PinePhone review (Android Police)

[Jason]

I came across this review of the latest release of the PinePhone. It points out that it's more a hardware prototype than a finished product. This release is more for developers and enthusiasts than the entire Linux/General community.

The features I like:

Advanced privacy options with hardware kill switches for cameras, microphone, wifi, modem and headphones.
Runs a Linux distro called postmarketOS that lets you run different OSes simply by changing the microSD card
Replaceable battery - it uses the same battery as Samsung Galaxy J7 phones so shouldn't be hard to find
Comes with a 16 GB microSD card
It's cheap at $149 USD.


Things I don't like:

Performance and specs - 4 CPU cores when most are octacore (4 CPU + 4 GPU), only 2 GB RAM
Low capacity battery - 2800 mAh
20 GB of internal storage (might be difficult for some Linux distros, same issue with RAM)

[Jason]

I wonder if anyone in our group would consider getting one. If I hadn't just got a new phone that I'm still paying for, I would. With all this government spying on its own citizens revealed by Snowden, I like the hardware switches on it. Wish they were on the outside though. You don't want to keep popping the case to switch the microphone on and off or even the camera.

[Jason]

Any comments? At all?

[fox]

Sounds like this phone is still a work in progress.

[Jason]

Sounds like this phone is still a work in progress.

It's constantly a work in progress. The company has never made a phone before. But they've been at it for a couple of years. I think the part they need to work on is speciality apps instead of the Linux programs that already exist. But it's a totally usable phone hardware-wise.