13 ms·
PINE64 December Update
- thepete2 6y agoThey plan on making a keyboard for the Pinephone which effectively gives you a ~$250 phone-sized linux computer with a cell phone modem. That's seriously cool
- thepete2 6y agoOh and btw. for the price of an iPhone charger [0] you can literally buy 3 extra batteries plus charger ... [1] [0] https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MHXH3AM/A/magsafe-charger https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MHXH3AM/A/magsafe-charger [1] https://pine64.com/product-category/smartphone-spare-parts https://pine64.com/product-category/smartphone-spare-parts
- baybal2 6y agoThose 65W Navitas based chargers are actually all exact copies of the reference design, and most are made by a single factory. GaNFETs are there mostly for the marketing, and don't make any much more difference than few percents efficiency at such power level.
- aidenn0 6y agoI'd have to look at the numbers, but a few percent points of efficiency can be a big difference in the power (and thus heat) dissipation of the device; going from 90% to 92% efficiency reduces the power dissipated in the device by 20%.
- voltagex_ 6y agoThey won't let you buy those batteries in non-US locations. The "suggested alternative" is to file down a Samsung battery.
- freedomben 6y agoAs appalling as this is, I kind of love it. Pine stuff is for hackers 8-)
- anderspitman 6y agoI love that the battery is replaceable. Though I wish mobile devices included tiny backup batteries that give you ~1min to swap the battery without having to reboot the device. This would especially be useful for my gopro which I often use for long captures that I don't want to interrupt. But it would also be nice on my PinePhone.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tartoran 6y agoAnd it will be a very usable keyboard with additional power underneath.
- abdullahkhalids 6y agoWhere and when can I get a decent laptop with a cell phone modem built in, so I can just use that for messaging apps, and only own a dumb phone.
- pengaru 6y agoLenovo has offered WWAN options for ages, continuing what was already an established IBM ThinkPad option.
- pimeys 6y agoI have an old ThinkPad X230 with a WWAN modem. Installed OpenBSD to it and it just works as a nice small travel laptop. The model is from year 2013.
- abdullahkhalids 6y agoHow do you use the WWAN? How could I install, say Whatsapp or Signal, on my laptop?
- nvrspyx 6y agoYou'd have to activate it with a cell provider that supports WWAN and then you can just use the desktop (or web) versions of WhatsApp or Signal.
- ArchOversight 6y agoThe WhatsApp desktop app (or web version) actually communicates with your smart phone to do the actual sending/receiving/communications. If you turn off your cell phone and attempt to use WhatsApp web it will fail.
- danielheath 6y agoSignal has a desktop app; you might need to put the sim into an android/iOS device for initial setup.
- 6y ago
- tenkabuto 6y agoThere's a good video version of this update: https://youtu.be/ULs5gOiLrfY https://youtu.be/ULs5gOiLrfY
- Ericson2314 6y agoThey are so good, and so humble. Virtually every update talks about tons of issues, and yet they are best in class.
- baybal2 6y agoIndeed, they are many times ahead any previous take on open source hardware exactly because they are pragmatic, without big nebulous plans to attract the crowd, and money. The later proves to be too easy, and actually doing something with the money raised is much harder that "go to the first ODM behind the corner" Too many Kickstarter crowd people chose the "go to the first ODM behind the corner" route, and get burned over, and over, and over again.
- Klasiaster 6y agoWhile not mentioned in the blog post: A huge thanks to the Mobian folks for making a really good mobile OS on top of Debian with only a few packages in a custom repo while still using the standard Debian repo for the rest. As for the PinePhone keyboard: It would be nice to have a ThinkPad-like TrackPoint to not rely on the touch screen and also for external monitors that don't have touch support.
- baybal2 6y agoIt has I2C connectivity. Any i2c joystick/trackpoint should work. Splice in TCA8424, or SK5210, and that's it.
- anderspitman 6y agoI think the touchscreen is fine on a screen that small. It would be cool to be able to use the touchscreen as a touchpad when using an external monitor though. Obviously that's doable purely in software.
- swiley 6y agoIf you're on X11 I think that's a configuration change.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y agoHear hear. I moved from Ubuntu mobile and ( while there are still issues ), it is a world of difference. If you are reading this. Thank you.
- qchris 6y agoAs a user of Mobian, just wanted to give everyone a friendly reminder that the project has a LiberaPay page at https://liberapay.com/mobian/donate https://liberapay.com/mobian/donate, through which you might be able to help encourage/enable the developers to keep up the great work :) (Not a dev for that project, just a happy user)
- ncmncm 6y ago
- necrotic_comp 6y agoI'm so excited about this - I'm looking forward to picking up a pinephone after the next round of updates.
- blackbear_ 6y agoThey are doing great things, looking forward to receiving my pinephone sometime next year!
- shirakawasuna 6y agoVery impressive updates. So glad to see this project have wings.
- W-Stool 6y agoI bought a Pinebook Pro when they were last available and I was really pleasantly surprised at how good the build quality was and the display quality was excellent. Unfortunately they are not currently available - their LCD supplier bailed on them (according to the December news). Once they become available again I could easily imagine worse things to do with US$200.
- apricot 6y agoI love everything about my Pinebook Pro except the trackpad, which suffers from lag. Not much, just enough to be really annoying.
- dleslie 6y agoDid you take off the protective cover? It's not very noticeable to the eye, but it greatly diminishes the trackpad response. I had to stick tape to it to peel off the cover.
- apricot 6y agoI did. I also applied the software patches I found when googling the problem, such as https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=9094 https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=9094. It made the trackpad go from unusable to really annoying, which is progress. Some people are looking into it: https://github.com/akirakyle/pinebook-pro-keyboard-updater/tree/master/firmware/disassembly https://github.com/akirakyle/pinebook-pro-keyboard-updater/t...
- dleslie 6y agoWeird; the experience of the mouse not stopping when your finger is removed is one I haven't had. I wonder if there's a difference in our devices?
- apricot 6y agoCould be. Certainly the problem is not unique to mine. Maybe they eventually fixed it, or maybe it only shows up on some batches, and I've been unlucky. I want to emphasize that this is my only complaint regarding the Pinebook Pro. Everything else is really good, actually much better than could be expected for the price.
- SubiculumCode 6y agoI'm not into over-powered phones, but do like a good camera. Anyone have one of the pine phones?
- nyanpasu64 6y agoThe PinePhone camera is not good, blurry at high light, noisy at medium to low light levels. The Megapixels app is an attempt to create the best software possible for the PinePhone hardware, and looks less bad than the default camera used before.
- kop316 6y agoI don't use the camera really, but here's some pictures from the camera app dev: https://blog.brixit.nl/camera-on-the-pinephone/ https://blog.brixit.nl/camera-on-the-pinephone/ https://blog.brixit.nl/pinephone-camera-part-2/ https://blog.brixit.nl/pinephone-camera-part-2/ https://blog.brixit.nl/pinephone-camera-adventures-part-3/ https://blog.brixit.nl/pinephone-camera-adventures-part-3/ https://blog.brixit.nl/pinephone-camera-pt4/ https://blog.brixit.nl/pinephone-camera-pt4/
- 1-6 6y agoYikes, those photos aren't so great. There's a decent amount of noise. I guess it's hard to compete at the level of some phone manufacturers. I do love the elegance of taking photos with commands: $ camera.py still rear.raw -c rear -r 1080p1 --raw --pixfmt $ bayer2rgb -i rear.raw -w 1920 -v 1080 -b 8 -f BGGR -t -o rear.tiff $ darktable rear.tiff
- MartijnBraam 6y agoYeah the sensor really needs daylight to get acceptable picture quality, ideally a cloudy day because it doesn't have the latitude to deal with the highlight/shadows of direct sunlight. It might be possible to get slightly more from the sensor for static scenes using astrophotography techniques like stacking but in most cases that won't be practical.
- akudha 6y agoI see 4 phones here https://pine64.com/product-category/pinephone/?v=0446c16e2e66 https://pine64.com/product-category/pinephone/?v=0446c16e2e6... For someone with limited linux (I know basic commands etc, but never tinkered at the OS level), which model should I get?
- thinkmassive 6y agoThe convergence package increases the internal flash (eMMC) storage from 16GB to 32GB, and the RAM from 2GB to 3GB. That leaves two hardware configurations, each available with Manjaro or KDE pre-loaded. It looks like the Manjaro version may only be available in the EU, so that might simplify your decision. The PinePhone is awesome--I love my Braveheart edition--but you should probably have a decent understanding of Linux and/or embedded systems (at least replacing an Android bootloader) in order to appreciate it at this point. If your goal is to learn then it certainly could be fun, although you might want to supplement with something a little more beginner friendly like a Raspberry Pi or a laptop/desktop you can boot from USB. Personally I would only advise someone to purchase a PinePhone now if they're totally comfortable replacing the OS, in which case the edition it ships with doesn't really matter (other than the branding).
- akudha 6y agoDo you use it as your main phone? Or is it just for tinkering? It is not that expensive, I wouldn’t be upset even if I somehow brick/break it
- kop316 6y agoI am very much a linux guy/tinkerer, and it is very very close to being a main phone. What really hurts me to not do it is lack of MMS (YMMV). (I would say for the average person, it is not there yet). If you bricked it, I would be impressed. They made it very easy to flash, and made it easy to boot from an SD card.
- akudha 6y ago
- jepper 6y agoAn incredible project pushing for open hardware. Very happy with my pinebook pro and rockpro. The pinebook pro has amazing build quality and usability for the price. When my oneplus dies hopefully there will be a pinephone 2!
- fsflover 6y agoThere is already Pinephone 2 and it's called Librem 5 :)
- bfuclusion 6y agoThe $799 Librem isn't in the same marketplace as the $200 Pinephone. I can't see Pine64 charging $799 for a very very long time.
- fsflover 6y agoIt's easy to charge less when you do not develop any software and use software developed by Purism. This is not an entirely fair price in my view. $10 donation to developers per purchase does not cut it. Also, higher specs definitely must be more expensive.
- modo_mario 6y agoTrue. I think the issue is that for a platform like this to survive it will need community developers. Idk how much purism software they use or what they lend from pureOS but Pine64 has distros and projects like kde throwing themselves behind the idea with their mobile variants and probably contributing upstream. They also all help advertise. This is great especially when in the early stages it generally isn't purchased to replace a main phone. Pinephone's pricepoint allows for people to get it on the side to tinker with, develop for it, etc and people that get it at that price don't really care too much bout the occasional bit of lag or glitch. Additionally something like a better camera on the librem to account for the price doesn't appeal to a lot of people if they have to wait for drivers for it. I also think pine64 has more people working remotely from all over the place and is registered in hong kong or malaysia since recently whilst purism with lots of remote stuff going on also has staff in san francisco and pays more taxes there? Correct me if i'm wrong tho.
- anderspitman 6y agoAm I crazy, or has pine64 actually managed to build a sustainable ARM Linux company? There have been a hundred of these projects over the years. I feel like they tend to launch with a lot of fanfare, and eventually lose steam and die. But pine64 seems to have started humbly and slowly be building momentum. Their margins have to be tiny though, judging by the impressive build quality of my $150 PinePhone.
- CameronNemo 6y agoFrom what I have read, their margins are non existent. They are not aiming to turn a profit right now.
- panny 6y agoLooking at crunchbase, they've only raised funds using a kickstarter once. It seems like they're making enough to pay salaries and keep the show going. I know some of their products are not priced for profit, but the company as a whole seems to be doing well and growing. It doesn't seem like the typical overhyped SV company that only survives on VC money.
- nine_k 6y agoWho is funding them in this case, and why?
- modo_mario 6y agoThe consumers? Not turning a profit doesn't mean they don't get enough to pay their own wages and maybe even grow slowly.
- jhatemyjob 6y agoApple pwned them, though.
- rbanffy 6y agoI don't think Apple competes in the $200 laptop segment right now.
- bfuclusion 6y agoI have a Pinephone, and I can tell I've been really conditioned by Androids flow. Haven't quite figured out the UI yet, but I'm going to put KDE on it and see if my desktop muscle memory helps things. The hardware is a bit slow, but man is it fun to have Linux in my pocket:)
- jcun4128 6y agoI'm hoping you can develop your own "ROM" for it, I wouldn't mind making everything like blocks to reduce GUI load if that's a thing. Like the Windows Phone UI, just my opinion. It's also on my wish list to do i3-wm on it so can get some ram back in desktop mode.
- fsflover 6y agoYes, you can do it. Have a look at a minimalistic UI called SXMo: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=9913 https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=9913.
- jcun4128 6y agoomg that's literally it haha, at least the i3wm part wow. It's funny too seeing it you're like hmmm but if you had a simple button toggle to use it as a phone or dock... man that's great. Thanks for that link, was watching this video demo of it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfWKYZDtm1k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfWKYZDtm1k I do hope for all that effort you gain back something similar with the Ubuntu GUI and i3-wm(like 300mb of ram back)
- qiqitori 6y agoOne of the images in the article (https://www.pine64.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/HRock64.jpeg https://www.pine64.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/HRock64.jp...) has a picture of the Rockchip board where a port is labeled 老化, which in Japanese and presumably Chinese too would mean something like "aging".
- emptyparadise 6y agoI wonder who the keyboard supplier is.
- jcun4128 6y agoI'm looking forward to receiving my pine phone whenever it gets here(said Jan). My excuse to learn QT ha, also a taste of the docked computing experience.
- punnerud 6y agoHope more people from HN join the PINE64 Nutcracker channel on Telegram (there is also Matrix and Discuss channels connected with a bridge): https://t.me/joinchat/Kmi2S0nOsT240emHk-aO6g https://t.me/joinchat/Kmi2S0nOsT240emHk-aO6g This is for opensourcing BL602: https://www.cnx-software.com/2020/10/24/bl602-bl604-risc-v-wifi-bluetooth-5-0-le-soc-will-sell-at-esp8266-price-point/ https://www.cnx-software.com/2020/10/24/bl602-bl604-risc-v-w... Love to watch how the community solve problems: 1. Find some vendor Windows version for flashing BL602 2. Hack it to work for Mac 3. Reverse engineer the Serial traffic 4. Build Python version that reduce the size from 200MB to < 200kB 5. Others build Rust in parallel 6. Others getting JTAG to work, figuring out the address ranges Focusing on building OpenSource community around the software I think is one of PINE64 great strengths.
- thepete2 6y agoThanks for bringing my attention to this. A blob-free wifi and ble risc-v chip? Hell yeah!
- Tepix 6y agoI'm looking forward to more SBCs that can compete with the Raspberry Pi 4 8GB. Right now it has no competition whatsoever.
- ncmncm 6y agoAll I want from Pine64 just now is to be able to order the soldering iron, Pinecil. It went apparently instantly from "coming soon" to "out of stock" Anybody know what happened?