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posted by janrinok on Friday January 17 2020, @03:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the I'll-buy-one dept.

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)


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by stormwyrm on Friday January 17 2020, @04:56PM (5 children)

    by stormwyrm (717) on Friday January 17 2020, @04:56PM (#944589) Journal

    I dunno. I have some of Pine64's gear, and it works pretty well. I built a home file server/NAS based on their RockPro64 and it's been very reliable. I've had it for about a year and it's been great so far, it's quieter and consumes less electricity than an equivalent x86-based server. I'll probably buy a PinePhone myself once I can save enough money for it. I probably won't use it as my daily driver, but still it sounds like an awesome device to hack on. From Pine64's own Wiki page [pine64.org] about it, it seems to have actual hard killswitches that can physically disconnect power to the cellular modem, Wi-Fi, microphones, and cameras. It also has "pogo pins" that can be used to interface custom peripherals to the phone. I've been interested in Sailfish OS but Jolla have not made it easy for most of the world to obtain their devices, but I can probably run Sailfish OS on the PinePhone more easily than on any of my old Android phones. It will be nice to have a phone that will not fight you when you try to make it do exactly what you want for a change. This is a hacker's phone!

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    Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 17 2020, @05:06PM (4 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday January 17 2020, @05:06PM (#944596)

    I'll probably buy a PinePhone myself

    When you get a respectable portion of the peripherals working, post a HowTo and I'll join you in PinePhone ownership.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Saturday January 18 2020, @04:34AM (3 children)

      by stormwyrm (717) on Saturday January 18 2020, @04:34AM (#944877) Journal
      Yep, but someone has to do it. The thing is that it's a hardware platform that already exists now, seems to be at least as open as the original IBM PC had been, and it's cheap ($150 vs. $749 for the Librem Phone, which seems to be just as unpolished), so it might not be such a bad investment.
      --
      Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @12:53PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 18 2020, @12:53PM (#944946)

        The price and idea of it has me THIS close to buying one, but I have way too many toys sitting around, /and/ I already ordered a Pinebook Pro and an Odroid-GO Advance last month. Pine really knows how to make techies want to pull the wallet out.

      • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday January 18 2020, @01:46PM

        by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 18 2020, @01:46PM (#944957) Homepage Journal

        Given Purism's propensity to send its software upstream (and maybe Pine does this too) they are likely to be using a lot of the same software.

        I expect them to have phones that function as phones at approximately the same time.

      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 18 2020, @04:49PM

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday January 18 2020, @04:49PM (#945001)

        If I had the resources to A) get the peripherals working myself (in other words, about 10x more free time than I currently have), and B) take over production of the open design when the current team gets disillusioned with it (in other words, about 100x more free cash than I currently have, and another 10x boost on the free time), then, sure - I'd dive right in, it's a great start.

        Hopefully, others out there do have at least the time to prove the peripherals - if they do that I'd bet someone with the money will keep the hardware production rolling.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]