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Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook

pine64.org

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Re: Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook

#71

Post by cubano »

crowbahr wrote: post #66
cubano wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Refurbished by a reputable re-seller always seems to work well for me, altho it adds a bit to the cost. I've picked up i5(2600)/8g/500G laptops for 150 like this on several occasions.

And who is a reputable reseller of old ThinkPads? It seems like it's the wild west in the market and I am interested in an old reliable ThinkPad with an expansion slot for an ssd.

I've had good luck so far (knock wood) with Newegg...let me find a link...

https://www.newegg.com/Laptop-Notebooks/RefurbishedStore/ID-...

Re: Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook

#72

Post by crowbahr »

shams93 wrote: post #64
limeblack wrote: post #28

Honest question. Why don't people buy old laptops instead of cheaper new ones? I'm no expert but the cost to performance ratio isn't to far off. I am typing this on T420 Thinkpad laptop. I get desiring to use open hardware but at the detriment of performance doesn't quite make sense.

Yeah I went the same way as you got a t420 upgraded to ssd and threw Ubuntu studio in it and it smokes. I use it for everything from native Android development to music and video production and with lxde compared to windows 10 it's smoking fast even though it's not exactly lightweight. When you dj with a laptop the last thing you want is a flimsy device. Mixxx enables me to dj on the same device I use for software en…

Do you have the i7 or i5? How is the android emulator (or do you debug on the phone)? I'm looking into a better mobile setup.

Re: Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook

#73

Post by KozmoNau7 »

limeblack wrote: post #28

Honest question. Why don't people buy old laptops instead of cheaper new ones? I'm no expert but the cost to performance ratio isn't to far off. I am typing this on T420 Thinkpad laptop. I get desiring to use open hardware but at the detriment of performance doesn't quite make sense.

X220i here, 128GB SSD, 8GB RAM, runs like new. I put in a new 9-cell battery, and that's all I had to do. Amazing little machine, especially for the price 2nd hand.

Re: Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook

#74

Post by RandomCSGeek »

geofft wrote: post #50
loser777 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheap for good reason; an A53 quad core is Raspberry Pi 3 class. Hope every package you're gonna need is precompiled for arm64 because building anything nontrivial is not going to be fun.

Can you not cross-compile from a cloud instance? It seems like compiling software would be a perfect fit for per-minute or per-second VMs.

I used a aws spot instance to compile GCC for Alpine Linux. It's a decent idea I think, especially if you already know what you need to do.

I had to do a lot of trial and error stuff to get it right, but anyway, I was having that spot instance sitting there almost idle, while using up the credits I got for free, so I had no issues with it.

The C5 instances are great for this kind of stuff.

Re: Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook

#75

Post by crowbahr »

cubano wrote: post #71
crowbahr wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And who is a reputable reseller of old ThinkPads? It seems like it's the wild west in the market and I am interested in an old reliable ThinkPad with an expansion slot for an ssd.

I've had good luck so far (knock wood) with Newegg...let me find a link... https://www.newegg.com/Laptop-Notebooks/RefurbishedStore/ID-...

Sounds great, thanks for the link.

Re: Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook

#76

Post by roryisok »

sien wrote: post #54

Reviews here to save people doing what I just did: https://www.techradar.com/reviews/pinebook-14-inch https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/pinebook-64-review/ It looks like it might be worth the price. Anyone have one here? Any idea on delivery times?

Did we read the same review? Terrible keyboard and trackpad, 2gb ram?

Re: Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook

#77

Post by e12e »

et2o wrote: post #10

I wish the Motorola Atrix concept of plugging your phone into a laptop-shell and using the phone's CPU, memory, storage, etc. had taken off. My iPhone is already much more powerful than this ARM laptop, but I obviously can't use it like a laptop.

Samsung has a "DeX"-åroduct that aims to do this:

https://www.samsung.com/us/explore/dex/

Would be nice if there was a standard so, any USB c phone could plug into a display - along with the display acting as a hub, and/or Bluetooth for keyboard.

[ed: for desktop/dock. See sibling for sentio - which is for turning phone into laptop]

Re: Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook

#78

Post by tedmiston »

roryisok wrote: post #76
sien wrote: post #54

Reviews here to save people doing what I just did: https://www.techradar.com/reviews/pinebook-14-inch https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/pinebook-64-review/ It looks like it might be worth the price. Anyone have one here? Any idea on delivery times?

Did we read the same review? Terrible keyboard and trackpad, 2gb ram?

For $100 I think the expectation is set that there will be some rough edges. At that price point, I'd consider picking one up as a toy… even if it is giving me flashbacks of the netbook era.

Re: Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook

#79

Post by bloat »

limeblack wrote: post #28

Honest question. Why don't people buy old laptops instead of cheaper new ones? I'm no expert but the cost to performance ratio isn't to far off. I am typing this on T420 Thinkpad laptop. I get desiring to use open hardware but at the detriment of performance doesn't quite make sense.

There's also places selling them with libreboot. E.g. minifree.org

Re: Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook

#80

Post by khedoros1 »

limeblack wrote: post #28

Honest question. Why don't people buy old laptops instead of cheaper new ones? I'm no expert but the cost to performance ratio isn't to far off. I am typing this on T420 Thinkpad laptop. I get desiring to use open hardware but at the detriment of performance doesn't quite make sense.

I considered doing that, but I found a refurb Lenovo 11e for $190. I went for it because it's a bit smaller (11.6") and is "ruggedized" for the classroom. That latter is a benefit having a 3 year old around. It also had a fair bit of its original warranty left. Buying a used laptop off of Ebay or whatever sounded less appealing.
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