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posted by takyon on Friday February 01 2019, @10:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the pining-for-the-torvalds dept.

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

Smartphone users are usually torn between the two choice — Android or iOS. Their dominance is such that other competing OS like Windows, BlackBerry OS, or Symbian have almost been abandoned.Those who don't want either of them can opt for Pine64's Linux phone dubbed the PinePhone which offers good hardware and software at an affordable rate of $149.

The phone's specs aren't great, but it does include a headphone jack (I wonder if it's capable of using the JACK audio system?) and the article notes that it may provide physical switches for disabling various components. The company behind it, Pine64, also produce the PineBook Linux laptop, which also use an ARM processor.

Source: https://fossbytes.com/pinephone-linux-smartphone-149/

Related: Kickstarter: Pine A64, Cheaper and More Powerful than Raspberry Pi 2 Model B


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2019, @10:23PM (15 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2019, @10:23PM (#795210)

    Pine64 had announced the phone a few months ago and now the company is ready with the prototypes and plans to ship development kits in Q1 2019.

    [...]

    Pine64 aims to provide physical switches through this phone to allow users to disable or enable the wireless components, cameras, and speaker for privacy.

    How are they doing this for so much cheaper and faster than the Librem 5?
    https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ [puri.sm]

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2019, @10:51PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2019, @10:51PM (#795222)

    My guess is the Librem folks are going after a higher point in the phone market, while the PinePhone is targeting the low end only. Functional, but low end on specs, features, etc. The higher you try to hit in the phone market the more competitive, fast changing and expensive it gets. Especially for a newcomer.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 02 2019, @03:39AM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 02 2019, @03:39AM (#795305) Journal

      That sounds right. The real selling point is, you have root, not the telco, or the manufacturer. The phone is unlocked, and ready to do whatever YOU want, without reporting to anyone.

      It has been noted previously, in other discussions on SN, that many or most feature phones belong to Google, not to you. A typical $99 feature phone won't do much of anything unless and until you sign into Google. Storage is absolutely minimal, and it won't recognize an SD card. The thing is a surveillance tracker, plain and simple.

      I don't have experience with all of the burners on the market, of course, but I presume the ones I have fooled with are typical.

      So, yeah, if the telcos can market a fairly nice feature phone for $75 to $125, then a lower end Linux phone can probably make a little profit selling at $150. Not a lot, maybe, but some. The CEO can afford to dine out some place classier than McDonalds or Pizza Hut.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2019, @10:52PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2019, @10:52PM (#795223)

    My guess is they aren't guaranteeing open hardware/software, just that it runs linux and has physical switches.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by petecox on Saturday February 02 2019, @12:32AM (2 children)

      by petecox (3228) on Saturday February 02 2019, @12:32AM (#795263)

      Pine is providing a commodity phone based on similar Pine64 offerings with a mainline kernel. For userspace, they've engaged Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch developers to port their offerings (and mention maemo-leste and postmarketos in their forum post).

      Purism have a NIH approach of writing yet another foss phone UI based on Gnome.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 02 2019, @06:15PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 02 2019, @06:15PM (#795445)

        whatever. i may like the gnome offering.

        • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 03 2019, @09:58AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 03 2019, @09:58AM (#795646)

          A phrase nobody has heard since 1997.

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by captain normal on Friday February 01 2019, @11:01PM (7 children)

    by captain normal (2205) on Friday February 01 2019, @11:01PM (#795229)

    "How are they doing this for so much cheaper and faster than the Librem 5?"
    According to to picture in TFA, they forgo li-Ion batteries for 2 AAA batteries.

    --
    Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 02 2019, @03:05AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 02 2019, @03:05AM (#795290)

      I would love a phone with replaceable batteries.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday February 02 2019, @04:45AM (1 child)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday February 02 2019, @04:45AM (#795318)

      I'm not sure if I care if it uses 2 AAA batteries, if it can operate while plugged into a charger, at $149 this is starting to be an attractive WiFi connected control pad for stuff, even if you never use the phone.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 02 2019, @03:06PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 02 2019, @03:06PM (#795406)

        Smartphones are crippled in more than one way. Today I set up an old PC that is barely half as powerful as my current smartphone, even when considering the arm vs. x86 performance. I have an old smartphone whose battery is dodo, I could have used it instead of the pc and wifi router combo, but no, even attached to DC it will seek power from the battery and shut down randomly. Talk about tariffs, I'd stick a 100% STUPID CONSUMER DONT BUY THIS tax on this crap.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 02 2019, @04:49PM (3 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 02 2019, @04:49PM (#795426) Journal

      Just for info, you can get AA and AAA lithium ion rechargeable batteries.
      https://www.amazon.com/Rechargeable-Lithium-Batteries-1000mWh-High-Capacity-2pcs-Material/dp/B07DV92VK2/ref=sr_1_7?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1549125783&sr=1-7&keywords=aaa+lithium+rechargeable+batteries [amazon.com]

      Some of my emergency lighting at work uses battery packs, consisting of 3 lithium ion AAA batteries wired together in parallel. With incandescent bulbs they were only good for two or three hours, but with our newer LED lights, they're good for most of a day.

      • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday February 03 2019, @09:06PM (2 children)

        by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Sunday February 03 2019, @09:06PM (#795818) Homepage Journal

        I have an old cordless phone. (The kind that is NOT a cellphone but connects wirelessly to a home base station that itself connects to a telephone exchange a long pair of wires) It uses AAA NiMH batteries. The local battery racks in drugstores no longer stock these. Instead they have lithium ion batteries. Is there any chance they are safely compatible?

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 03 2019, @09:25PM (1 child)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday February 03 2019, @09:25PM (#795826) Journal

          I would say "yes". Double check voltages of the batteries - if they match, you're good to go! As far as I know, AAA is always equal to AAA in voltage, the major difference being in capacity.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by acid andy on Saturday February 02 2019, @12:02AM

    by acid andy (1683) on Saturday February 02 2019, @12:02AM (#795252) Homepage Journal

    I just hope this "Linux" isn't based off Android's kernel like the Gemini PDA...

    --
    If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?