Seems cool. Pine is definitely the Linux phone maker that has done the best at actually shipping usable products for somewhat reasonable prices (cough librem 5 cough), although in terms of...
Seems cool. Pine is definitely the Linux phone maker that has done the best at actually shipping usable products for somewhat reasonable prices (cough librem 5 cough), although in terms of usability I think they say it the best on their own product page
If you depend on proprietary mainstream mobile messenger applications, banking applications, use loyalty or travel apps, consume DRM media, or play mobile video games on your fruit or Android smartphone, then the PinePhone Pro is likely not for you.
So, most people.
Having tinkered briefly with PinePhone's before (never owned one, but played with a friends), honestly the hardware is "fine" for the most part, it's the software that really hurts. I'm not particularly fond of any of the linux DEs on a desktop, forget mobile where bad UI goes from slightly inconvenient to infuriating with the loss of precision of a touch vs a mouse pointer.
All that said...for those of us who don't really try using these things, it's a great alternative. I can keep an old Android around without a SIM to do Duo two-factor, and everything else I'll...
All that said...for those of us who don't really try using these things, it's a great alternative.
I can keep an old Android around without a SIM to do Duo two-factor, and everything else I'll just use through the browser. Heck, with a bit of rigging I'll bet I could get KDE connect working so I wouldn't need to carry the android.
I assume Signal counts as a "proprietary mainstream mobile messenger application" (mainstream seems questionable, but probably irrelevant?), and I wouldn't give that up. The rest I could do...
I assume Signal counts as a "proprietary mainstream mobile messenger application" (mainstream seems questionable, but probably irrelevant?), and I wouldn't give that up. The rest I could do without though. That said, when I had a Windows phone, I loved the hardware and the OS, but constantly explaining that I couldn't just download an app my friends were using got tiresome. Windows phone was already on its way out, but I switched to iOS a year or two earlier than I really needed to because of that.
fwiw this is my biggest gripe with Signal. Moxie has repeatedly said that he thinks it's more beneficial for him to keep control over Signal's client base, than to allow people on non-mainstream...
assume Signal counts as a "proprietary mainstream mobile messenger application" (mainstream seems questionable, but probably irrelevant?),
fwiw this is my biggest gripe with Signal. Moxie has repeatedly said that he thinks it's more beneficial for him to keep control over Signal's client base, than to allow people on non-mainstream devices to use it, even though it's free software.
you might be able to install Signal Desktop, though.
I have a PinePhone. The build quality cannot be compared to my daily phone, which is Moto G7. It feels like plastic, and I would be scared to use it in a tougher environment. The software is...
I have a PinePhone.
The build quality cannot be compared to my daily phone, which is Moto G7. It feels like plastic, and I would be scared to use it in a tougher environment.
The software is definitely underbaked. Gnome-based Phosh looks best on screenshots, but feels slow and definitely is quite early, missing touch gestures in some obvious places (like the top bar, which looks like it's draggable, like on Android - here you can just tap on it). KDE feels much faster and has a lot of gestures everywhere, but for some reason not as many distros ship with it. Ubuntu Touch is really smooth, but PinePhone support is experimental. SailfishOS is the smoothest, but closed source, and PinePhone is also not a first class citizen for it.
Some people say that the original PinePhone is underpowered. It may be so, but SailfishOS and Ubuntu Touch show that it's mostly the software not being able to utilize what is actually there.
That being said, I love it and would buy it again. The amount of progress that is being done every month is shocking. I got it about half a year ago, and everything feels way smoother than it was on the beginning.
If you're looking for a phone comparable to Android or iPhone, it has a potential, but is not there today. If you're looking for a development board in a form factor of a phone, this is it, and it is glorious. And looking at the progress that is happening in the software scene for it, it is not impossible that in a year or two it will be actually usable by someone just interested in having a simple smartphone, which is not based on Android or iOS.
In general, SMS works, phone calls work, 3G+ works (haven't really measured it in any way, but I assume that it is working). MMS is on its way. Of course you need to account for still possible...
In general, SMS works, phone calls work, 3G+ works (haven't really measured it in any way, but I assume that it is working). MMS is on its way.
Of course you need to account for still possible software bugs like "the phone is not notifying you about incoming phone call" or "the phone wakes up to notify you about the incoming phone call only after ~6 rings". The ones I've mentioned are already solved, but you know how it is at such early stage of development.
Got a Pinebook Pro on a whim. Good build quality for the price, and no major dealbreakers in terms of overall design. Aesthetics were better than expected. Not a good daily driver though on...
Got a Pinebook Pro on a whim. Good build quality for the price, and no major dealbreakers in terms of overall design. Aesthetics were better than expected.
Not a good daily driver though on account of ergonomics/underpoweredness/ARM software ecosystem. I used it to SSH into a VPS for a while, but wound up replacing it with an also-$200 refurbed HP business laptop from Micro Center, which I like much better.
Thanks to you both (@fleg) for the reviews. I'm looking at the PineNote as I want something with a larger e-ink screen to read my books and the only other game in town that I'm aware of is the...
Thanks to you both (@fleg) for the reviews. I'm looking at the PineNote as I want something with a larger e-ink screen to read my books and the only other game in town that I'm aware of is the Kobo Elipsa and Boox Note series, which can be a little hard to swallow at the $400+ range or the Boox Max at near-as-makes-no-difference-price-of-$900.
I'm not too concerned with being able to scribble on the screen or the between-devices-page-syncing that other ereaders boast. I just need it to accept whatever files I dump onto it and display them with a battery that lasts more than a day on a larger sized screen. Something that a PineNote seems like it should be able to handle easily.
I have a Pinebook, a Pinebook Pro, a Pinephone, a PinePower, a Pinecil, and I briefly had a PineTab. With the exception of the PinePower, which is about as simple as it gets, they are not suitable...
I have a Pinebook, a Pinebook Pro, a Pinephone, a PinePower, a Pinecil, and I briefly had a PineTab. With the exception of the PinePower, which is about as simple as it gets, they are not suitable as consumer devices. However, if you're looking for cheap ARM computing power with a decent community, excellent prices, and tons of really interesting concepts, you really can't go wrong with Pine.
Hah! Yeah, I guess you could. If I had to justify each purchase, I'd say: the Pinebook is my writing machine; it runs Focuswriter and Syncthing and nothing else the Pinebook Pro is my ARM dev...
Hah! Yeah, I guess you could. If I had to justify each purchase, I'd say:
the Pinebook is my writing machine; it runs Focuswriter and Syncthing and nothing else
the Pinebook Pro is my ARM dev machine
the Pinephone is my ARM mobile dev target
the Pinecil replaced my broken Miniware soldering iron
the PinePower powers both my Pinecil (and other USB PD things) and my Miniware power supply (which uses QuickCharge instead of PD) from one source.
Seems cool. Pine is definitely the Linux phone maker that has done the best at actually shipping usable products for somewhat reasonable prices (cough librem 5 cough), although in terms of usability I think they say it the best on their own product page
So, most people.
Having tinkered briefly with PinePhone's before (never owned one, but played with a friends), honestly the hardware is "fine" for the most part, it's the software that really hurts. I'm not particularly fond of any of the linux DEs on a desktop, forget mobile where bad UI goes from slightly inconvenient to infuriating with the loss of precision of a touch vs a mouse pointer.
But, better hardware never hurts.
All that said...for those of us who don't really try using these things, it's a great alternative.
I can keep an old Android around without a SIM to do Duo two-factor, and everything else I'll just use through the browser. Heck, with a bit of rigging I'll bet I could get KDE connect working so I wouldn't need to carry the android.
I assume Signal counts as a "proprietary mainstream mobile messenger application" (mainstream seems questionable, but probably irrelevant?), and I wouldn't give that up. The rest I could do without though. That said, when I had a Windows phone, I loved the hardware and the OS, but constantly explaining that I couldn't just download an app my friends were using got tiresome. Windows phone was already on its way out, but I switched to iOS a year or two earlier than I really needed to because of that.
fwiw this is my biggest gripe with Signal. Moxie has repeatedly said that he thinks it's more beneficial for him to keep control over Signal's client base, than to allow people on non-mainstream devices to use it, even though it's free software.
you might be able to install Signal Desktop, though.
Signal works fine without Google play services, so I can't see how it could not work on the pinephone.
Anyone here with something Pine-y to give a review? Been watching/waiting for the PineNote to be available so I can pick up a large ereader.
I have a PinePhone.
The build quality cannot be compared to my daily phone, which is Moto G7. It feels like plastic, and I would be scared to use it in a tougher environment.
The software is definitely underbaked. Gnome-based Phosh looks best on screenshots, but feels slow and definitely is quite early, missing touch gestures in some obvious places (like the top bar, which looks like it's draggable, like on Android - here you can just tap on it). KDE feels much faster and has a lot of gestures everywhere, but for some reason not as many distros ship with it. Ubuntu Touch is really smooth, but PinePhone support is experimental. SailfishOS is the smoothest, but closed source, and PinePhone is also not a first class citizen for it.
Some people say that the original PinePhone is underpowered. It may be so, but SailfishOS and Ubuntu Touch show that it's mostly the software not being able to utilize what is actually there.
That being said, I love it and would buy it again. The amount of progress that is being done every month is shocking. I got it about half a year ago, and everything feels way smoother than it was on the beginning.
If you're looking for a phone comparable to Android or iPhone, it has a potential, but is not there today. If you're looking for a development board in a form factor of a phone, this is it, and it is glorious. And looking at the progress that is happening in the software scene for it, it is not impossible that in a year or two it will be actually usable by someone just interested in having a simple smartphone, which is not based on Android or iOS.
Does the phone currently work for 3G or higher data, phone calls, and SMS?
If so, what you've described sounds great.
In general, SMS works, phone calls work, 3G+ works (haven't really measured it in any way, but I assume that it is working). MMS is on its way.
Of course you need to account for still possible software bugs like "the phone is not notifying you about incoming phone call" or "the phone wakes up to notify you about the incoming phone call only after ~6 rings". The ones I've mentioned are already solved, but you know how it is at such early stage of development.
Got a Pinebook Pro on a whim. Good build quality for the price, and no major dealbreakers in terms of overall design. Aesthetics were better than expected.
Not a good daily driver though on account of ergonomics/underpoweredness/ARM software ecosystem. I used it to SSH into a VPS for a while, but wound up replacing it with an also-$200 refurbed HP business laptop from Micro Center, which I like much better.
Thanks to you both (@fleg) for the reviews. I'm looking at the PineNote as I want something with a larger e-ink screen to read my books and the only other game in town that I'm aware of is the Kobo Elipsa and Boox Note series, which can be a little hard to swallow at the $400+ range or the Boox Max at near-as-makes-no-difference-price-of-$900.
I'm not too concerned with being able to scribble on the screen or the between-devices-page-syncing that other ereaders boast. I just need it to accept whatever files I dump onto it and display them with a battery that lasts more than a day on a larger sized screen. Something that a PineNote seems like it should be able to handle easily.
I have a Pinebook, a Pinebook Pro, a Pinephone, a PinePower, a Pinecil, and I briefly had a PineTab. With the exception of the PinePower, which is about as simple as it gets, they are not suitable as consumer devices. However, if you're looking for cheap ARM computing power with a decent community, excellent prices, and tons of really interesting concepts, you really can't go wrong with Pine.
Wow. I guess we could say that, after each purchase, you were Pining for more.
Hah! Yeah, I guess you could. If I had to justify each purchase, I'd say:
I wonder if this could be turned into a Steam Deck pocket through Box86 to get some smaller scale games and indies available in a phone form factor.