12 ms·

Pine64 November Update – ANSI Pinebook Pro and PinePhone Preorder

171 points by stamps 7y ago

llimllib 7y ago
> We make no profit from selling these units. If you think that a minor dissatisfaction, such as a dead pixel, will prompt you to file a PayPal dispute then please do not purchase the Pinebook Pro. Thank you. This just sounds unsustainable
- papermachete 7y ago
  Works well so far. Computers are still laughably overpriced overall.
  - oh_sigh 7y ago
    The problem is that without making a profit, you have no buffer to handle unforseen risk.
    - voxic11 7y ago
      That isn't what profit means. Savings you are holding for a rainy day are not profit.
      - 24gttghh 7y ago
        The simplest definition of profit seems to imply that someone paid more for something than was put into it. How does one get savings with no profit? edit: I'm trying to ask a question; and I should add, it is my understanding that's how profit is defined. Why would this be downvoted? Do I really have to paste a definition of profit in here?
      - rlucas 7y ago
        Except accounting-wise, and tax-wise, that is what profit means. Retaining a surplus into future periods is generally going to be a taxable event. I suppose you could create a reserve against projected liabilities such as warranty returns (which is commonly done in for-profit companies). But that is pretty well explicitly not for a rainy day or the unexpected; it’s for the rather firmly expected.
        voxic11 7y ago
        Retained earnings are non-taxable as long as they relate to a legitimate business need.
        jammygit 7y ago
        Not if you’re Apple and you hide it overseas. Seems a lot like this situation
      - repomies691 7y ago
        Probably meant: business should make profit, from that profit the business can save some money for the rainy day. And I agree. However I don't know who are behind PINE64 - maybe they have some long-term investor backing them up, and they try price at this point as low as possible to get the community going. Actually, I would be interested in investing to this pine thing.
    - papermachete 7y ago
      That's why they sell at short separated periods.
  - bityard 7y ago
    You should have seen what they cost three decades ago.
- repomies691 7y ago
  Well, personally I would prefer them to make profit. I would be willing to pay a bit more since the product seems quite interesting - not actually in the current state, but what the product could be if the business actually flourishes. Better would be something like "Disclaimer: the product can have up to 10 dead pixels which are not covered by warranty."
  - llimllib 7y ago
    me too! that's exactly what I'm suggesting, that they should charge more to cover the %age of jerks that will file paypal chargebacks rather than ask people to be kind
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - cartoonworld 7y ago
    I hear what you're saying, but to be clear, Pine Microsystems is not operating a pizza shop. It is much more like a hackerspace or community workshop then a merchant. They offer a direct-from-manufacturer business model, where a non-membership based community of interested stakeholders directly contribute to most if not all of the products. Check out the engineering blog posts. If you are looking for a turnkey solution, not all of Pine64's offerings are able meet your needs (but do snag a $1.99 CH340 Serial console.) and if you preorder the "Braveheart" phone, there is no stable off the shelf OS prepared for it. You cannot buy this and mail it to ahead your hotel and give a demonstration to the board by next Thursday. That said, and I don't think this is superlative at all, Pine64's efforts currently exemplify the internet dream of a "Global Village" economy.
  - MayeulC 7y ago
    Right there on the pinebook order page: > Small numbers (1-3) of stuck or dead pixels are a characteristic of LCD screens. These are normal and should not be considered a defect. And: > [...] make no profit from selling these units. If you think that a minor dissatisfaction, such as a dead pixel, will prompt you to file a PayPal dispute then please do not purchase the Pinebook. Thank you.
- thinkmassive 7y ago
  You stripped the first part of that paragraph: “ When fulfilling the purchase, please bear in mind that we are offering the Pinebook Pro at this price as a community service to PINE64, Linux and BSD communities. We make no profit from selling these units...” While that doesn’t state anything definitively, it sounds like they plan to either increase prices later on, or that the first batch (of PRE-orders keep in mind) is being released early in order to get feedback from customers. In either case it doesn’t sound like they’re planning to operate as a charity forever.
  - llimllib 7y ago
    I think you're reading more into it than what is there, but I hope that's the case! Seems like a neat product and I hope they sell it at a sustainable price rather than stay at the bottom and get sunk when people file chargebacks.
  - robertely 7y ago
    The Pro is a follow up to the 99$ pinebook, and they have been selling that at the same price for years.
    - cma 7y ago
      I don't know if they make any money at $99, but holding price steady can increase margin over time if the underlying costs go down over time.
- cartoonworld 7y ago
  They reinvest the cash right back into development and production units. There is risk that this company will evaporate, however: https://www.pine64.org/philosophy/ https://www.pine64.org/philosophy/ None of us is as smart as all of us ~ Ken H. Blanchard At the core of our philosophy is the notion that PINE64 is a community platform. [...] The goal is to deliver ARM64 devices that you really wish to engage with and a platform that you want to be a part of. As such, if you can help them source better quality IPS panels, I know a guy you should talk to.
  - llimllib 7y ago
    it sounds like a neat product, I'm just wishing they would charge more to cover the risk/rate of chargebacks rather than simply ask people not to sink them.
    - cartoonworld 7y ago
      Yes of course, it would be nice if a bad batch didn't slow future development to a crawl. Pine64 works in batches, they don't ship promptly, they are also heavily preorder based for in-development projects, and they directly work with developers, as the people who buy them are also the developers of the software which runs on them. If you get a dead pixel, they will sell you another panel. The laptops are modular, check out how they handled the NVME adapter problems: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8117 https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8117 I feel quite confident after seeing their work.
    - StudentStuff 7y ago
      Charging more would make this laptop less accessible to the vast majority of people. The Novena, Talos & many other libre hardware projects were always so expensive as to be botique afterthoughts, rather than "I can spend $100 and get a nice netbook".
- jammygit 7y ago
  They need to charge slightly more then. Having enough profits to ensure financial security for the organization is not unethical
- m463 7y ago
  This kind of stuff is frustrating to me. Projects that respect their customers are usually on the edge of oblivion because they don't have a profit or ownership motive. But they are vulnerable to others copying and cost-reducing their work. Customers usually choose the cheaper copy. Projects that are sucessful assure themselves a profit by closing their products and restricting things. Customers are limited in what they can do, or have to be content with buying a crippled product. sigh.
CDSlice 7y ago
Does anyone know if the Pinephone will be able to work on Verizon's network? I am very interested in getting a Pinephone to try out and maybe make some apps for but I don't want to buy another SIM and plan from somewhere else.
- ocdtrekkie 7y ago
  The chip in the phone is an approved module for Verizon, so theoretically, it can, and the bands needed are supported. Whether or not your Verizon customer service rep will activate the phone is an entirely different question that we'll only find out once we have them in hands and give it a shot. https://opendevelopment.verizonwireless.com/design-and-build/approved-modules/module/8959 https://opendevelopment.verizonwireless.com/design-and-build...
  - CDSlice 7y ago
    Awesome! I already have an activated Verizon SIM so hopefully it'll just work with the Pinephone. If not maybe I can just pick up something from Ting.
cf141q5325 7y ago
Really cant wait to get my hands on a pinephone, it looks absolutely amazing. Hopefully I will be quick enough to get a BraveHeart model for christmas, I would rather not test my technical skills with assembling the developer edition. Hardware switches for almost everything and open source software :D
- newnewpdro 7y ago
  > Hardware switches for almost everything and open source software :D I just flipped through the various pinephone PDFs linked from the November update and saw no evidence of hardware kill switches. Maybe they're buried in the schematics, but the exploded phone diagram has nothing for them. Can you link where you saw mention/proof of this?
  - cf141q5325 7y ago
    https://www.pine64.org/2019/09/05/september-update-the-pinephone-is-real-shipping-soon/ https://www.pine64.org/2019/09/05/september-update-the-pinep... >The detachable back panel – which covers the privacy switches, pogo pins and the removable battery – is made of a durable soft-touch plastic. https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone > Privacy Switches: LTE (include GPS), Wifi/BT, Mic, and Camera edit: You can see them at the first link (picture "PinePhone mainboard + daughterboard (prototype) "), its the little switches above the sdcard reader
    - newnewpdro 7y ago
      Thanks. Well, I guess that's better than nothing. I can't see myself removing the battery cover and flipping dip switches every time I want to utilize GPS and cellular networks, and again when I'm done, though. But it does let them check the "hw kill switches" box...
      - cf141q5325 7y ago
        I mean i think its about what you expect of the device. Many users would likely be unhappy with having the buttons pressable on the outside due do being prone to an accidental disable-able. Its a fringe feature. Having the option to reversibly disable these components is exactly what i am looking for. So while I will be unlikely to use GPS and LTE or the simcard for that matter, I am not sure about WIFI, cam and microphone yet. Either way, It sure as hell beats soldering them off. Hopefully the cover is also as easily removable as promised. But even if not, i would still get one if all killswitches were 0 Ohm resistors. I think just posting the link here gave the wrong impression. Its an open Linux phone with HW-Killswitches. If that sentence on its own doesnt have you grin like a kid on Christmas, its likely not yet the device for you. But as was often said when talking about the Pinephone, its a start. At this point the target demographic is still developers not people who are looking for an open source replacement of their current smartphone. Its why the batch is called "brave heart". While there are operating systems booting on it already, the expectations Pine set when the developers edition came out were rather low.
24gttghh 7y ago
Any idea of the expected price?
- MayeulC 7y ago
  USD $150 [1] [1]: https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone
  - 24gttghh 7y ago
    No shit. Good price. Thanks!
  - mpnordland 7y ago
    At that price it can have 2 dead pixels and I'd still buy it.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
MayeulC 7y ago
I would like to order both a PinePhone and a PineTime (plus a couple more for friends), but I have no idea if they will be available for order/shipping at the same time[1]. And ideally, I would like a pineTime as well. I would like to write a program to alert me when I'm forgetting my phone while travelling, for instance :) [1] Asked here: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8158&pid=51528#pid51528 https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8158&pid=51528#p...
- justinclift 7y ago
  Yeah. Hoping they do produce more PineTime dev kits, as Go can now be compiled directly for it (via TinyGo) and a friend has a good project in mind it would suit.
ocdtrekkie 7y ago
Got my Pinebook Pro preorder in. Will order a PinePhone when it opens as well. Using both as a way to test the waters of using Linux as my daily "consumer PC" replacement, since the price makes it fairly painless to do so.
- teekert 7y ago
  A bit unfair since your win10 counterpart was probably not an ARM processor, so keep that in mind :)
  - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
    I'm far less worried about raw performance, as I am in the workflow and software availability in general. I need to see if I can take out a Linux machine where I would take a Windows machine, and not go "darn, I can't do what I need to because I'm not running Windows". (And if I hit "darn, I can't do what I need to because I have an ARM chip", that's not a knock on Linux as an option.) I can always get a more powerful Linux machine at another time. ;)
    - type0 7y ago
      > (And if I hit "darn, I can't do what I need to because I have an ARM chip", that's not a knock on Linux as an option.) Some binaries might not be available depending on what you do or what distro you use, but generally you could always compile the software yourself, it could take a while so as long as you are not in a hurry.
      - btschaegg 7y ago
        This. The fact that very few extensible editors came prebuilt with Arch for my Chromebooks a couple of years ago was the reason I picked up Vim, for example. Though this probably is less of a problem now if you like VS Code.
- cartoonworld 7y ago
  Don't forget about the open source community designed PineTime! (est price: $25) They are also developing an open source tablet, PineTab. They already have several full lines of SBC Raspberry Pi killers as well. Several are designated LTS Long Term Support with guaranteed availability (See offer for details, restrictions apply, Pine64 can not be held responsible for any sweet hacks or enjoyable Sundays caused by its devices. Hack Responsibly.)
cartoonworld 7y ago
I have been clamoring for this product for years. If this looks good to you, check out their other offerings. They are extremely compelling. Also, the $1.99 serial console is very nice.
yumraj 7y ago
Does anyone know who are the people behind Pine64? Where is the company based/incorporated. I couldn't find any info on the website.
- dmix 7y ago
  The blog and an interview [1] have been by Lukasz Erecinski. Although Wikipedia mentions TL Lim: > Although the original Kickstarter page mentioned a company called "Pine64 Inc.", all devices are manufactured and sold by Pine Microsystems Inc. based in Fremont, California. Its founder is TL Lim, the inventor of the PopBox and Popcorn Hour series of media players sold under the Syabas and Cloud Media brands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Microsystems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Microsystems [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bibXkrT8AqU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bibXkrT8AqU
louib 7y ago
About the PineTime > Since this is a community driven side-project, we have started considering making the dev-kits available to everyone in the store. That would be awesome. I've been looking for an open watch to play with recently. I hope they go forward with that idea.
- xorcist 7y ago
  Battery life seems promising too! (They aim for 10 days.) This might actually turn out more useful than many of the boutique smartwatches.
crankylinuxuser 7y ago
As a dissatisfied customer, I bought a bought a bunch of A64-LTS with Poe, eMMC and battery holders. Turns out their eMMCs are defective. Here's what's happening: The eMMCs ignore the first read instruction, and then work from the second one on. On Linux boot, initrd makes a read request that never returns, and hangs. If you boot off of a mSD, it woris well. You can still mount the eMMC, but you cant boot with them. I did receiver a report that someone found a bootable (doesn't ignore first read) eMMC. But that was 1. (Disclosure, I opened a PayPal dispute and sent back the eMMCs of my own expense. But the never responded so I got all $293 back. This goes along with 0 communication even when I was trying to do the right thing. I'm also trying to start a hardware business, and chose this platform because of no embedded radios, etc, and 1gigE on its own SPI bus.) Tldr. Defective hardware, don't buy.
- cf498 7y ago
  I didnt find anything about this in the Pine Forum or via google, just this thread on Armbian https://forum.armbian.com/topic/7783-cant-install-pine-a64-lts-to-emmc/ https://forum.armbian.com/topic/7783-cant-install-pine-a64-l... Do you have any more information or a link where to follow up on this? Skimming the threads in the forum https://forum.pine64.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=67 https://forum.pine64.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=67 has more then one person saying that they managed to boot from the EMMC. edit: nevermind found it https://www.reddit.com/r/PINE64official/comments/df6yxz/pine_a64lts_isnt_able_to_boot_from_emmc/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PINE64official/comments/df6yxz/pine... edit2: Are you sure you didnt run into a problem with Armbian? Did you test it with any other OS? There seem to be more people who had an issue which sounds similar, not being able to boot from EMMC but from SDCard with armbian. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1745265 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1745265
  - crankylinuxuser 7y ago
    Sorry got busy in the interim. Yes, I tried eMMC boot on every emmc capable OS that the Pine-fork of Etcher suggested. And I also tried openBSD as well on suggestion from freenode #pine64 user, to no avail. I then was able to order a usb3->eMMC adapter, and was able to debug the USB and determine my assertions were correct: those eMMC chips ignored the first read operation. I didn't have a jtag for the allwinner chips, but I also did have a serial console. I'd like to say I went above and beyond for testing what I'm defining as defective merchandise. Now, the A64-LTS, the rtc batery holder, and the POE injecters are pretty darn good. I was just hoping for better overall performance with using eMMC.
Abishek_Muthian 7y ago
Incase you're ordering the PinePhone & looking forward to jump on Linux development; check out Ubuntu Touch by UBPorts[1]. UBPorts community have done a commendable job in continuing Ubuntu Touch development after canonical left it. Even Nexus 4 receives regular updates, albeit old kernel due to libHybris Ubuntu Touch is the most accessible Linux phone now because of their support to older available devices. Unfortunately, they don't get enough attention as Purism or PostmarketOS gets. Hopefully, PinePhone should change it. [1]:https://forums.ubports.com/topic/2403/pinephone https://forums.ubports.com/topic/2403/pinephone
- floren 7y ago
  That UBPorts forum is the worst implementation of a discussion thread I've ever seen. Infinite scroll vs. pagination makes it impossible to ever go back and find something quickly, for instance.
- jammygit 7y ago
  I used ubports for a bit. Liked it a lot, very stable. If it had anki and authy I would have stuck with it, and they had plans at the time to support android apps via emulation
- ohazi 7y ago
  "Commendable job" is about the only praise I can give, sadly. I just spent the last two weeks attempting to get an Ubuntu Touch phone to work as a mobile transceiver / network hub for a BLE peripheral that my company is developing. Our device works very well with the standard Linux bluez stack and tools (bluetoothctl, hcitool, etc.), so we thought that this would be the easier route for a one-off project than developing an Android app from scratch, given Android's BLE quirks (e.g. minimum notification interval of 11.25 ms instead of the 7.5 ms that the BLE spec requires -- we have a high bandwidth device that needs the shorter interval). It was a nightmare, and we eventually gave up and wrote an Android app.
  - Abishek_Muthian 7y ago
    Can you go into actual development issue? Was it the QT or were you trying to run a Linux binary.
reaperducer 7y ago
I'm very interested in these machines. Hopefully someone will post a review of them on HN once available. I'm especially interested in hearing how the trackpad is, considering people on HN are always complaining about Linux and trackpads. I wish the site had better photographs. The keyboard pictures are awful, and the Javascript they use to show the pictures prevents me from zooming in to see any detail.
- mbreese 7y ago
  On the Pinebook Pro, the trackpad and keyboard aren’t great. I’m hesitant to say horrible, but it is a very cheap machine so you get what you pay for. I have one of the ISO keyboard “batch 2” machines. I got it last week and the keyboard issues have made it largely unusable for me. Ignoring the trackpad, the keyboard will sometimes refuse to register keypresses or will repeat keys. This is particularly problematic when you type fast (like a password). On mine, the tab key also gets stuck rather often. The trackpad doesn’t have much control for fine movements, which makes resizing windows... interesting. And the trackpad frequently activates spontaneously which causes cursors to move around. Aside from a small issue I had with a loose bezel, the rest of the machine is very nice. It is a good sized (14”), very sturdy design. The screen is pretty good too. Maybe if the keyboard and trackpad firmware gets fixed, then it could be a usable machine.
  - jammygit 7y ago
    Is the keyboard better than the XP’s 13? I hate typing in that thing. I miss my 2015 MacBook w Ubuntu, the hardware was so incredible
    - arglebargle123 7y ago
      I haven't used the XPS 13 so I can't compare them but while the keyboard the PBP is cheap it isn't bad. The touchpad on the other hand makes me want to stab someone every time it misses a two finger right click. I've been eyeing the 2018 Matebook X Pro as a replacement work laptop, everything I've heard about it has been overwhelmingly positive.
philamonster 7y ago
lol @ q3 cpm & cpm1a screenshot on that Pinebook Pro image...
johnnycarcin 7y ago
Any real, day-to-day usage feedback on the PineBook Pro? I've looked around on their forum + reddit, and outside of a couple of reviews (mainly only a day or so into ownership), I haven't found much. This one seems to be the most in-depth so far: http://students.engr.scu.edu/~sschaeck/misc/pinebookpro.html http://students.engr.scu.edu/~sschaeck/misc/pinebookpro.html
- op00to 7y ago
  Yes. I have one. It’s a $199 laptop. It is nowhere near as nice hardware wise as the Macs I use. It works, but everything’s slow and clunky.
  - johnnycarcin 7y ago
    Yeah, I'm not expecting a ton given the price point, I have my "real" machines for work.I would like an open and functional option for traveling, conferences etc though. Maybe it is because of delivery timelines or something, but I don't see many people reviewing these outside of initial unboxing type details...
    - cartoonworld 7y ago
      This is a new product launch, the current users are reporting on the earliest units. The first normal pre-order batch should be shipping this week, and then I believe there are 2 more batches to be shipped until after the Chinese new year. The current preorder is the last for these units for several months. The Pinebook Pro specs compare to a somewhat powerful 6-core arm SBC: 5V power input, easy to charge off a solar panel on your boat, IPS LCD panel, MALI gpu, 4gb Ram (SoC is maxed out, this could be upgradable: Original $99 Pinebook upgrade kits are coming in Q1 2020), 64GB MMC, wifi, no ethernet (use $9 dongle, case too thin), USB-C, a UART accessible from the headphone jack with a $7 dongle breakout thingy, optional $7 M.2 NVME daughter board. This is a (almost) fully opensource chromebook with a magnesium shell, and hardware privacy switches. 2 blobs afiak for Mali GPU and Bluetooth/wifi module. Hackable. Inexpensive accessories already exist with good availability. Replacement parts available, BSD according to the wiki. Personally, I like reasonably powered home computing devices, I just put the stuff with all the fans in the closet. Maybe doing a huge compilation or git merge on the Pinebook hardware is gonna be slow. Full video and smartphone graphics should be fine. Connecting your Pinebook to a Pine64 cluster for big jobs is something you can do today and sounds like a summer project. This client hardware seems pretty decent for two large bills. A specced Librem 15 is $2000 and could be eye watering if it falls off your boat again.

171 points by stamps 7y ago

> We make no profit from selling these units. If you think that a minor dissatisfaction, such as a dead pixel, will prompt you to file a PayPal dispute then please do not purchase the Pinebook Pro. Thank you. This just sounds unsustainable

papermachete 7y ago
Works well so far. Computers are still laughably overpriced overall.
- oh_sigh 7y ago
  The problem is that without making a profit, you have no buffer to handle unforseen risk.
  - voxic11 7y ago
    That isn't what profit means. Savings you are holding for a rainy day are not profit.
    - 24gttghh 7y ago
      The simplest definition of profit seems to imply that someone paid more for something than was put into it. How does one get savings with no profit? edit: I'm trying to ask a question; and I should add, it is my understanding that's how profit is defined. Why would this be downvoted? Do I really have to paste a definition of profit in here?
    - rlucas 7y ago
      Except accounting-wise, and tax-wise, that is what profit means. Retaining a surplus into future periods is generally going to be a taxable event. I suppose you could create a reserve against projected liabilities such as warranty returns (which is commonly done in for-profit companies). But that is pretty well explicitly not for a rainy day or the unexpected; it’s for the rather firmly expected.
      - voxic11 7y ago
        Retained earnings are non-taxable as long as they relate to a legitimate business need.
      - jammygit 7y ago
        Not if you’re Apple and you hide it overseas. Seems a lot like this situation
    - repomies691 7y ago
      Probably meant: business should make profit, from that profit the business can save some money for the rainy day. And I agree. However I don't know who are behind PINE64 - maybe they have some long-term investor backing them up, and they try price at this point as low as possible to get the community going. Actually, I would be interested in investing to this pine thing.
  - papermachete 7y ago
    That's why they sell at short separated periods.
- bityard 7y ago
  You should have seen what they cost three decades ago.
repomies691 7y ago
Well, personally I would prefer them to make profit. I would be willing to pay a bit more since the product seems quite interesting - not actually in the current state, but what the product could be if the business actually flourishes. Better would be something like "Disclaimer: the product can have up to 10 dead pixels which are not covered by warranty."
- llimllib 7y ago
  me too! that's exactly what I'm suggesting, that they should charge more to cover the %age of jerks that will file paypal chargebacks rather than ask people to be kind
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- cartoonworld 7y ago
  I hear what you're saying, but to be clear, Pine Microsystems is not operating a pizza shop. It is much more like a hackerspace or community workshop then a merchant. They offer a direct-from-manufacturer business model, where a non-membership based community of interested stakeholders directly contribute to most if not all of the products. Check out the engineering blog posts. If you are looking for a turnkey solution, not all of Pine64's offerings are able meet your needs (but do snag a $1.99 CH340 Serial console.) and if you preorder the "Braveheart" phone, there is no stable off the shelf OS prepared for it. You cannot buy this and mail it to ahead your hotel and give a demonstration to the board by next Thursday. That said, and I don't think this is superlative at all, Pine64's efforts currently exemplify the internet dream of a "Global Village" economy.
- MayeulC 7y ago
  Right there on the pinebook order page: > Small numbers (1-3) of stuck or dead pixels are a characteristic of LCD screens. These are normal and should not be considered a defect. And: > [...] make no profit from selling these units. If you think that a minor dissatisfaction, such as a dead pixel, will prompt you to file a PayPal dispute then please do not purchase the Pinebook. Thank you.
thinkmassive 7y ago
You stripped the first part of that paragraph: “ When fulfilling the purchase, please bear in mind that we are offering the Pinebook Pro at this price as a community service to PINE64, Linux and BSD communities. We make no profit from selling these units...” While that doesn’t state anything definitively, it sounds like they plan to either increase prices later on, or that the first batch (of PRE-orders keep in mind) is being released early in order to get feedback from customers. In either case it doesn’t sound like they’re planning to operate as a charity forever.
- llimllib 7y ago
  I think you're reading more into it than what is there, but I hope that's the case! Seems like a neat product and I hope they sell it at a sustainable price rather than stay at the bottom and get sunk when people file chargebacks.
- robertely 7y ago
  The Pro is a follow up to the 99$ pinebook, and they have been selling that at the same price for years.
  - cma 7y ago
    I don't know if they make any money at $99, but holding price steady can increase margin over time if the underlying costs go down over time.
cartoonworld 7y ago
They reinvest the cash right back into development and production units. There is risk that this company will evaporate, however: https://www.pine64.org/philosophy/ https://www.pine64.org/philosophy/ None of us is as smart as all of us ~ Ken H. Blanchard At the core of our philosophy is the notion that PINE64 is a community platform. [...] The goal is to deliver ARM64 devices that you really wish to engage with and a platform that you want to be a part of. As such, if you can help them source better quality IPS panels, I know a guy you should talk to.
- llimllib 7y ago
  it sounds like a neat product, I'm just wishing they would charge more to cover the risk/rate of chargebacks rather than simply ask people not to sink them.
  - cartoonworld 7y ago
    Yes of course, it would be nice if a bad batch didn't slow future development to a crawl. Pine64 works in batches, they don't ship promptly, they are also heavily preorder based for in-development projects, and they directly work with developers, as the people who buy them are also the developers of the software which runs on them. If you get a dead pixel, they will sell you another panel. The laptops are modular, check out how they handled the NVME adapter problems: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8117 https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8117 I feel quite confident after seeing their work.
  - StudentStuff 7y ago
    Charging more would make this laptop less accessible to the vast majority of people. The Novena, Talos & many other libre hardware projects were always so expensive as to be botique afterthoughts, rather than "I can spend $100 and get a nice netbook".
jammygit 7y ago
They need to charge slightly more then. Having enough profits to ensure financial security for the organization is not unethical
m463 7y ago
This kind of stuff is frustrating to me. Projects that respect their customers are usually on the edge of oblivion because they don't have a profit or ownership motive. But they are vulnerable to others copying and cost-reducing their work. Customers usually choose the cheaper copy. Projects that are sucessful assure themselves a profit by closing their products and restricting things. Customers are limited in what they can do, or have to be content with buying a crippled product. sigh.

CDSlice 7y ago

Does anyone know if the Pinephone will be able to work on Verizon's network? I am very interested in getting a Pinephone to try out and maybe make some apps for but I don't want to buy another SIM and plan from somewhere else.

ocdtrekkie 7y ago
The chip in the phone is an approved module for Verizon, so theoretically, it can, and the bands needed are supported. Whether or not your Verizon customer service rep will activate the phone is an entirely different question that we'll only find out once we have them in hands and give it a shot. https://opendevelopment.verizonwireless.com/design-and-build/approved-modules/module/8959 https://opendevelopment.verizonwireless.com/design-and-build...
- CDSlice 7y ago
  Awesome! I already have an activated Verizon SIM so hopefully it'll just work with the Pinephone. If not maybe I can just pick up something from Ting.

cf141q5325 7y ago

Really cant wait to get my hands on a pinephone, it looks absolutely amazing. Hopefully I will be quick enough to get a BraveHeart model for christmas, I would rather not test my technical skills with assembling the developer edition. Hardware switches for almost everything and open source software :D

newnewpdro 7y ago
> Hardware switches for almost everything and open source software :D I just flipped through the various pinephone PDFs linked from the November update and saw no evidence of hardware kill switches. Maybe they're buried in the schematics, but the exploded phone diagram has nothing for them. Can you link where you saw mention/proof of this?
- cf141q5325 7y ago
  https://www.pine64.org/2019/09/05/september-update-the-pinephone-is-real-shipping-soon/ https://www.pine64.org/2019/09/05/september-update-the-pinep... >The detachable back panel – which covers the privacy switches, pogo pins and the removable battery – is made of a durable soft-touch plastic. https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone > Privacy Switches: LTE (include GPS), Wifi/BT, Mic, and Camera edit: You can see them at the first link (picture "PinePhone mainboard + daughterboard (prototype) "), its the little switches above the sdcard reader
  - newnewpdro 7y ago
    Thanks. Well, I guess that's better than nothing. I can't see myself removing the battery cover and flipping dip switches every time I want to utilize GPS and cellular networks, and again when I'm done, though. But it does let them check the "hw kill switches" box...
    - cf141q5325 7y ago
      I mean i think its about what you expect of the device. Many users would likely be unhappy with having the buttons pressable on the outside due do being prone to an accidental disable-able. Its a fringe feature. Having the option to reversibly disable these components is exactly what i am looking for. So while I will be unlikely to use GPS and LTE or the simcard for that matter, I am not sure about WIFI, cam and microphone yet. Either way, It sure as hell beats soldering them off. Hopefully the cover is also as easily removable as promised. But even if not, i would still get one if all killswitches were 0 Ohm resistors. I think just posting the link here gave the wrong impression. Its an open Linux phone with HW-Killswitches. If that sentence on its own doesnt have you grin like a kid on Christmas, its likely not yet the device for you. But as was often said when talking about the Pinephone, its a start. At this point the target demographic is still developers not people who are looking for an open source replacement of their current smartphone. Its why the batch is called "brave heart". While there are operating systems booting on it already, the expectations Pine set when the developers edition came out were rather low.

24gttghh 7y ago

Any idea of the expected price?

MayeulC 7y ago
USD $150 [1] [1]: https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone
- 24gttghh 7y ago
  No shit. Good price. Thanks!
- mpnordland 7y ago
  At that price it can have 2 dead pixels and I'd still buy it.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

MayeulC 7y ago

I would like to order both a PinePhone and a PineTime (plus a couple more for friends), but I have no idea if they will be available for order/shipping at the same time[1]. And ideally, I would like a pineTime as well. I would like to write a program to alert me when I'm forgetting my phone while travelling, for instance :) [1] Asked here: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8158&pid=51528#pid51528 https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=8158&pid=51528#p...

justinclift 7y ago
Yeah. Hoping they do produce more PineTime dev kits, as Go can now be compiled directly for it (via TinyGo) and a friend has a good project in mind it would suit.

ocdtrekkie 7y ago

Got my Pinebook Pro preorder in. Will order a PinePhone when it opens as well. Using both as a way to test the waters of using Linux as my daily "consumer PC" replacement, since the price makes it fairly painless to do so.

teekert 7y ago
A bit unfair since your win10 counterpart was probably not an ARM processor, so keep that in mind :)
- ocdtrekkie 7y ago
  I'm far less worried about raw performance, as I am in the workflow and software availability in general. I need to see if I can take out a Linux machine where I would take a Windows machine, and not go "darn, I can't do what I need to because I'm not running Windows". (And if I hit "darn, I can't do what I need to because I have an ARM chip", that's not a knock on Linux as an option.) I can always get a more powerful Linux machine at another time. ;)
  - type0 7y ago
    > (And if I hit "darn, I can't do what I need to because I have an ARM chip", that's not a knock on Linux as an option.) Some binaries might not be available depending on what you do or what distro you use, but generally you could always compile the software yourself, it could take a while so as long as you are not in a hurry.
    - btschaegg 7y ago
      This. The fact that very few extensible editors came prebuilt with Arch for my Chromebooks a couple of years ago was the reason I picked up Vim, for example. Though this probably is less of a problem now if you like VS Code.
cartoonworld 7y ago
Don't forget about the open source community designed PineTime! (est price: $25) They are also developing an open source tablet, PineTab. They already have several full lines of SBC Raspberry Pi killers as well. Several are designated LTS Long Term Support with guaranteed availability (See offer for details, restrictions apply, Pine64 can not be held responsible for any sweet hacks or enjoyable Sundays caused by its devices. Hack Responsibly.)

cartoonworld 7y ago

I have been clamoring for this product for years. If this looks good to you, check out their other offerings. They are extremely compelling. Also, the $1.99 serial console is very nice.

yumraj 7y ago

Does anyone know who are the people behind Pine64? Where is the company based/incorporated. I couldn't find any info on the website.

dmix 7y ago
The blog and an interview [1] have been by Lukasz Erecinski. Although Wikipedia mentions TL Lim: > Although the original Kickstarter page mentioned a company called "Pine64 Inc.", all devices are manufactured and sold by Pine Microsystems Inc. based in Fremont, California. Its founder is TL Lim, the inventor of the PopBox and Popcorn Hour series of media players sold under the Syabas and Cloud Media brands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Microsystems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Microsystems [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bibXkrT8AqU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bibXkrT8AqU

louib 7y ago

About the PineTime > Since this is a community driven side-project, we have started considering making the dev-kits available to everyone in the store. That would be awesome. I've been looking for an open watch to play with recently. I hope they go forward with that idea.

xorcist 7y ago
Battery life seems promising too! (They aim for 10 days.) This might actually turn out more useful than many of the boutique smartwatches.

crankylinuxuser 7y ago

As a dissatisfied customer, I bought a bought a bunch of A64-LTS with Poe, eMMC and battery holders. Turns out their eMMCs are defective. Here's what's happening: The eMMCs ignore the first read instruction, and then work from the second one on. On Linux boot, initrd makes a read request that never returns, and hangs. If you boot off of a mSD, it woris well. You can still mount the eMMC, but you cant boot with them. I did receiver a report that someone found a bootable (doesn't ignore first read) eMMC. But that was 1. (Disclosure, I opened a PayPal dispute and sent back the eMMCs of my own expense. But the never responded so I got all $293 back. This goes along with 0 communication even when I was trying to do the right thing. I'm also trying to start a hardware business, and chose this platform because of no embedded radios, etc, and 1gigE on its own SPI bus.) Tldr. Defective hardware, don't buy.

cf498 7y ago
I didnt find anything about this in the Pine Forum or via google, just this thread on Armbian https://forum.armbian.com/topic/7783-cant-install-pine-a64-lts-to-emmc/ https://forum.armbian.com/topic/7783-cant-install-pine-a64-l... Do you have any more information or a link where to follow up on this? Skimming the threads in the forum https://forum.pine64.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=67 https://forum.pine64.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=67 has more then one person saying that they managed to boot from the EMMC. edit: nevermind found it https://www.reddit.com/r/PINE64official/comments/df6yxz/pine_a64lts_isnt_able_to_boot_from_emmc/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PINE64official/comments/df6yxz/pine... edit2: Are you sure you didnt run into a problem with Armbian? Did you test it with any other OS? There seem to be more people who had an issue which sounds similar, not being able to boot from EMMC but from SDCard with armbian. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1745265 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1745265
- crankylinuxuser 7y ago
  Sorry got busy in the interim. Yes, I tried eMMC boot on every emmc capable OS that the Pine-fork of Etcher suggested. And I also tried openBSD as well on suggestion from freenode #pine64 user, to no avail. I then was able to order a usb3->eMMC adapter, and was able to debug the USB and determine my assertions were correct: those eMMC chips ignored the first read operation. I didn't have a jtag for the allwinner chips, but I also did have a serial console. I'd like to say I went above and beyond for testing what I'm defining as defective merchandise. Now, the A64-LTS, the rtc batery holder, and the POE injecters are pretty darn good. I was just hoping for better overall performance with using eMMC.

Abishek_Muthian 7y ago

Incase you're ordering the PinePhone & looking forward to jump on Linux development; check out Ubuntu Touch by UBPorts[1]. UBPorts community have done a commendable job in continuing Ubuntu Touch development after canonical left it. Even Nexus 4 receives regular updates, albeit old kernel due to libHybris Ubuntu Touch is the most accessible Linux phone now because of their support to older available devices. Unfortunately, they don't get enough attention as Purism or PostmarketOS gets. Hopefully, PinePhone should change it. [1]:https://forums.ubports.com/topic/2403/pinephone https://forums.ubports.com/topic/2403/pinephone

floren 7y ago
That UBPorts forum is the worst implementation of a discussion thread I've ever seen. Infinite scroll vs. pagination makes it impossible to ever go back and find something quickly, for instance.
jammygit 7y ago
I used ubports for a bit. Liked it a lot, very stable. If it had anki and authy I would have stuck with it, and they had plans at the time to support android apps via emulation
ohazi 7y ago
"Commendable job" is about the only praise I can give, sadly. I just spent the last two weeks attempting to get an Ubuntu Touch phone to work as a mobile transceiver / network hub for a BLE peripheral that my company is developing. Our device works very well with the standard Linux bluez stack and tools (bluetoothctl, hcitool, etc.), so we thought that this would be the easier route for a one-off project than developing an Android app from scratch, given Android's BLE quirks (e.g. minimum notification interval of 11.25 ms instead of the 7.5 ms that the BLE spec requires -- we have a high bandwidth device that needs the shorter interval). It was a nightmare, and we eventually gave up and wrote an Android app.
- Abishek_Muthian 7y ago
  Can you go into actual development issue? Was it the QT or were you trying to run a Linux binary.

reaperducer 7y ago

I'm very interested in these machines. Hopefully someone will post a review of them on HN once available. I'm especially interested in hearing how the trackpad is, considering people on HN are always complaining about Linux and trackpads. I wish the site had better photographs. The keyboard pictures are awful, and the Javascript they use to show the pictures prevents me from zooming in to see any detail.

mbreese 7y ago
On the Pinebook Pro, the trackpad and keyboard aren’t great. I’m hesitant to say horrible, but it is a very cheap machine so you get what you pay for. I have one of the ISO keyboard “batch 2” machines. I got it last week and the keyboard issues have made it largely unusable for me. Ignoring the trackpad, the keyboard will sometimes refuse to register keypresses or will repeat keys. This is particularly problematic when you type fast (like a password). On mine, the tab key also gets stuck rather often. The trackpad doesn’t have much control for fine movements, which makes resizing windows... interesting. And the trackpad frequently activates spontaneously which causes cursors to move around. Aside from a small issue I had with a loose bezel, the rest of the machine is very nice. It is a good sized (14”), very sturdy design. The screen is pretty good too. Maybe if the keyboard and trackpad firmware gets fixed, then it could be a usable machine.
- jammygit 7y ago
  Is the keyboard better than the XP’s 13? I hate typing in that thing. I miss my 2015 MacBook w Ubuntu, the hardware was so incredible
  - arglebargle123 7y ago
    I haven't used the XPS 13 so I can't compare them but while the keyboard the PBP is cheap it isn't bad. The touchpad on the other hand makes me want to stab someone every time it misses a two finger right click. I've been eyeing the 2018 Matebook X Pro as a replacement work laptop, everything I've heard about it has been overwhelmingly positive.

philamonster 7y ago

lol @ q3 cpm & cpm1a screenshot on that Pinebook Pro image...

johnnycarcin 7y ago

Any real, day-to-day usage feedback on the PineBook Pro? I've looked around on their forum + reddit, and outside of a couple of reviews (mainly only a day or so into ownership), I haven't found much. This one seems to be the most in-depth so far: http://students.engr.scu.edu/~sschaeck/misc/pinebookpro.html http://students.engr.scu.edu/~sschaeck/misc/pinebookpro.html

op00to 7y ago
Yes. I have one. It’s a $199 laptop. It is nowhere near as nice hardware wise as the Macs I use. It works, but everything’s slow and clunky.
- johnnycarcin 7y ago
  Yeah, I'm not expecting a ton given the price point, I have my "real" machines for work.I would like an open and functional option for traveling, conferences etc though. Maybe it is because of delivery timelines or something, but I don't see many people reviewing these outside of initial unboxing type details...
  - cartoonworld 7y ago
    This is a new product launch, the current users are reporting on the earliest units. The first normal pre-order batch should be shipping this week, and then I believe there are 2 more batches to be shipped until after the Chinese new year. The current preorder is the last for these units for several months. The Pinebook Pro specs compare to a somewhat powerful 6-core arm SBC: 5V power input, easy to charge off a solar panel on your boat, IPS LCD panel, MALI gpu, 4gb Ram (SoC is maxed out, this could be upgradable: Original $99 Pinebook upgrade kits are coming in Q1 2020), 64GB MMC, wifi, no ethernet (use $9 dongle, case too thin), USB-C, a UART accessible from the headphone jack with a $7 dongle breakout thingy, optional $7 M.2 NVME daughter board. This is a (almost) fully opensource chromebook with a magnesium shell, and hardware privacy switches. 2 blobs afiak for Mali GPU and Bluetooth/wifi module. Hackable. Inexpensive accessories already exist with good availability. Replacement parts available, BSD according to the wiki. Personally, I like reasonably powered home computing devices, I just put the stuff with all the fans in the closet. Maybe doing a huge compilation or git merge on the Pinebook hardware is gonna be slow. Full video and smartphone graphics should be fine. Connecting your Pinebook to a Pine64 cluster for big jobs is something you can do today and sounds like a summer project. This client hardware seems pretty decent for two large bills. A specced Librem 15 is $2000 and could be eye watering if it falls off your boat again.