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How do you see this develop in the future, especially concerning the convergence aspect of it - the ability to hook it up to a monitor and use it as a real desk

How do you see this develop in the future, especially concerning the convergence aspect of it - the ability to hook it up to a monitor and use it as a real desktop computer. Please provide your own personal and unofficial opinion.

ognarb 6y ago
The Pinephone supports convergence, but there is still a lot of work needed on the software side. The under-laying technology "Plasmashell" is able to run different view modes: the traditional desktop mode, the mobile mode and the smart tv mode (https://plasma-bigscreen.org/ https://plasma-bigscreen.org/). The missing link is the possibility to switch the view at runtime. Now while I think the feature is cool, I'm not sure how useful it is. I don't really see myself using it and would prefer in almost all the case using my thinkpad with a good processor and plenty of RAM. This might change with future versions of the Pinephone getting more powerful with the time. For the moment, I'm happy to have the convergence of the applications with Kirigami, so that I only need to develop them once and use a similar interface on both my phone and laptop. And having KDE Connect to share stuff between my phone and my laptop.
- sto_hristo 6y ago
  Alright, thanks. For me the desktop capability of it is the most exciting thing. There are lots tasks i can do that don't require powerful cpu and lots of ram. I can even see myself developing in certain cases where i can just remote into a dedicated workstation - seeing what games mobile phones can run, it's not hard to imagine one can run a thing like vscode in client mode.
  - megous 6y ago
    Yes, it works quite fine. Even web browsing is not too horrible if you really need it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdKNugT-mTQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdKNugT-mTQ Enough for HN browsing, for sure. Even on a 1440p display.
megous 6y ago
It can be very useful if you use all HW acceleration Allwinner SoCs can give you to make PinePhone into a portable movie player. :) Hook it up to a TV via HDMI port in a hotel and play anything you like. It can achieve quite some performance that way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyRm8kccyG4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyRm8kccyG4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHOgVmxH_dA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHOgVmxH_dA Other side of Allwinner SoC business is making TV box SoC (H* series of SoC), and it shows on A64 too. It can do video playback at 60FPS HW scaled to larger 1440p displays, for example. Including audio over HDMI. This is already working with current gstreamer and kernel.

ognarb 6y ago

The Pinephone supports convergence, but there is still a lot of work needed on the software side. The under-laying technology "Plasmashell" is able to run different view modes: the traditional desktop mode, the mobile mode and the smart tv mode (https://plasma-bigscreen.org/ https://plasma-bigscreen.org/). The missing link is the possibility to switch the view at runtime. Now while I think the feature is cool, I'm not sure how useful it is. I don't really see myself using it and would prefer in almost all the case using my thinkpad with a good processor and plenty of RAM. This might change with future versions of the Pinephone getting more powerful with the time. For the moment, I'm happy to have the convergence of the applications with Kirigami, so that I only need to develop them once and use a similar interface on both my phone and laptop. And having KDE Connect to share stuff between my phone and my laptop.

sto_hristo 6y ago
Alright, thanks. For me the desktop capability of it is the most exciting thing. There are lots tasks i can do that don't require powerful cpu and lots of ram. I can even see myself developing in certain cases where i can just remote into a dedicated workstation - seeing what games mobile phones can run, it's not hard to imagine one can run a thing like vscode in client mode.
- megous 6y ago
  Yes, it works quite fine. Even web browsing is not too horrible if you really need it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdKNugT-mTQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdKNugT-mTQ Enough for HN browsing, for sure. Even on a 1440p display.

megous 6y ago

It can be very useful if you use all HW acceleration Allwinner SoCs can give you to make PinePhone into a portable movie player. :) Hook it up to a TV via HDMI port in a hotel and play anything you like. It can achieve quite some performance that way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyRm8kccyG4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyRm8kccyG4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHOgVmxH_dA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHOgVmxH_dA Other side of Allwinner SoC business is making TV box SoC (H* series of SoC), and it shows on A64 too. It can do video playback at 60FPS HW scaled to larger 1440p displays, for example. Including audio over HDMI. This is already working with current gstreamer and kernel.