine, but ideally I'd like a backup battery so that I can charge one while I use the other. But pine64 batteries have been out of stock for ages.
Their wiki says "The supplied battery is meant to be compatible with Samsung part number EB-BJ700BBC / BBE / CBE from the 2015 J7 phone": I bought the CBE one, but it's such a tight fit that I'm terrified of using it in case it explodes or something. I have no idea where to get a proper pine battery from. And the forums are not exactly flooding with activity when I asked my question (https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=16851)
Beyond that, a lot of the stuff that is supposed to work on Pinephone, turns out doesn't work in the Pinephone Pro. In particular, the multiboot sd-card demo (https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=11347&pid=77027#...), which I was really keen to try, because I found the 'stock' distribution that came with the phone pretty ugly and useless (to my needs, anyway). I had the Jolla phone in the past, and I was very happy with it, so I may try to install Sailfish when I get the time to figure out 'if' it's possible, and if so how ...
But for now the pinephone pro is just sitting there, waiting for a compatible battery to show up, and me to find the energy to experiment with a compatible OS, before I'm even going to use the phone for anything even remotely productive. I'm gutted.
Almost all of that is referring to 2020 and no longer the case. Multiple days of idle with Phosh on pmOS, for one anecdote. Wake-up on notifications is still a WIP AIUI, though. I recently got back to mine with a fresh install and a lot has improved since last year.
Still, the "Conclusions" section isn't that encouraging either: > My hardware has held up well, [...], I am not affected by a failing WiFi/BT chip (an issue not too uncommon by my anecdata). [...] > I know, some people will wonder if they should buy a PinePhone after reading this, and I can't really answer this question for you. Read up on PINE64's return policy, maybe; check whether your current phone network is com…
Yeah, that's reasonable.
With some differences (better in some way, worse in others), it feels at a similar stage to desktop Linux on commodity hardware ca 2000~2005.
Both GNOME and KDE seem surprisingly serious with their mobile efforts but unless you're happy with a mostly console experience it's probably at least another year or two until basic apps like e-mail are in place for non-enthusiast non-tinker users.
As for distros, I am yet try try Mobian but other than that postmarket is the most reliable experience right now so far (Danct Arch may be catching up though :))