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The GNU/Linux-based smartphone, PinePhone, has begun shipping. It uses the same Quad-Core ARM Cortex A53 64-Bit System on a Chip (SOC) as the the Pine64 Single Board Computer (SBC) and thus it also runs mainstream GNU/Linux. The goal is to provide a hardware platform for a wider variety of Linux-on-Phone projects. Hardware availability is expected to be five years.
Lilliputing: PinePhone Braveheart Linux smartphone begins shipping January 17th
The PinePhone is an inexpensive smartphone designed to run Linux-based operating systems. Developed by the folks at Pine64, the $150 smartphone was first announced about a year ago — and this week the first units will ship.
Herald Writer: The PinePhone begins delivery—a Linux-powered smartphone for $150
The PinePhone is powered through an Allwinner A64 SoC, which options 4 Cortex A53 CPUs at 1.2GHz, constructed on an attractive historical 40nm procedure. This is similar chip the corporate makes use of at the PINE A64 unmarried board pc, a Raspberry Pi competitor. There are 2GB of RAM, a Mali-400 GPU, 16GB of garage, and a 2750mAh battery. The rear digicam is 5MP, the entrance digicam is 2MP, the show is a 1440×720 IPS LCD, and the battery is detachable. There is a headphone jack, a USB-C port, and strengthen for a MicroSD slot, which you'll if truth be told boot running techniques off of. The mobile modem is a big separate chip this is soldered onto the motherboard: a Quectel EG25-G.
Earlier on SN:
PinePhone Linux Smartphone Priced at $149 to Arrive This Year (2019)
Librem 5 Backers Have Begun Receiving Their Linux Phones (2019)
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday January 17 2020, @03:25PM (18 children)
uh... what providers support it?
Even my "Bring your own device whatever it is" provider is fundamentally built on an android app.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday January 17 2020, @03:49PM (8 children)
Really? Pretty much every phone I've used is "connected" to the provider via SIM card. Swap the card into a different phone, the new phone immediately starts working. No apps, no registration, no notifying my provider.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 17 2020, @03:57PM (2 children)
Yeah, I was thinking: FINALLY! I can access cheap phone hardware without having to learn (and continue learning every 3 months on the perpetual Android security treadmill) Kotlin.
If I can slip a GoogleFi data SIM into one of these, be able to ssh into it and stream photos / video out of it, I will be very happy, indeed. Leave it on the boat plugged into the solar charger and now I've got a remote presence onboard, for $150 purchase + $0.01/MB streaming data fees.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 17 2020, @04:18PM (1 child)
However, at the moment this appears to be the current state of Linux support on the Pine Phone in general:
I'm guessing they slapped the hardware together in the hopes that a community would form and solve their driver issues for them... I'll be waiting until a few more things are documented as working in a downloadable OS package.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @08:46AM
If you want to debug it by the end of next decade, I suggest to get rid of systemd.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by barbara hudson on Friday January 17 2020, @05:22PM (4 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Friday January 17 2020, @08:29PM (2 children)
This version of the phone has been called by Pine as a pre-release developer phone. It's intent is to provide developers a cheap, common, reference hardware platform for the developers to start from. It is much like the early Nexus phones from Google. Though you are correct to assume that Android was much more developed before the Nexus One or even when the G1 phones were released. If only Pine had 90% of the search and advertising revenue of the internet so they could leverage that revenue to hire more developers and complete the OS+phone app before releasing it to the 3rd-party developers to write shitty candycrush clones. Personally, I like how upfront Pine as been about the state of the phone as opposed to how wishy-washy the Librem 5 release has been.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday January 17 2020, @09:23PM (1 child)
Back in the 90s I was able to get people to install Linux, but not any more. People would rather pay for something that has so many deficiencies, and I can't blame them. Printers and sound continue to be a problem for Linux and the *BSDs, and in-place upgrades are as bad now as windows at the turn of the century.
I'll still use them because that's what I'm used to, and how I earned my living, but I would never recommend them to anyone ever again. I hate OS X, but it's not spyware and it works year after year r for everyone I know who uses it. Linux isn't worth the price even if you value your time as $0.00, just for the frustration factor.
Until we demand better or are ready to abandon it en masse, nothing will change.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday January 17 2020, @10:15PM
The US has economies of scale that some countries can't manage. Cheap [bigw.com.au] tablets aren't really a thing in some countries.
The PinePhine is not a phone, though - not yet. It could be a phone, one day, with work.
A cheap tablet will bever be a phone
most tablets are too big for a pocket, too, although that isn't stopping apple or samsung
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @01:56PM
Sailfish on it supposedly can make calls, chill: https://twitter.com/neochapay/status/1218243855562289152 [twitter.com]
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday January 17 2020, @03:59PM (1 child)
Over here in EU land we are not tied to a provider.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 17 2020, @04:06PM
The cellular market in the US has a fair amount of choice and competition, at least compared to the landline situation.
Starting around 2013 the two year contract cartel broke down and even the "big boys" like Verizon and AT&T started dropping their rates while improving their offerings. Verizon still has a quasi-monopoly on certain bandwidth and tower space that makes them the most reliable provider, particularly in rural areas, but otherwise there's a lot of choice. My wife has an unlocked Sharp phone, bought from banggood (China) - excellent camera, super cheap service through Mint mobile for something like $15 per month - unlimited talk and text and more data than she ever uses - coverage is O.K. in the city, could be better, but at $15 per month?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 17 2020, @04:51PM (6 children)
Here are the LTE bands etc. the pine phone supports:
https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone#Specifications [pine64.org]
Here is what bands / frequencies your provider uses:
https://www.frequencycheck.com [frequencycheck.com]
If there is a large overlap, you are good.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday January 17 2020, @09:41PM (5 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 17 2020, @10:40PM (2 children)
It sounds like you don't have a damned clue. Stop embarrassing yourself.
Pine64 are releasing a hardware project sans OS. Deliberately. If nothing works yet then it is because the software hasn't been written yet. But it was never intended yet to be a daily driver.
If that concept threatens you then stay in your iOS/Android duopoly. But right now you are spreading FUD like a complete ignoramus.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @12:16AM (1 child)
The loud tranny is wrong yet again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @06:20AM
If your tranny is making any noise you should take it to a good auto-mechanic. Like many problems in life the sooner you fix it the better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @01:03AM
Your post makes it sound like you are not the target market. "You," in my response with the frequency info was both to the parent, and to folks who are actually considering a purchase of the device.
This is marketed by and for folks who want to create a free (as in freedom) device* / software to replace proprietary spy devices.
It is not a turnkey device, it is a developer / tinkerer device targeted at an even smaller subset of developers and tinkerers-- those who are believers in free software ideals, privacy advocates, etc.
We've been waiting ages since the last freedom respecting phone, the open moko, or a bit less freedom respecting, but newer, the n900. If you don't want one, fine. But, please don't shit all over this. This is an amazing device, at an amazing price for us to begin working toward freedom respecting phones in our pockets. i had an early n900. When I first got it, I had to run a query from an xterm (running on the phone), to see my call history. I was not upset at the lack of polish. I was amazed and excited that I was able to open an f'ing xterm on my f'ing phone, and run a query against a DB containing call state! This phone was going to be amazing! And, in my opinion, it lived up to my expectations.
I'm very much looking forward to getting my pine phone to start hacking on.
* tough (maybe impossible, if you consider the baseband) to have a fully free phone, this one isn't quite there, but it is better than any of the commercially available phones. The Librem is a bit more free, but it still has binary blobs too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @09:00AM
begone, tranny.