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Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop

jeremymorgan.com

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Re: Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop

#51

Post by btreecat »

Youden wrote: post #37

This is a tad tangential but has anyone done extensive software development using an ARM device? I was able to get pretty far with a rooted Samsung tablet running Debian in a container (C++ development works great, you can install stuff like VSCode and Clang without too much trouble) but when it came to anything mobile, ironically it all fell apart because the Android toolchain isn't built for ARM64 (save the one in…

I think for now the best solution is to use this as a mobile terminal for a machine that is running an x86/64 chip then just remote in either via SSH or x2go.

Re: Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop

#52

Post by monocasa »

lanewinfield wrote: post #10

An "annoying touchpad" is likely a dealbreaker for me. It's the holy grail for Linux to me and I feel like it's never been solved by anybody but Apple (w/o Linux). That being said, I could exist in the command line most of the time...

The track pad in my Matebook Pro is pretty damn close to my Macbook. Feels like the older mac track pads with the physical click instead of the faked haptic click.

Re: Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop

#53

Post by cforrester »

jolmg wrote: post #27
lanewinfield wrote: post #10

An "annoying touchpad" is likely a dealbreaker for me. It's the holy grail for Linux to me and I feel like it's never been solved by anybody but Apple (w/o Linux). That being said, I could exist in the command line most of the time...

I wish the author expanded on what "annoying" meant. Is it not responsive, too big, too small, jerky, etc?

On reddit, he elaborated that it's just the size of his hands that make it as annoying as all trackpads: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/eq2pwa/my_review_of_...

Re: Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop

#54

Post by nicoburns »

snogglethorpe wrote: post #48
nwrk wrote: post #35

Enjoyed the article. Thanks for write up. 4GB RAM sounds terrible even for browsing and basic tasks. I'm looking to switching to one of those devices in future, so far on trusted Thinkpad x230 (no FHD, $150 USD) for travel purposes. Can anyone comment on "no NPM yet that I know of though" ? Does node development work normally ?

Using a reasonable OS (Linux etc), 4GB is absolutely fine for browsing and basic tasks, and indeed is often fine for development and other more-than-basic tasks as well, depending on how exactly you work (Emacs/Vim instead of an IDE, for instance). Is 4GB considered too little under Windows these days?

More or less. The main culprit is web browsers. Chrome will happily use 4gb by itself these days...

Re: Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop

#55

Post by Brian_K_White »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #12
xhkkffbf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. So charge $250 or $300 for the one that goes 30 hours.

I’d snap that up immediately. A 24 hour hacker machine would be killer! A modern Tandy 100

Both of those positions are valid. Bigger batt for $50 more would be great, vs meeting a price point and fewest possible skus.

I would yoink one with the biggest battery possible too.

But I would aslo do the same for several other upgrades that I particularly value. I would take as much ram as they want to offer. I would take as much ssd space as they want to offer. I would take as much ssd speed, cpu, pixels, as they can deliver. I would pay whatever it takes to make it weigh less and be smaller while still doing all that. And don't forget to put at least 2 full speed usbc/thunderbolt/hdmi ports so I can have external portable monitor without drivers.... Then again I don't want touch, or any form of face or fingerprint, or any more than the minimum gpu to run a traditional non-compositor desktop and display video at 30fps.

But now I have completely obliterated the entire concept of meeting a target intersection of functionality and price. I've thrown price right out the window.

And, that's just my personal individual set of priorities. You don't care about half the stuff I would pay anything for, and you probably do care at least a little about stuff I actively don't want. (gaming gpu, touch, face id, hell webcam at all)

So, back to the beginning, they came up with a reasonable set of functionality to target, and a reasonable price to target, and really, even though I too would like a big battery, it makes no sense to talk about $250 version that has a bigger battery.

Re: Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop

#56

Post by overcast »

nicoburns wrote: post #54
snogglethorpe wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a reasonable OS (Linux etc), 4GB is absolutely fine for browsing and basic tasks, and indeed is often fine for development and other more-than-basic tasks as well, depending on how exactly you work (Emacs/Vim instead of an IDE, for instance). Is 4GB considered too little under Windows these days?

More or less. The main culprit is web browsers. Chrome will happily use 4gb by itself these days...

The Great Suspender is life.

Re: Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop

#57

Post by Joeri »

Scarbutt wrote: post #25

Are there any $200 laptops like this one but x86 powered?

There are many used thinkpads in that price category. They tend to be easy to repair and upgrade. Almost nothing new in that price category will be repairable or upgradable.

https://www.bobble.tech/free-stuff/used-thinkpad-buyers-guid...

Re: Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop

#58

Post by phs »

My pbp arrived a few days ago. The stock image it ships with seemed a little laggy, probably due to aggressive cpu throttling for power. Since I'm interested in encrypted disks I knew I would be installing a new OS from the get-go.

Desiring LUKS basically rules out image-based distribution, so to find a compatible installer this [0] page was useful. I opted for straight Debian (bullseye). This amounts to a script wrapping debootstrap that adds in the local firmware and kernel patches. I was required to use a sufficiently fast and large microSD card (16 GB+). As reported on [1] and in the dedicated thread [2] there are a few small issues:

* firefox does indeed crash in the way described, though I expect this will resolve itself after an upstream update

* The brightness up/down keys do not work, though they do in the base image

* I've encountered issues with the wifi getting wedged after resuming from sleep.

Still, on the whole it seems snappier than the base image, and the track pad latencies issues I noticed there don't seem to manifest here.

[0]: https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/Pinebook_Pro_Software_Rele... [1]: https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/Pinebook_Pro_Debian_Instal... [2]: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8487

edit: formatting.

Re: Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop

#59

Post by war1025 »

ColanR wrote: post #24
lanewinfield wrote: post #10

An "annoying touchpad" is likely a dealbreaker for me. It's the holy grail for Linux to me and I feel like it's never been solved by anybody but Apple (w/o Linux). That being said, I could exist in the command line most of the time...

I wonder if we should return to the trackball. I have an old KVM keyboard that has one built-in, and it's not so bad. Seems like it wouldn't get in the way like a touchpad does. Why is it that we stopped using those?

Wouldn't fit in a super-thin form factor for one.

Re: Trying out the Pinebook Pro – a $200 ARM Laptop

#60

Post by Brian_K_White »

dmix wrote: post #9

I love the little yellow note they included inside to mention powering without the lithium battery plugged in. Something built with hackers in mind.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention and causing me to go back and look closer at the pic.

I was JUST thinking:

* This makes all the stuff I did to set up octoprint for my 3d printer obsolete in one shot. I have spent more money than $200 and many hours trying to find unusual usb and hdmi ribbon cables and right-angle plugs, and designing and 3d printing a frame and stand for a touch screen and pi4, bt keyboard... for an end result that is frankly not very elegant. And here is all the same stuff in a much tidier package all in one effortless shot. (this is all true of pretty much any laptop of course, not just this one)

* BUT... Oh right, I keep forgetting. Laptops have batteries, which go bad in just a couple years, and many laptops do not run without the battery connected. The pi4 setup has no lithium battery to go bad in a couple years, and it's passively cooled. It can sit there plugged in and powered-on 24/7 for years, and most laptops can not.

So you just removed that issue. Thanks!

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