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Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook
- kbumsik 8y agoWow, 11' version is even under $100.
- major505 8y agoThey still aren't selling the 11' version. I will wait for it to be avaliable to make a try.
- VoidWhisperer 8y agoWhat could you feasibly use this for? The 1.2GHz CPU seems like it would put a bit of a damper on almost anything besides answering email and basic word processing.
- mikhuang 8y agoThis comment seems hilarious to someone who grew up with 486s that did those things fine. However, I’m inclined to agree that i would find this machine challenging to use as my daily thing.
- c22 8y agoMy Lifebook p7010 has a 1.2ghz processor and I still use it for programming, web browsing (mostly with javascript off), writing, light photo editing in gimp, 2d cad (qCAD and inkscape), and with two batteries I can watch movies for about 11 hours on the plane. It's true that I own other computers for 3d cad and gaming.
- serf 8y agoI loved that era in laptop design. The Lifebooks and the VAIOs were both so cool.
- qplex 8y agoIt is a notebook. You carry it with you when you travel somewhere and then dial back to your supercomputer for the heavy lifting.
- mythz 8y agoJust being able to run a browser gives it a lot of utility at an attractive price point which is comparable to the cost of a nice toy. Sub $100 makes them close to disposable so you could have them scattered around a work site without much care for security or being careful to take good care of them. They could also be cheap enough for a classroom to afford that otherwise wouldn't be able to make any computing devices available.
- tluyben2 8y agoIt all depends on what you do; I do a lot of software dev on (far) less powerful devices than that. And SSH or vnc etc work fine on low powered systems. I notice that mostly web dev, a lot of (but not all) gamedev and ML does not work at all on this kind of device. But API dev, some gamedev, language dev, embedded dev and a lot more work fine. For me, but this is all personal, I notice I can work on very diverse systems as long as I do not need a browser; browsers are so hungry for computer power that they render perfectly fine computing devices unworkable, fast. Well, not browsers, but the websites they run. For a laptop like this or with even lower specs (the Pandora for instance), I have no issues doing most of my work (which is api, embedded, code reviews and docs) if I have a second device like a tablet, or, ofcourse, two of these, for web browsing.
- hyperpallium 8y agoMy phone is slightly faster, but only 1GB RAM. For linux tasks, it is overkill - many unix utilities were designed in the 70's with many magnitudes less power available. Command-line java development (ecj, dx, git, etc) is practically instant. (If you need an activity-center IDE, you're gonna have a bad time.) The only problems I've encountered are super javascript-heavy retail pages (Why do they do that? They can only restrict their audience. Interactivity needn't be heavy. Are they just using frameworks upon frameworks upon frameworks?) And unfortunately, some Khan Academy graphical exercise. Strangely, "kalite" (offline version) works instantly, probably because it uses an older presentation - I bet it's "modern" frameworks again (though maybe because offline?).
- jillesvangurp 8y agoBack in the day at Nokia Research we were abusing their N800 linux tablets (mind you, this was 2007, way before the iphone shipped and when android was a mere rumor). These things were running a debian linux based OS with X based UI, and a mozilla based browser. Pretty much anything command line just worked after a simple apt-get install and most gui stuff kind of worked except for formfactor issues (low resolution screen, touch based interaction, keyboard overlay, etc.). The N800 specs were very modest compared to this stuff (something like 500Mhz and 256MB if I'm not mistaken). So, for command line stuff, most of the stuff you'd use 12 years ago would still be valid today. Stuff hasn't really changed that much. If anything, some things might run a bit faster than they used to on the same hardware due to ongoing optimizations and cumulative fixes. E.g. python has improved a lot since 2.5, which I think was current then. Compilers have gotten better, kernels have improved a lot, etc. However, these days, a minimum requirement for most would be to be able to run a modern browser (i.e. with all the security holes patched) capable of browsing all popular websites. Unfortunately, that just requires a lot of memory and CPU these days. Websites have gotten a lot more complex in the last 12 years. I'd say memory is actually the biggest bottleneck here. Most laptops are effectively idling most of the time and grow extremely hot if you actually run them at 100% CPU. So a modern low power ARM SOC with enough memory suitable for e.g. a mid range smart phone of around 200$ should have everything you need for comfortable browsing.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- 0xfaded 8y agoIf you happen to hand code ARM assembly, it is extremely convenient for working on the go.
- tdb7893 8y agoMost people I know who aren't video gamers use their home computer for almost solely web browsing. My phone browses the web fine on that amount so it should be enough for most people.
- bikamonki 8y agoFor a few years now, I have been doing web/api dev on one Asus Eee Box with Intel Atom 1.8Ghz and 3GB of RAM. It does take a few extra seconds to load heavy web apps like Google Sheets or Google Maps; however, on the upside, if I make my apps run fast on such limited device, it will be super fast on most of my users' devices. I also love it b/c it makes zero noise.
- bigiain 8y agoYou'd be surprised - although it's a pain to get some software running on it - it runs all the SDR software I use pretty well (mostly rx only using RTL SDR sticks, but I've used it for tx with my HackRFOne as well). Anything you can run on a Raspberry Pi you can get going on this - I largely use it as "a Raspberry Pi with a keyboard/screen/battery" - which it mostly does better than my PiTop (which has a vastly inferior screen and keyboard).
- imtringued 8y agoThe fact that it's only 1.2GHz is irrelevant. The important aspect is that it's an A53 core. These cores are incredibly slow. Each A53 core has geekbench score of roughly 300. Compare this to an A72 core which has a score of roughly 1500. Intel gets anywhere from 2000 to 6000 per core. A72 cores are moderately slower than intel. A53 cores are excessively slower than either A72 and intel.
- phkahler 8y agoYou know back in the 1990's we had email and web browsers and MS office. We even had CAD software. All that stuff could run on a 200MHz Intel chip with 128-512M of RAM. I wonder why people think it's OK that their daily use software is too big for a computer like this.
- tomcooks 8y agoYes I remember (and agree with you), but there was no Youtube non Netflix nor social networks, sites were 400kb of text plus a couple of images. That's why.
- Schwolop 8y agoThis manages to cost less than a Nexdock, which has essentially the same components _except_ a CPU. (You attach it to a PC stick, RPi, mobile phone, etc.) That's pretty impressive!
- et2o 8y agoI 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.
- txsh 8y agoI’m convinced Apple is working towards something like this.
- jhpankow 8y agoWhy would they turn your phone into a laptop when they can sell you a Macbook?
- eof 8y agoBecause less people are buying macbooks and maybe you will by a macdock instead?
- jack_pp 8y agoexactly, it is hard to believe a dock would cannibalize the macbook market
- andreareina 8y agoCould cannibalize the iPad market instead
- cubano 8y agoThis product is too obvious and to doable for it to that far off, so hopefully a bit more patience is all we need.
- kinkora 8y agoyou mean this? https://www.sentio.com/ https://www.sentio.com/ In android world, the concept is alive & well. I myself use the sentio desktop app to connect to a monitor and use a bluetooth keyboard/mouse.
- steve19 8y agoThis looks like the perfect hackable netbook with very little surface area for attacks but sadly it has an Allwiner SoC (A64) which violates the GPL and contains many binary blobs. I have been burnt with them, MediaTek and AMLogic in the past. Never again. http://linux-sunxi.org/A64#Allwinner http://linux-sunxi.org/A64#Allwinner
- flukus 8y agoSeems a bit big for a netbook which is a shame, there don't seem to be too many companies catering for the 10" form factor anymore.
- simosx 8y agoAllwinner has done mistakes in the past and posted tarballs of the Linux kernel source with object files for drivers they did not have the right (from others) to post the source. They called these "SDKs" and distributed them to those that asked. There are ways to get around such issues like distributing those blobs or the object files separately, but they were not savvy in free software. They started getting savvy by posting on github sanitized Linux sources and sources of the bootloader, https://github.com/allwinner-zh https://github.com/allwinner-zh So what do you do if a fabless manufacturer violates the GPL out of cluelessness? Do you follow the path of the core kernel develolpers (https://lwn.net/Articles/698452/ https://lwn.net/Articles/698452/) or do you go for the nuclear option? Well, a certain person on linux-sunxi went for the nuclear option. You can see the `GPL violation` edits on the linux-sunxi Wiki on these obsolete tarballs with object files. You can see the same person on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allwinner_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allwinner_Technology writing about 'GPL violations'. I admit that the `nuclear option` is a strategy. If it works, it would transform the company by force to become friendly to open-source (/sarcasm). But it is a shitty strategy.
- prophesi 8y agoThey've been violating the GPL license for years. The 'nuclear option' has been long past-due. And the "path of the core kernel developers" is to simply not sue them. Which this "nuclear option" follows. Plus, suing a Chinese company might be a fruitless endeavor.
- bruceb 8y agoAs it is very cheap one can't expect a lot of support but "Warranty: 30 days" is pretty short, 90 is a little more reasonable.
- fao_ 8y agoFYI: If you're in the EU these sorts of warranty statements are meaningless. As an EU citizen, regulations state that you have two years of warranty within which, if the item is faulty, you may return it and get a refund.
- lnsru 8y agoThat’s why it will cost in EU closer to 300$ than original 100$.
- flukus 8y agoWhich would tell you a lot about the expected failure rate.
- lnsru 8y agoIt’s not about failure rate alone. As a seller in EU you are liable for the product for 2 years. Plus WEEE (recycling), waste management, user manuals in all European languages. And you also want to have some profit at the end.
- desireco42 8y agoI found a video after a quick search on youtube that gives me a little better impression about this laptop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1hHRMIod0A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1hHRMIod0A I think for $100, I will give it a whirl. It has escape key unlike my new fancy overpriced macbook pro. It seems reviewer didn't like keyboard much. :( That is unfortunate. I would say that having usb port for power would be very much welcome feature. Also, further video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIF2YbnOHB4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIF2YbnOHB4
- nickwanninger 8y agoDo you rebind your caps lock to escape? That's what I did, and it's become second nature at this point.
- desireco42 8y agoYep I did that. I still often fatfinger the brightness and other things. It is corporate one, I have my old macbook air that works just as fine.
- hyperpallium 8y agoI want this, but with a 7" display: smaller, lighter, better power efficiency (display is the main draw). i.e. a netbook
- examancer 8y agoThe GPD Pocket fits this bill. It was available with Ubuntu pre-installed during it's crowd sourcing campaign. The support under Ubuntu is pretty good, including good support for the touch screen. 7" 1080p, atom CPU, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD. More expensive, but under $500. https://github.com/stockmind/gpd-pocket-ubuntu-respin https://github.com/stockmind/gpd-pocket-ubuntu-respin
- voltagex_ 8y agoI just need one of these with the IBM butterfly keyboard [1] and it'd be wonderful 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ThinkPad_Butterfly_keyboard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ThinkPad_Butterfly_keyboar...
- boomlinde 8y agoThere's an 11" model, IMO that puts it somewhere within netbook territory.
- hyperpallium 8y agoAssuming the same height/width proportions, it would have (11/7)^2 = 2.47 times the area. Quite a bit bigger.
- boomlinde 8y ago11" is bigger than 7" for sure, but that's not my point. My point is that 11" is at the upper end of what I'd consider a netbook, and it wasn't immediately obvious to me when I browsed the page that there was an 11" model so I thought you might have missed it, too.
- rsync 8y agoThey have a typo on the spec sheet: USB 2.0 Port Should be 3.0 Port.
- petee 8y agodo you have a reference for that? The Main Board schematic also shows a 2.0 port...
- akhilcacharya 8y agoMaybe its a pipe dream, but I'd love to see a really affordable ARM machine with a forever battery life - like one of the OP1 Chromebooks running Linux instead of ChromeOS+Crouton. Is it likely for Crostini to support ARM anytime soon?
- badsectoracula 8y agoLooks neat, but i hope they find a reseller in EU (with actual stock, not like those "homebrew" consoles like Pandora and GCWZero that took me two years to actually get one because it was always out of stock - which sucks since i really like it, but the limited availability harmed it considerably) since it sounds like you'll need to pay VAT and at the customs office yourself (which is extra annoying when you actually have to go there yourself).
- limeblack 8y agoHonest 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.
- megy 8y agoI bet this is cheaper, and lighter than your thinkpad, with a better battery and require less care.
- limeblack 8y agoI got this thinkpad without hard drive for under $100 so they are a lot closer then some would have guessed.
- msh 8y agoAnd how long does its battery last?
- larkeith 8y agoCan't speak for parent, but my T430s lasts for three or four hours, despite longterm heavy battery use. Beware of Lenovo's rootkits if looking to buy from them, however.
- Stratoscope 8y agoThinkPads never had the rootkits, it was the consumer Lenovo models that had them. Very different culture between those two groups.
- examancer 8y ago10000mah and an ARM A53 mean it should last 10 hours or more with moderate brightness settings. It's hard to beat this for a light cheap terminal/browser with plenty of battery if that is something you need.
- keyle 8y agoI'd love a computer with those specs, twice the cost, with a great keyboard and trackpad.
- bigiain 8y agoI've got one - the trackpad is kinda ordinary but the keyboard is pretty good (as calibrated by someone who mostly uses a 2015 MacBook Air and a 2017 runout non-retina 12" MacBook Pro). I'm really happy with the money I paid for it - the screen is significantly better than I expected (it's become my go-to "watch tv in bed" laptop...)
- walrus01 8y agoWifi looks like it is 1x1 SISO and 2.4 GHz only. Can it run Debian?
- bigiain 8y agoYep - at least my one (delivered May last year) only has 2.4GHz Wi-Fi on board). I run Ubuntu on mine, but there's recent Debian Jessie support in the forums...
- sien 8y agoReviews here to save people doing what I just did: https://www.techradar.com/reviews/pinebook-14-inch https://www.techradar.com/reviews/pinebook-14-inch https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/pinebook-64-review/ 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?
- roryisok 8y agoDid we read the same review? Terrible keyboard and trackpad, 2gb ram?
- tedmiston 8y agoFor $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.
- overkalix 8y agoI still work with my eight year old notebook and its glorious Intel Atom and 1GB of RAM... It was gifted to me during my second year of college and now that I'm on my PhD I still have a use for it. The original Windows distribution lasted around one month. Since then it's been running a number of lightweight distributions, currently Lubuntu. It works noticeably better than laptops running Windows with twice the memory. Even compared to more powerful machines I manage to keep it competitive by avoiding bloated crap. Of course the battery doesn't last like it used to, and I had to replace the keyboard a few years ago.
- terminalcommand 8y agoWhen my thinkpad x201 broke down, I lived with an atom 1.6 Ghz eeePC (1000HE). It was certainly doable and tweaking the laptop to run on limited resources was fun. My only real issue was that I couldn't browse with javascript, because the cpu load was crushing the netbook. Other than that a recent OpenBSD installation used only 128MiB of RAM, with ram usage occasionaly rising to around 280 MiB when I opened firefox. I still use the netbook as my primary mobile machine. But I think getting a second hand thinkpad again would be a reasonable thing to do. Although the netbook is perfectly usable, it is really heavy compared to today's standards. That is the only complaint I have for my machine.
- usr1106 8y agoThey had one on display (and to touch) at FOSDEM. Mechanics felt cheap, but what can you expect at the price point. I asked about the Allwinner misery with Linux kernel support. They answered that is no longer an issue with the new 64 bit chips. I have not verified the statement. I would try one if they had a reasonable distributor in the EU. Now it's gambling with customs. Might not come much cheaper than e.g. an HP with Intel Atom and 32 GB of eMMC. And those play in a whole different league in build quality. (I use them with Linux.)
- leftybc 8y agoI own a 11" Pinebook - it's pretty much the same as an rpi3 with a decent screen, decent keyboard, and a mediocre trackpad. I put a 32GB eMMC upgrade in it right from Pine. I find it a bit slow for web browsing with a heavy modern browser, but I haven't spent the time to find a more optimized one. I'd say that for $99 it's nicer than most $300-400 laptops I've used in terms of build quality, and it makes a great dumbish terminal. For the price I paid, if it got broken/lost/stolen I wouldn't be too worried about it. A handy little toy that I use more often than I thought I would.
- mntmn 8y agoI'm also working on an ARM notebook in the spirit of Novena called Reform: http://mntmn.com/reform/ http://mntmn.com/reform/ This version is 32-bit, but it has 4 cores @ 1.2GHz and 4GB of RAM. Also, it is actually open source, meaning that all the electronic design files (made in KiCAD) are available on GitHub and as soon as we have decided on the correct formats the same will be true for the mechanical/case parts, so you will be even able to 3D print replacement parts. I could not find the design files for Pinebook so I'm not sure what is "Open Source" about it? Schematics are not sources. I don't know how you can sustainably make a laptop and sell it for $100. I'm selling the first developer models for EUR 549/599 and I'm not making any profit on these, it's basically passing on the material cost. I guess it's a tradeoff between cutting enough corners to bring the price down and trying to achieve some base of quality and durability. These are different goals. Anyway, I'm happy to see more activity in the ARM space as that means more eyeballs on ARM Linux applications, potentially more issues filed and bugs fixed.
- harrisi 8y agoNeat project! I'm interested in the 1.2GHz version, but is there any reasonable way to have some guarantee that I will get it? I understand that things can get pushed back with projects like this, so delays aren't my concern, just actual follow-through.
- mntmn 8y agoWell, I can only promise you that I will deliver. We shipped around 400 VA2000s&CXs out of my house. Smaller scope, but I’m used to ship. Edit: I already purchased some critical parts (all SoC modules, 100x hinges, 2000 keyswitches, fans, optical sensors), and I have suppliers for the screen and batteries.
- harrisi 8y agoFair enough. I looked a bit more around your website. Hopefully there will be one more preorder available in the morning. Best of luck with the project regardless.
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- unlimitedbacon 8y agoI have this laptop. The beauty of it is that it is unashamedly bad. It is the humblest of laptops. The body is a direct copy of the 13" MacBook Air. As a computer, it is at least as usable as a Raspberry Pi. The teardown photos are hilarious because the motherboard only takes up about 1/6 the internal space. The rest is empty. https://hackaday.com/2017/04/28/hands-on-with-the-pinebook/ https://hackaday.com/2017/04/28/hands-on-with-the-pinebook/ It comes with Ubuntu 16.04, but there are other distros available that work to varying degrees. Since Firefox Quantum came out it's actually pretty usable for web browsing. Features: * It does in fact turn on. * It boots surprisingly fast, since it is running on flash memory. * There is an HDMI port, which may work in the future. * The battery life is fantastic, due to it's meager CPU. * Most have no more than 2 dead pixels. * You can charge it from another computer's USB port. * Potato quality camera. * It costs less than a replacement battery for my ThinkPad.
- tonteldoos 8y agoI just added my name to the BTO list. How long did you have to wait before they contacted you (and then before it shipped)? I can't seem to find anything about that on their site...
- unlimitedbacon 8y agoThey are making them in batches. Whenever they get enough people on the waiting list they send out the order emails, then they manufacture the batch and ship them out. Once I was able to actually place my order I received it 3 weeks later.
- zaarn 8y agoWhat is the actual battery life? If it has a decent one (atleast 12 hours) I could use it as a travel notebook instead of my hefty thinkpad.
- pizza234 8y agoA quad core A53 consumes around 2W when idle. The battery is 37Wh, so I don't think it can make 12 hours (including screen consumption).
- HIPisTheAnswer 8y agoWhy are people still putting their computers inside keyboards !? Put the SoC behind the screen !!!
- rootlocus 8y agoI'm guessing heat damage is a concern.
- pjc50 8y agoThat makes the screen thicker, and heavier, therefore more likely to tip the whole thing over. Why do you want it behind the screen? Other poster mentioned the thermal issues. It's probably not great for EMC either.
- rjsw 8y agoI have an HP Pavilion convertable, the keyboard is detachable and it can be used as a tablet, I don't have a problem with it tipping over.
- slim 8y agoBecause weight. It won't stand if keyboard is less heavy than screen
- jakeogh 8y agoWhy has RAM stagnated? I want 32GB in a similar form factor, make it power down unused chips if that's a concern.
- michaelmrose 8y agoWhy 2G of ram? Its certainly usable but seems so limiting is there really a huge savings from not including another 2G?
- rjsw 8y agoThe SoC doesn't support much more than 2G, the Allwinner Wiki says 3G is the maximum but you probably want to just use two memory chips to keep costs down.
- protomyth 8y agoIs there an ARM motherboard that accepts more that 4GB?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- rjsw 8y agoYou could get a Xilinx dev board and just ignore the FPGA features, this [1] one will accept at least 6GB. [1] https://www.xilinx.com/products/boards-and-kits/zcu104.html https://www.xilinx.com/products/boards-and-kits/zcu104.html
- orionblastar 8y agoIt reminds me of the Commodore 64 that it was underpowered but sold cheaper than the other computers. I got a 99 dollar used Dell 64 but dual core system with Windows 10 on it upgraded from Windows 7. Runs quite well, but it is not a gaming machine.
- jandrese 8y agoThe Commie64 didn't really have competition in its market space, which is a big reason why it was able to sell so well despite being kind of crappy. This laptop is competing against Chromebooks, Netbooks, old but still functional laptops, etc...
- orionblastar 8y agoThe only competition to the C64 was the Atari 8 bit series in the USA and Sinclar Spectrum in the UK. If Commodore got the C65 to work it would have cost less to make than the C64. So now there is a remake called the Mega65 http://mega65.org http://mega65.org
- vermaden 8y agoThe only problems I see with this laptop is the 2 GB of RAM and resolution. Firefox with all blocking plugins takes regularly about 1.5-2.5 GB RAM on my machine, even with 5-10 tabs only. I would like to see 13" model with full size keyboard (not the 11.6 one with crippled/squeezed keys) and at least Full HD screen. Having 1366x768 resolution in 2018 is misunderstanding to say the least.
- ronsor 8y agoOne thing about memory usage: programs will use as much as they can. Firefox will most likely use less memory if it has less.
- freddref 8y agoThis looks like a chuwi, same body?
- dchest 8y agoAnother interesting project is this open hardware ARM-based laptop made in Bulgaria, shipped as a kit to assemble https://www.olimex.com/Products/DIY-Laptop/ https://www.olimex.com/Products/DIY-Laptop/ It costs €240, though.
- shadeslayer 8y agoI just released a OS Image for this nifty piece of Hardware with full hardware video decode and gpu acceleration. Check it out here https://kshadeslayer.wordpress.com/2018/04/17/launching-netrunner-18-03-for-the-pinebook/ https://kshadeslayer.wordpress.com/2018/04/17/launching-netr...
- nerdymanchild 8y agoIs the 2D X11 acceleration done via glamor using the closed source driver? (Congrats btw!)
- shadeslayer 8y agoAny EGL calls go through the armsoc driver to the closed blob. I tried the X11 modesetting driver, but the mali blob is missing GBM support on there.
- nerdymanchild 8y agoOh so is there actually 2D X11 acceleration? Or just 3D acceleration?
- childintime 8y agoIf this included basic 10MHz 2-channel scope functionality, I'd call this a TinkerBook. And I would definitely buy it.
- phkahler 8y agoWhat GPU does it use?
- 72deluxe 8y agoI recently bought a Linx 14 from Tesco in the UK (https://www.tesco.com/direct/linx-14-ultraslim-full-hd-lightweight-aluminium-4gb-ram-64gb-storage-intel-pentium-laptop-silver/609-3596.prd https://www.tesco.com/direct/linx-14-ultraslim-full-hd-light...) which is Intel and I've been pleasantly surprised by how good it is! Particularly for the money! And an OS that I could get on with or give to my mum to use.
- jacek 8y agoLooks like rebranded Chinese laptop. Some Chinese companies sell very decent low-budget laptops (Chuwi, Teclast, Jumper, etc.) and some have full Linux support (according to reviews [1]). [1] https://techtablets.com/ https://techtablets.com/
- 72deluxe 8y agoYes I think it is, but it doesn't have such visible iterations as the Chuwi (which went from having to take the bottom off to get to the SSD and then adding a flap) and having indeterminate specs from the sellers, or having bad reviews where the screen scratched on the body when hinged open. At least with this one, the specifications are on a reputable seller's website and the Linx company is a UK Ltd company; the box it came in and tiny manual were good quality, unlike some of the Dells I have ordered! I was pleasantly surprised! Impressed by the lack of bloatware on it too.
- stratosmacker 8y agoA few things.... Pinebook uses a Mali GPU, which if I understand correctly relies on closed binaries to run though it looks like that is changing: https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/09/26/allwinner-socs-with-mali-gpu-get-mainline-linux-opengl-es-support/ https://www.cnx-software.com/2017/09/26/allwinner-socs-with-... Also my personal experience with this laptop was less than stellar. This was last May (before Firefox Quantum), but I opened it, tried to do some things, and immediately closed it because it's absolutely too slow to use as a laptop. Definitely cool as a terminal. I ended up putting it back in the box and donating it as a prize for an event
- wolfgke 8y agoWhy is there no Ethernet port?! Even the Pine64, which the Pinebook seems to be based on, has one. Just because Apple stopped including one does not imply that an audience that loves to tinker will not miss an Ethernet port.
- nerdymanchild 8y agoThe cost of the PHY and the Ethernet interface would increase the price
- giancarlostoro 8y agoI've tried to order one alas they never email me back.
- jandrese 8y agoFront Camera: 0.3 Megapixels Where does one source a webcam this crappy in 2018? Did someone find an old stock of 90's sensors in the back of a warehouse somewhere?
- prophesi 8y agoI've had the Pinebook 11.6'' since its initial release. It's been great for doing occasional server maintenance on-the-go. A few tips: - You can install an OS on the internal 16gb memory. Then swap in an SD card to run other OSes. - Performance is not too bad if you run i3wm. And Firefox Quantum helps it out even further. - I've yet to try this out (waiting on another SD card to come in the mail), but shadeslayer released an image for the pinebook that runs KDE with accelerated X11 & video playback support[0]. Which is pretty impressive if you know anything about Mali and the issue of closed-source binary blobs. [0] https://www.netrunner.com/netrunner-for-pinebook/ https://www.netrunner.com/netrunner-for-pinebook/
- cwaffler 8y agoDoes anyone know if this allows you to update the hardware?
- camgunz 8y agoI was 100% gonna buy the 11" but the shift key is on the right side of the up key.
- mrbill 8y agoI had one of these. The concept was nice, screen was much nicer than I expected, but the keyboard was near unusable. You had to hit each key HARD, directly in the center, for keystrokes to register. Touch typing was impossible. The trackpad wasn't any better. Ended up selling it to a coworker (with an additional standalone Pine64 board) for $75.
- Posibyte 8y agoI have this laptop. If you find that the spacebar does not respond well if struck in the center, I've found that a small pressing of hot glue and a quick dab of your thumb on it on the middle ring on the underside of the key does wonders to keep it responsive. This computer, to me, has been a blast to tinker with. It's so crappy, yet hides nothing. When my monitor didn't work well, I just took it apart, rewrapped the video cable with some copper-snail tape and attached that to the ground plane on the board, and the signal is so much better now.
- oquidave 8y agoDo people realize how game changing this laptop would be for students in developing countries like Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria? For $100 price tag on a useable laptop that you can run code or productivity apps, this is an absolute game changer. We have students at university going computer science without owning their own laptops! So this would really go a long way in bridging that divide. Kudo Pine64 team.