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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

#91

Post by johnchristopher »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #60
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 keyboar…

Any pictures of your pi4 :) ?

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

#92

Post by ptx »

idle_zealot wrote: post #40
jolmg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I have one of these laptops. I would guess that he's talking about the same issue that I would describe as an "annoying touchpad" on my unit. The issue is a tad difficult to describe, but it feels like the trackpad is always a little delayed. I don't notice it when strating to move the cursor, but when ending a movement the cursor will consistently slowly slide a bit further in the direction it was being moved. This…

There was a firmware update[1] to fix various issues with the trackpad – are the annoyances you describe there even after applying the update?

[1] https://forum.pine64.org/announcements.php?aid=23

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

#93

Post by Balanceinfinity »

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

I loved my TRS-80 100. My first laptop.

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

#94

Post by Balanceinfinity »

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...

Two words: trackball (or track-ball). Easiest on wrist and fingers for long days.

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

#95

Post by rchaud »

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 ?

I use a 2011 Dell Vostro w/ 4GB RAM and a 2010 era Core i3 as my media machine, hooked up to my TV. Handles 1080P Youtube/Netflix and Acestream streams very well.

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

#96

Post by jhiesey »

ptx wrote: post #92
idle_zealot wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have one of these laptops. I would guess that he's talking about the same issue that I would describe as an "annoying touchpad" on my unit. The issue is a tad difficult to describe, but it feels like the trackpad is always a little delayed. I don't notice it when strating to move the cursor, but when ending a movement the cursor will consistently slowly slide a bit further in the direction it was being moved. This…

There was a firmware update[1] to fix various issues with the trackpad – are the annoyances you describe there even after applying the update? [1] https://forum.pine64.org/announcements.php?aid=23

Yes this issue is still there unfortunately.

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

#97

Post by progman32 »

rchaud wrote: post #88
therein wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right but you can do that for many other notebooks as well.

I didn't know that. What kind of power bank would you need for a Macbook or PC laptop?

USB c power banks can do it. I use one for my gpd micropc. Just make sure to get a quality one that can do USB c pd.

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

#98

Post by StillBored »

fheld wrote: post #67
qubex wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I’m not mistaken, 10,000 mWh is the maximum that can be brought on an airliner. EDIT: As the commenter below pointed out, the limit is 100,000 mWh and not 10,000 mWh. I stand corrected.

According to [0] the limit in the US is 100Wh, so you could fit a battery that is three times bigger (assuming 3.3V). I don't know what the relevant numbers are elsewhere. [0] https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/whatcanibring/...

Actually it doesn't ban them, it just says that you don't need any special approval if you have less than two 100Wh batteries. Which is odd, because most people have more than two batteries if your counting batteries contained in devices like laptops/cellphones/etc. This regulation seems to apply only to standalone batteries.

For context 100Wh is only about 2x most normal laptops. A few systems with secondary batteries (Thinkpads for example) come within 10-15Wh of the limit when configured into their max battery configurations (although in my case that is two batteries).

I'm betting that is something you could actually walk through security with. I can't imagine the guys running the scanner are making estimates of battery capacity. For sure I've carried more than 200Wh worth of batteries before, considering for a while I was regularly traveling with two fairly high capacity laptops, a tablet, charging battery and cellphone. I'm also not the only odd ball with more than one laptop. Now that i've slimmed it back down to one, I regularly notice other people dragging out more than one.

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

#99

Post by noodle_face_ »

qubex wrote: post #74
thom wrote: post #42

I've been tempted by these as semi-destructible machines for my young kids to cut their teeth on. The oldest has a Chromebook but reinstalled with GalliumOS which has been perfectly adequate so far. I'd be intrigued to see a direct comparison between these as two ultra-cheap Linux options.

Why are children these days ‘allowed’ to ’destructive’? I was using my mother’s NeXT Cube back in the early nineties when I was about eleven or twelve and it’s still in mint condition. It was made very clear to me that allowing me to use it was an enormous privilege and that if I had in any way damaged it there would have been hell to pay and I have absolutely no doubt that my arse would’ve been kicked into tomorrow…

My dad would have loved to have you instead of me. He walked in on me with the family PC taken completely apart and flipped out, lol. I agree with you though.

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

#100

Post by floatboth »

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 use a MACCHIATObin (Marvell Armada8k - 4xCA72@2GHz) as a second desktop. I don't do mobile, but for what I do — C (FreeBSD kernel), Rust, Elixir, D, GTK, web frontend with Firefox — everything is fine.

Also I usually develop my website's backend (Elixir) directly on the EC2 a1 instance it runs on :)

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