[HN Gopher] PinePhone Beta ___________________________________________________________________ PinePhone Beta Author : pavelsof Score : 37 points Date : 2021-03-19 21:08 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.pine64.org) (TXT) w3m dump (www.pine64.org) | rhizome wrote: | Make a screen+mobo+speakers+... (the top 1/3 of a phone), give it | an SD slot, and make it a unit that clicks onto a generic | battery. Case makers will fill in the rest. | neolog wrote: | Why is it so cheap? Aren't the customers people who want to | switch from $1000 phones for freedom (not price)? | echelon wrote: | > Aren't the customers people who want to switch from $1000 | phones for freedom (not price)? | | That's me at least. | | I'm tempted to buy one just as a sign of support. We really | need PinePhone to grow. | edoceo wrote: | One of the reasons I got PineTime. Well, that and to play | with. | octopoc wrote: | In December they said they were thinking about opening up a | reseller program so they don't have to support end users [1]. | Then they announced the end of the community editions [2]. And | now this announcement. I think they're trying to evolve into | something more sustainable. | | 1: https://www.pine64.org/2020/12/02/pine-store-community- | prici... | | 2: https://www.pine64.org/2021/02/02/the-end-of-community- | editi... | josteink wrote: | As far as I can tell, this looks like the same hardware theyve | sold before for the earlier community edition phones. | | Im guessing that calling it "BETA" signifies an increased | confidence in it actually being usable, due to recent software | improvements in the Linux mobile community? | | While thats great in itself, Im looking forward to them moving to | a beefier SOC. | | (Posted from a PinePhone PostmarketOS community convergence | edition phone) | tpxl wrote: | Yes, it was in the march community update [0], they feel the | software is now beta quality: 'The upcoming production-run, as | well as the next two or three following it, will be referred to | as the Beta Edition. The term "Beta" indicates the present | software status' | | [0] https://www.pine64.org/2021/03/15/march-update/ | away_throw wrote: | Hardware still uses a single band WLAN. Unfortunately, I won't be | able to use it because of this. The 2.4GHz band in my apartment | complex is severely degraded due to the sheer amount of channel | conflicts. My Netgear router can only handle 2-5Mbps. | prox wrote: | This looks like my next phone. Will the final release be of the | same price? And how is the pinephone experience? | jay_kyburz wrote: | Still a long way from daily driver. Battery won't last a day, | and there a lot of unexpected lockups in KDE. | | I was hoping to find some time this weekend to try some | alternate UI's | prox wrote: | I really don't mind at this point, my old phone doesn't last | a day either! If the price is right, I am willing to take the | plunge. | jay_kyburz wrote: | I was scared off attempting to use it when, one day I was | doing something in a terminal and it locked up. I was | clicking all over the screen to try and bring up the task | manager (or any response), when the phone called my other | phone! Input must have been going through to other apps but | the screen was showing a blank terminal. | etaioinshrdlu wrote: | It's the most disappointing phone ever. A 10-year old Android | performs better and is more stable. | | I wasn't expecting it to work well, but it was far worse than I | imagined. I tried several ROMs and the software is starting to | improve slightly, though. | josteink wrote: | A pure Linux phone could obviously benefit from being as | polished and streamlined as its iOS and Android counterparts. | | But thats not its main mission. Thats not what it's selling. | | Total user control, like on real desktop Linux, for those who | can wield it, because thats literally what youre getting. | | For now this space is for a very specific audience. Maybe in | time (like Ubuntu did for desktop Linux on PCs) there will | come a distro which is usable enough OOB to have the same | effect on mobile. | | We mobile Linux users will still be a minority though, and we | probably wont mind. Just like we dont mind being minority | desktop users either. | jay_kyburz wrote: | I was hoping that there would be a reasonably rock solid | "feature phone" platform we could start building from, but | it seems everybody wants to scale down the full linux | desktop. | | I just want a feature phone with a browser. | | I would even be keen to see KiaOS running on it, but I | don't think you can right now. | linmob wrote: | If you want to, you can have that; just take | postmarketOSs new stable release when it's out with your | prefered mobile shell and put the bare minimum of apps | you want/need on there and you'll be set. | | As for KaiOS, I doubt we'll see that soon, as IIRC like | FirefoxOS it's designed to run on Android kernels. With | GloDroid being mostly dormant and incomplete, I doubt we | can pull that off. | linmob wrote: | Have you tried Arch Linux ARM/DanctNIX? | linmob wrote: | Pricing is tough to guesstimate right now with the component | shortage. Given that hardware has not changed in a while, I | don't see what should hold you back from getting it now, and | the remaining hardware bugs are acceptible.[0] | | The experience has improved quite a bit since I got my first | PinePhone in June. That said, this device is never going to be | really fast. It's acceptible now, though, and it turns out, | that you can adjust to things being a little slow every then | and now. Most distributions don't use the acceleration | capabilities the SoC offer as much as they could, and there are | other areas where improvements for battery life and smoothness | are still happening. It's been serving me fine as my only | smartphone on weekends (and as a secondary device on workdays). | | I've been tracking the Linux Phone landscape on my blog[1], in | multiple videos[2]. I have also adopted an App List, to list | all the apps that run on these nascent Linux Distributions and | are optimized for smartphones.[3] | | BTW: The coolest feature is that you can just put another | distribution on a microSDHC/XC card and boot it. Like this you | can carry multiple phone operating systems that fit certain | circumstances. | | [0] https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_v1.2b | | [1] https://linmob.net | | [2] https://linmob.net/videos/ | | [3] http://appl.ist | t-writescode wrote: | There's an Linus Tech Tips YouTube[1] on that very subject | that's worth a view | | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCKMxzz9cjs | | edit: added details | prox wrote: | Thanks! Going to watch! ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-03-19 23:00 UTC)