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This looks like my next phone. Will the final release be of the same price? And how is the pinephone experience?

by prox 6y ago

t-writescode 6y ago
There's an Linus Tech Tips YouTube[1] on that very subject that's worth a view [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCKMxzz9cjs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCKMxzz9cjs edit: added details
- prox 6y ago
  Thanks! Going to watch!
jay_kyburz 6y ago
Still a long way from daily driver. Battery won't last a day, and there a lot of unexpected lockups in KDE. I was hoping to find some time this weekend to try some alternate UI's
- prox 6y ago
  I really don’t mind at this point, my old phone doesn’t last a day either! If the price is right, I am willing to take the plunge.
  - jay_kyburz 6y ago
    I was scared off attempting to use it when, one day I was doing something in a terminal and it locked up. I was clicking all over the screen to try and bring up the task manager (or any response), when the phone called my other phone! Input must have been going through to other apps but the screen was showing a blank terminal.
etaioinshrdlu 6y ago
It's the most disappointing phone ever. A 10-year old Android performs better and is more stable. I wasn't expecting it to work well, but it was far worse than I imagined. I tried several ROMs and the software is starting to improve slightly, though.
- josteink 6y ago
  A pure Linux phone could obviously benefit from being as polished and streamlined as its iOS and Android counterparts. But thats not its main mission. Thats not what it's selling. Total user control, like on real desktop Linux, for those who can wield it, because thats literally what youre getting. For now this space is for a very specific audience. Maybe in time (like Ubuntu did for desktop Linux on PCs) there will come a distro which is usable enough OOB to have the same effect on mobile. We mobile Linux users will still be a minority though, and we probably wont mind. Just like we dont mind being minority desktop users either.
  - jay_kyburz 6y ago
    I was hoping that there would be a reasonably rock solid "feature phone" platform we could start building from, but it seems everybody wants to scale down the full linux desktop. I just want a feature phone with a browser. I would even be keen to see KiaOS running on it, but I don't think you can right now.
    - linmob 6y ago
      If you want to, you can have that; just take postmarketOSs new stable release when it's out with your prefered mobile shell and put the bare minimum of apps you want/need on there and you'll be set. As for KaiOS, I doubt we'll see that soon, as IIRC like FirefoxOS it's designed to run on Android kernels. With GloDroid being mostly dormant and incomplete, I doubt we can pull that off.
      - jay_kyburz 6y ago
        Thanks. I will try that!
        jay_kyburz 6y ago
        Update: Hold on, I thought it's the shells that are the problem. They are trying to do too much at once and doing it badly as a result.
linmob 6y ago
Pricing is tough to guesstimate right now with the component shortage. Given that hardware has not changed in a while, I don't see what should hold you back from getting it now, and the remaining hardware bugs are acceptible.[0] The experience has improved quite a bit since I got my first PinePhone in June. That said, this device is never going to be really fast. It's acceptible now, though, and it turns out, that you can adjust to things being a little slow every then and now. Most distributions don't use the acceleration capabilities the SoC offer as much as they could, and there are other areas where improvements for battery life and smoothness are still happening. It's been serving me fine as my only smartphone on weekends (and as a secondary device on workdays). I've been tracking the Linux Phone landscape on my blog[1], in multiple videos[2]. I have also adopted an App List, to list all the apps that run on these nascent Linux Distributions and are optimized for smartphones.[3] BTW: The coolest feature is that you can just put another distribution on a microSDHC/XC card and boot it. Like this you can carry multiple phone operating systems that fit certain circumstances. [0] https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_v1.2b https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_v1.2b [1] https://linmob.net https://linmob.net [2] https://linmob.net/videos/ https://linmob.net/videos/ [3] http://appl.ist http://appl.ist
- prox 6y ago
  Absolutely fantastic resources! Thank you. I just want to get out of the major eco systems of apple and android, and gain the feeling of owning my computer. Having a Raspberry has been an enlightening experience in that regard.
Krisjohn 6y ago
I have the PostmarketOS version. It's not something you can hammer all day, but I'm really happy with it as a secondary phone (I carry one for work and one for me. This is the one for me.) It already does stuff my Android and iOS phones never did (like turning into a half decent Linux desktop with a dock), but if you NEED something that only comes as an app for those two OSes, then don't worry about it for a while.

This looks like my next phone. Will the final release be of the same price? And how is the pinephone experience?

by prox 6y ago

This looks like my next phone. Will the final release be of the same price? And how is the pinephone experience?

There's an Linus Tech Tips YouTube[1] on that very subject that's worth a view [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCKMxzz9cjs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCKMxzz9cjs edit: added details

prox 6y ago
Thanks! Going to watch!

jay_kyburz 6y ago

Still a long way from daily driver. Battery won't last a day, and there a lot of unexpected lockups in KDE. I was hoping to find some time this weekend to try some alternate UI's

prox 6y ago
I really don’t mind at this point, my old phone doesn’t last a day either! If the price is right, I am willing to take the plunge.
- jay_kyburz 6y ago
  I was scared off attempting to use it when, one day I was doing something in a terminal and it locked up. I was clicking all over the screen to try and bring up the task manager (or any response), when the phone called my other phone! Input must have been going through to other apps but the screen was showing a blank terminal.

etaioinshrdlu 6y ago

It's the most disappointing phone ever. A 10-year old Android performs better and is more stable. I wasn't expecting it to work well, but it was far worse than I imagined. I tried several ROMs and the software is starting to improve slightly, though.

josteink 6y ago
A pure Linux phone could obviously benefit from being as polished and streamlined as its iOS and Android counterparts. But thats not its main mission. Thats not what it's selling. Total user control, like on real desktop Linux, for those who can wield it, because thats literally what youre getting. For now this space is for a very specific audience. Maybe in time (like Ubuntu did for desktop Linux on PCs) there will come a distro which is usable enough OOB to have the same effect on mobile. We mobile Linux users will still be a minority though, and we probably wont mind. Just like we dont mind being minority desktop users either.
- jay_kyburz 6y ago
  I was hoping that there would be a reasonably rock solid "feature phone" platform we could start building from, but it seems everybody wants to scale down the full linux desktop. I just want a feature phone with a browser. I would even be keen to see KiaOS running on it, but I don't think you can right now.
  - linmob 6y ago
    If you want to, you can have that; just take postmarketOSs new stable release when it's out with your prefered mobile shell and put the bare minimum of apps you want/need on there and you'll be set. As for KaiOS, I doubt we'll see that soon, as IIRC like FirefoxOS it's designed to run on Android kernels. With GloDroid being mostly dormant and incomplete, I doubt we can pull that off.
    - jay_kyburz 6y ago
      Thanks. I will try that!
      - jay_kyburz 6y ago
        Update: Hold on, I thought it's the shells that are the problem. They are trying to do too much at once and doing it badly as a result.

linmob 6y ago

Pricing is tough to guesstimate right now with the component shortage. Given that hardware has not changed in a while, I don't see what should hold you back from getting it now, and the remaining hardware bugs are acceptible.[0] The experience has improved quite a bit since I got my first PinePhone in June. That said, this device is never going to be really fast. It's acceptible now, though, and it turns out, that you can adjust to things being a little slow every then and now. Most distributions don't use the acceleration capabilities the SoC offer as much as they could, and there are other areas where improvements for battery life and smoothness are still happening. It's been serving me fine as my only smartphone on weekends (and as a secondary device on workdays). I've been tracking the Linux Phone landscape on my blog[1], in multiple videos[2]. I have also adopted an App List, to list all the apps that run on these nascent Linux Distributions and are optimized for smartphones.[3] BTW: The coolest feature is that you can just put another distribution on a microSDHC/XC card and boot it. Like this you can carry multiple phone operating systems that fit certain circumstances. [0] https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_v1.2b https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_v1.2b [1] https://linmob.net https://linmob.net [2] https://linmob.net/videos/ https://linmob.net/videos/ [3] http://appl.ist http://appl.ist

prox 6y ago
Absolutely fantastic resources! Thank you. I just want to get out of the major eco systems of apple and android, and gain the feeling of owning my computer. Having a Raspberry has been an enlightening experience in that regard.

Krisjohn 6y ago

I have the PostmarketOS version. It's not something you can hammer all day, but I'm really happy with it as a secondary phone (I carry one for work and one for me. This is the one for me.) It already does stuff my Android and iOS phones never did (like turning into a half decent Linux desktop with a dock), but if you NEED something that only comes as an app for those two OSes, then don't worry about it for a while.