5 ms·

Does anyone here have experience with actually using the pinephone as a daily driver? I know plenty of people that ordered one, but they are all laying on a dr

by LeonM 6y ago

Does anyone here have experience with actually using the pinephone as a daily driver? I know plenty of people that ordered one, but they are all laying on a drawer somewhere with the intention to play with it a bit. Basically how most RPi's end up. Just curious if this phone is actually competitive with android devices in the same price class.

fsflover 6y ago
I am using it as a daily driver. However, it does not survive a day with an average use. I use a second battery or switch it off when not using. Calls can occasionally be missed (Mobian Phosh), but you get a notification immediately and can call back. Desktop Firefox with all plugins is amazing.
blendergeek 6y ago
> Does anyone here have experience with actually using the pinephone as a daily driver? I do. I have been using my pmOS edition as my daily driver since the day i gott it. > Just curious if this phone is actually competitive with android devices in the same price class. That depends on your needs. It is not going to have any of the proprietary app that are on Android. So, what works? - Camera: stills only - Phone calls: Yes. Sometimes calls don't come through but it usualy works. - Messaging: SMS works, unless you need MMS. If people send you group SMS or picture messages, these are MMS. MMS not only don't work but disable the ability to receive SMS. The user must use command line tools to fix this. - GPS works. However the default pmOS maps app only works with an active internet connection. Further it does not do navigation. You can get directions but you cannot do turn-by-turn navigation on the road. There is an app that works for this called PureMaps. It works as expected. - Web browsing works great with desktop firefox even on mobile. - Convergence. The phone advertises that you can plug in a monitor. This is technically true, however it only works while the phone is running from battery power. Further using the dock drains battery extremely quickly and is therefore only recommended on wallpower. So this is still a work in progress. - Bluetooth. Bluetooth headphones work for music but not for phone calls. If you have any questions, ask and i'll try to answer. Whether its "competitive" with Android phones is opinion. For me, its way better and i am glad to have it.
- jcun4128 6y ago
  > Camera: stills only Are you saying it can't record video? Curious what kind of stuff you've installed. I'm assuming I can do `$dpkg -i package.deb` and it will work?
  - ben-schaaf 6y ago
    Yes, it can't record video yet. > I'm assuming I can do `$dpkg -i package.deb` and it will work? Well, not on PostmarketOS as that's based on Alpine Linux. Mobian on the other hand is based on debian so you can dpkg to your heart's content.
    - jcun4128 6y ago
      Yeah that's fair sorry I was under the "KDE/Neon" pretense, I did briefly check that out seems like it is related to Debian or at least able to use .deb... I'm hoping. At least there is the Mobian as you mentioned.
  - megous 6y ago
    Camera can record video, 720p will probably be a limit unless you don't mind lower than 30fps framerate. Here's my test recording from a few weeks ago: https://megous.com/dl/tmp/vid-720.mp4 https://megous.com/dl/tmp/vid-720.mp4 You can only encode via CPU for now, and at best you may be able to encode to x264 at the ultrafast profile. (don't remember which one is fastest, but it's the fastest one) Encoding with the fastest available profile just happens to run at 30fps, so it's still not enough to for realtime encoding even via CPU, if you account for the fact that CPU will start throttling soon after you start loading all 4 cores at once to the max. So I recorded the above by saving raw frames. :) Video image quality sucks of course. (that frame counter is all white uniform background in reality)
    - jcun4128 6y ago
      Don't mean to be nosy ha, what is the code you were working on/had on screen? Perhaps not specifics but language/context the grouping seemed interesting. (the indents are insane is it Go/Linux?) I guess when you say "saving raw frames"... are you saying this video you made was not simple by "push record button, .mp4 comes out"? Oh the white background comment is about the iso/bad balance? Anyway thanks this is pretty cool... I just ordered mine so won't be able to play around with it till January.
ekianjo 6y ago
here's a recent review: https://boilingsteam.com/pinephone-community-edition-ce-review/ https://boilingsteam.com/pinephone-community-edition-ce-revi...
- linmob 6y ago
  July isn’t exactly recent with a project that’s so much in development. I have been following the PinePhone intensely since July for my blog linmob.net and often found that what I experienced two weeks ago is not worth talking about today, because development progressed a lot since. (Occasionally, regressions happen, too.)
unpixer 6y ago
I tried using Mobian as a daily driver, and found it usable but not necessarily ideal. Audio calls were comprehensible but sounded tinny, and people I was calling complained of an echo. Text messages worked, although I would have preferred Signal, and voicemail notifications came through as semi-cryptic text messages. As a portable terminal and web client though, it was perfectly acceptable albeit a bit pokey.

by LeonM 6y ago

fsflover 6y ago

I am using it as a daily driver. However, it does not survive a day with an average use. I use a second battery or switch it off when not using. Calls can occasionally be missed (Mobian Phosh), but you get a notification immediately and can call back. Desktop Firefox with all plugins is amazing.

blendergeek 6y ago

> Does anyone here have experience with actually using the pinephone as a daily driver? I do. I have been using my pmOS edition as my daily driver since the day i gott it. > Just curious if this phone is actually competitive with android devices in the same price class. That depends on your needs. It is not going to have any of the proprietary app that are on Android. So, what works? - Camera: stills only - Phone calls: Yes. Sometimes calls don't come through but it usualy works. - Messaging: SMS works, unless you need MMS. If people send you group SMS or picture messages, these are MMS. MMS not only don't work but disable the ability to receive SMS. The user must use command line tools to fix this. - GPS works. However the default pmOS maps app only works with an active internet connection. Further it does not do navigation. You can get directions but you cannot do turn-by-turn navigation on the road. There is an app that works for this called PureMaps. It works as expected. - Web browsing works great with desktop firefox even on mobile. - Convergence. The phone advertises that you can plug in a monitor. This is technically true, however it only works while the phone is running from battery power. Further using the dock drains battery extremely quickly and is therefore only recommended on wallpower. So this is still a work in progress. - Bluetooth. Bluetooth headphones work for music but not for phone calls. If you have any questions, ask and i'll try to answer. Whether its "competitive" with Android phones is opinion. For me, its way better and i am glad to have it.

jcun4128 6y ago
> Camera: stills only Are you saying it can't record video? Curious what kind of stuff you've installed. I'm assuming I can do `$dpkg -i package.deb` and it will work?
- ben-schaaf 6y ago
  Yes, it can't record video yet. > I'm assuming I can do `$dpkg -i package.deb` and it will work? Well, not on PostmarketOS as that's based on Alpine Linux. Mobian on the other hand is based on debian so you can dpkg to your heart's content.
  - jcun4128 6y ago
    Yeah that's fair sorry I was under the "KDE/Neon" pretense, I did briefly check that out seems like it is related to Debian or at least able to use .deb... I'm hoping. At least there is the Mobian as you mentioned.
- megous 6y ago
  Camera can record video, 720p will probably be a limit unless you don't mind lower than 30fps framerate. Here's my test recording from a few weeks ago: https://megous.com/dl/tmp/vid-720.mp4 https://megous.com/dl/tmp/vid-720.mp4 You can only encode via CPU for now, and at best you may be able to encode to x264 at the ultrafast profile. (don't remember which one is fastest, but it's the fastest one) Encoding with the fastest available profile just happens to run at 30fps, so it's still not enough to for realtime encoding even via CPU, if you account for the fact that CPU will start throttling soon after you start loading all 4 cores at once to the max. So I recorded the above by saving raw frames. :) Video image quality sucks of course. (that frame counter is all white uniform background in reality)
  - jcun4128 6y ago
    Don't mean to be nosy ha, what is the code you were working on/had on screen? Perhaps not specifics but language/context the grouping seemed interesting. (the indents are insane is it Go/Linux?) I guess when you say "saving raw frames"... are you saying this video you made was not simple by "push record button, .mp4 comes out"? Oh the white background comment is about the iso/bad balance? Anyway thanks this is pretty cool... I just ordered mine so won't be able to play around with it till January.

ekianjo 6y ago

here's a recent review: https://boilingsteam.com/pinephone-community-edition-ce-review/ https://boilingsteam.com/pinephone-community-edition-ce-revi...

linmob 6y ago
July isn’t exactly recent with a project that’s so much in development. I have been following the PinePhone intensely since July for my blog linmob.net and often found that what I experienced two weeks ago is not worth talking about today, because development progressed a lot since. (Occasionally, regressions happen, too.)

unpixer 6y ago

I tried using Mobian as a daily driver, and found it usable but not necessarily ideal. Audio calls were comprehensible but sounded tinny, and people I was calling complained of an echo. Text messages worked, although I would have preferred Signal, and voicemail notifications came through as semi-cryptic text messages. As a portable terminal and web client though, it was perfectly acceptable albeit a bit pokey.