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An Anonymous Coward writes:

In light of the news of Android and iOS spying on you, here is news of a new trustworthy device that only runs exactly what you choose to run on it-- including the OS.

A new more powerful pinephone has been announced by Pine64, the PinePhone Pro [pine64.org].

So, early next year, everyone will have a choice of three currently available phones that will run your favorite distribution of GNU/Linux!

We learned a lot from working on the original PinePhone. Over the past two years we painstakingly collected and analyzed your feedback and explored all avenues for hardware improvements. The PinePhone Pro is the end result of this journey. It is powered by a Rockchip hexa-core SoC operating at 1.5GHz, and ships paired with 4GB of dual-channel LPDDR4 RAM as well as 128GB of internal eMMC flash storage. It features a high-fidelity 13MP main camera sensor and a 5MP front-facing camera.

We worked closely with Rockchip’s engineering team to fine-tune the SoC’s performance so that it meets the necessary thermal and battery-consumption envelopes. The result of this cooperation is the RK3399S – a RK3399 variant made specifically for the PinePhone Pro. Rockchip’s team was also instrumental in enabling the PinePhone Pro’s suspend state, which allows the smartphone to receive calls and SMS messages while preserving battery.

Hardware privacy dip switches for the cameras, the microphone, WiFi & BT, headphone jack (enabling UART) and the LTE modem (including GPS) are accessible under the back cover, just as on the original PinePhone.

We have started taking PinePhone Pro pre-orders from developers on October 15, 2021, and expect to have them delivered by December this year.

If everything goes according to plan, early adopters will have their Explorer Edition units delivered in early 2022.

Tasks such as opening applications, browsing the internet, interacting with the user interface or watching videos are on par with recent mid-range Android smartphones.

f 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.

In a nutshell: if you are an existing PinePhone owner and your only wish is for the device to be more powerful and refined, then the PinePhone Pro is for you.

Original Submission