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Two Years of Life with PinePhone

linmob.net

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Re: Two Years of Life with PinePhone

#71

Post by i-am-cjc »

4ggr0 wrote: post #5

> That said, the accessories seem to be plagued by hardware bugs I received the Pinephone Keyboard a little more than a week ago. Ordered it because I thought it would revive my motivation to use the Pinephone, because it would turn it into a cool mini linux laptop. However, since receiving it, I wasn't able to get it working. According to the community the pins don't always make a connection to the phone and you hav…

I had this problem, it would charge and detect the keyboard was there (on screen keyboard wouldn't appear, but keyboard didn't input anything), It was down to the clip around the pins not being clipped in, so it was effectively pushing the case away from the pins. I had to give it quite a squeeze for it to pop in.

Although to be honest, after using mine for a month I gave up for various reasons such as upgrades breaking things.

Re: Two Years of Life with PinePhone

#72

Post by goodpoint »

thematrixturtle wrote: post #3

> 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…

PinePhone is clearly marketed as a device for enthusiasts and developers. The hardware is very cheap.

Complaining that a software stack developed by volunteers is not good enough for you is quite entitled.

Re: Two Years of Life with PinePhone

#73

Post by linmob »

ztcfegzgf wrote: post #48

"I don't use it as a daily driver" (from the article)

Author here: I am daily driving a Purism Librem 5 currently (in order to write a proper review about it).

I have carried the PinePhone as a secondary device for a long time before, and I tried it as a main phone for a week twice (late 2020, April 2021) - things were too crashy for me back then (and the slowness admittedly annoyed me, too).

Re: Two Years of Life with PinePhone

#74

Post by jamal-kumar »

linmob wrote: post #32
thematrixturtle wrote: post #3

> 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…

You have way more patience than the average people making comment here, at least someone's trying I think.

I have one as a backup in case I get robbed or something. It's nice for me to know the state of things.

Re: Two Years of Life with PinePhone

#75

Post by 3np »

gabrielblack wrote: post #43

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…

On the initial response, in case it's the Pro that can be explained by a known hardware issue that manifests as an apparently bricked device if the battery gets drained and regardless of charger it takes several hours to bring it back to life[0].

Even so, that does not excuse the rest of the story and hopefully they can improve. A friend of mine also had some frustration with communicating with their customer service (which appeared outsourced or incompetent).

[0]: https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_Pro#Troubleshooting

Re: Two Years of Life with PinePhone

#76

Post by kaba0 »

BjoernKW wrote: post #27
urthor wrote: post #15

Unfortunately the hardware is incredibly subpar. I see no real future for Linux mobile unless the EU makes some law that forces Apple/Samsung to make flashing easier.

I find that kind of argument for EU regulation quite depressing. So, just because other vendors aren't capable of producing decent hardware to run Linux on, the EU should force competitors to open up their hardware to those vendors? Unfortunately, this seems to be a common line of thinking, not least within the EU corridors of power themselves: Instead of nurturing competition and their own tech industry or create an…

According to Adam Smith himself, competition only works in well-defined markets. Creating a phone, as it stands today require being a hardware vendor yourself, or ordering in such high quantities that hardware vendors would actually care about you, while simultaneously you are a huge software vendor who simultaneously managed to capture enough users to make it worthwhile for third-parties to target the platform.

Remember, not even Microsoft managed to pull it off and not for lack of money or try. There is simply an inherent local minima/maxima for these 2 platforms.

How do we expect a third competitor to show up? It’s like expecting a 4 years old girl to compete with heavy-weight MMA champions. The rules around a market are the only reason capitalism could work, otherwise we would only have paper-clip machines sacrificing everything for profit.

Re: Two Years of Life with PinePhone

#77

Post by kaba0 »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #56
piaste wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately, this seems to be a common line of thinking, not least within the EU corridors of power themselves: Instead of nurturing competition and their own tech industry or create an environment where such an industry can thrive, they somehow try to regulate it into being. Then why haven't "vendors [..] capable of producing decent hardware to run Linux on" sprung up in the unfettered entrepreneurial utopias of…

Because it's a hell of a task, regardless if the outcome will be open or closed. The closest thing I can think of is Apple taking BSD and making Darwin. Which company would be happy to risk so much, in such a busy market as mobile OS?

Apple is actually did a really great job opening up (the bootloader of) their recent M1 laptops, in a safe manner (according to marcan himself). It is not an accident that the Asahi project can develop so fast.

Re: Two Years of Life with PinePhone

#78

Post by kaba0 »

ge96 wrote: post #6

I have og and Pro. One thing I wonder about is can the popular apps be made legally in an open source way, do you have to get the companies to make a Linux app for PP/PPP. This is with regard to get mass adoption.

Is the Pro worth it? I like the idea and I own the og, but it is painfully slow. At this point I just check on the progress each month and put it back in the drawer :/

Re: Two Years of Life with PinePhone

#79

Post by kmbfjr »

Terry_Roll wrote: post #45
linmob wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Or just allow and trust the readers to make their own conclusions.

I swear, HN readers bitch about the content silos on Web 2.0, but throw anyone still writing on their own blog onto a spit and crank up the heat.

Who really cares if the intent is never to buy a PinePhone, it is his freaking blog.

Re: Two Years of Life with PinePhone

#80

Post by hutzlibu »

gabrielblack wrote: post #43

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…

Your story sounds bad, but I would bear in mind, that they are not professionals for handling consumer cases.

They are mainly linux smartphone hackers. If I would buy a device, I would consider it a donation if something goes wrong and not expect something to be able to work with. But that part should probably be made clearer. I also cannot say they are fully to blame, I found their website clear enough that there is no real quality control or support. But if I would have believed certain internet enthusiasts, I would be sad because of broken promises regarding stability. At least basic working functionality by now would have been nice.

Still, things are maybe getting there.

"It's incredible... how much the PinePhone experience improved in the meantime"

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