18 ms·

Wouldn't it be possible for Pine64, Purism and Fairphone agree on a common chassis to reduce costs of their phones? Why can't it be like PC's where the user ca

Wouldn't it be possible for Pine64, Purism and Fairphone agree on a common chassis to reduce costs of their phones? Why can't it be like PC's where the user can buy a bunch of separate parts from different manufacturers and build his/her own computer?

notRobot 6y ago
You're not the first one to think of this. See: Phonebloks [1]. It failed mostly because there wasn't enough demand, but I wonder if they could make a comeback. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonebloks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonebloks
- marcodiego 6y ago
  The librem 5 is somewhat modular. IIRC, you can disconnect and replace the modem and wifi card. So, I think a common chassis could have a screen, IMU, PMIC, battery, cameras, speakers, mics, leds, buttons, headphone jack, usb port and sensors (barometer, thermometers, light sensor, proximity...). The mainboard could connect to the chassis using some standardized common connectors for the devices provided by the chassis. Other devices could be connected to the mainboard: modem, wifi card, bluetooth and sd-card. That is not a giant leap from what librem 5 is.
- eeZah7Ux 6y ago
  Phonebloks has a questionable design: Each component had its own shell - making it bulky and very expensive.
thepete2 6y ago
Once you separate the phone into its parts you can only improve the parts, not the whole phone. I would think that's the problem from the manufacturer's side.
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
Why would they agree on a common chassis when they have already been focusing on different market segments? Purism's offering is rather higher-end, so the feel of its products will be superior to PinePhone, which is aiming at pretty rock-bottom prices. Purism and Mobian-Pine64 are already collaborating on software development, so the projects aren't intentionally ignoring one another.
- marcodiego 6y ago
  > Why would they agree on a common chassis when they have already been focusing on different market segments? Because a common chassis could be good for such targeted market and it could reduce prices.
gggtt 6y ago
Because this era of "separate parts" comes to an end. Now everything is single SoC that are only compatible with big tech proprietary OS. Google has on purpose made Android different enough so that no Android SoC could run mainline Linux. Today, no decent SoC can run real Linux, the "best" SoC that can run mainline Linux are : - Rockship (PinePhone) which is reversed engineered so only old SoC have support and it require massive effort from the community. - NXP (Librem 5) which are thick power hungry slow SoC (because they are made for automobile I guess) - Broadcom (Raspberry Pi) which is still super slow compared to most modern smartphone. In any case the manufacturers of decent SoC don't give a crap about Linux, they only support Android and any Linux support must be done by someone else, often through reverse engineering. This is a totally anticompetitive situation which is far from what we had on the desktop side. But even on the laptop/desktop side, this is also coming to an end : Microsoft custom chip & Surfaces, Apple M1, etc. Soon this will be the same as on mobile. FairPhone makes no special effort about the choice SoC, they just use a SoC which supports Android and which obviously doesn't support Linux. On the other hand Librem & PinePhone use the only SoC that have Linux support, and they often must develop support themselves through reverse eng. because the manufacturer doesn't care. Unless we pass laws about it or unless Pine64/Purism become very successful, it is the end of any hope for alternative as no mobile device is able to run anything else than IOS & Android (or HarmonyOS, Fushia or whatever next privacy hell OS is coming from those big tech) Even in Planes & Cars , the entertainment systems are now powered by Android and not Linux. Mainline Linux will disappear until it only exist in a emulated VM running on a M1 mac, or on a headless datacenter server. Purism & Pine64 are currently our only hope for alternative and I encourage anyone to support them. They represent the ugly reality of what is available to the competition, it is slow, thick, power hungry and old but that's all we have.
- mswann 6y ago
  > Rockship (PinePhone) which is reversed engineered so only old SoC have support and it require massive effort from the community. PinePhone has Allwinner A64. [0] And Rockchip SoCs have a quite decent track record of not only supporting mainline linux but even running without proprietary firmware - as does their current top level SoC (RK3399, featured in Pine64's ROCKPro64). [0] https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone#Specifications https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone#Specifications
m463 6y ago
they do use m.2 cards afaik. The chassis might be harder. That's like trying to standardize on one motherboard / case too early on.
axelthegerman 6y ago
And maybe phones could be as large as PCs as well?! While I'm all for repairability, it's just not feasible to build a small device such as a phone when you just put together lego blocks

notRobot 6y ago

You're not the first one to think of this. See: Phonebloks [1]. It failed mostly because there wasn't enough demand, but I wonder if they could make a comeback. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonebloks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonebloks

marcodiego 6y ago
The librem 5 is somewhat modular. IIRC, you can disconnect and replace the modem and wifi card. So, I think a common chassis could have a screen, IMU, PMIC, battery, cameras, speakers, mics, leds, buttons, headphone jack, usb port and sensors (barometer, thermometers, light sensor, proximity...). The mainboard could connect to the chassis using some standardized common connectors for the devices provided by the chassis. Other devices could be connected to the mainboard: modem, wifi card, bluetooth and sd-card. That is not a giant leap from what librem 5 is.
eeZah7Ux 6y ago
Phonebloks has a questionable design: Each component had its own shell - making it bulky and very expensive.

thepete2 6y ago

Once you separate the phone into its parts you can only improve the parts, not the whole phone. I would think that's the problem from the manufacturer's side.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago

Why would they agree on a common chassis when they have already been focusing on different market segments? Purism's offering is rather higher-end, so the feel of its products will be superior to PinePhone, which is aiming at pretty rock-bottom prices. Purism and Mobian-Pine64 are already collaborating on software development, so the projects aren't intentionally ignoring one another.

marcodiego 6y ago
> Why would they agree on a common chassis when they have already been focusing on different market segments? Because a common chassis could be good for such targeted market and it could reduce prices.

gggtt 6y ago

Because this era of "separate parts" comes to an end. Now everything is single SoC that are only compatible with big tech proprietary OS. Google has on purpose made Android different enough so that no Android SoC could run mainline Linux. Today, no decent SoC can run real Linux, the "best" SoC that can run mainline Linux are : - Rockship (PinePhone) which is reversed engineered so only old SoC have support and it require massive effort from the community. - NXP (Librem 5) which are thick power hungry slow SoC (because they are made for automobile I guess) - Broadcom (Raspberry Pi) which is still super slow compared to most modern smartphone. In any case the manufacturers of decent SoC don't give a crap about Linux, they only support Android and any Linux support must be done by someone else, often through reverse engineering. This is a totally anticompetitive situation which is far from what we had on the desktop side. But even on the laptop/desktop side, this is also coming to an end : Microsoft custom chip & Surfaces, Apple M1, etc. Soon this will be the same as on mobile. FairPhone makes no special effort about the choice SoC, they just use a SoC which supports Android and which obviously doesn't support Linux. On the other hand Librem & PinePhone use the only SoC that have Linux support, and they often must develop support themselves through reverse eng. because the manufacturer doesn't care. Unless we pass laws about it or unless Pine64/Purism become very successful, it is the end of any hope for alternative as no mobile device is able to run anything else than IOS & Android (or HarmonyOS, Fushia or whatever next privacy hell OS is coming from those big tech) Even in Planes & Cars , the entertainment systems are now powered by Android and not Linux. Mainline Linux will disappear until it only exist in a emulated VM running on a M1 mac, or on a headless datacenter server. Purism & Pine64 are currently our only hope for alternative and I encourage anyone to support them. They represent the ugly reality of what is available to the competition, it is slow, thick, power hungry and old but that's all we have.

mswann 6y ago
> Rockship (PinePhone) which is reversed engineered so only old SoC have support and it require massive effort from the community. PinePhone has Allwinner A64. [0] And Rockchip SoCs have a quite decent track record of not only supporting mainline linux but even running without proprietary firmware - as does their current top level SoC (RK3399, featured in Pine64's ROCKPro64). [0] https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone#Specifications https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone#Specifications

m463 6y ago

they do use m.2 cards afaik. The chassis might be harder. That's like trying to standardize on one motherboard / case too early on.

axelthegerman 6y ago

And maybe phones could be as large as PCs as well?! While I'm all for repairability, it's just not feasible to build a small device such as a phone when you just put together lego blocks