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PinePhone review (Android Police)

Started by Jason, August 31, 2020, 06:45:37 AM

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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)
* Zorin OS 17.1 Core and Windows 11 Pro on a Dell Precision 3630 Tower with an
i5-8600 3.1 GHz 6-core processor, dual 22" displays, 16 GB of RAM, 512 GB Nvme and a Geforce 1060 6 GB card
* Motorola Edge (2022) phone with Android 13

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.
* Zorin OS 17.1 Core and Windows 11 Pro on a Dell Precision 3630 Tower with an
i5-8600 3.1 GHz 6-core processor, dual 22" displays, 16 GB of RAM, 512 GB Nvme and a Geforce 1060 6 GB card
* Motorola Edge (2022) phone with Android 13

Jason

* Zorin OS 17.1 Core and Windows 11 Pro on a Dell Precision 3630 Tower with an
i5-8600 3.1 GHz 6-core processor, dual 22" displays, 16 GB of RAM, 512 GB Nvme and a Geforce 1060 6 GB card
* Motorola Edge (2022) phone with Android 13

fox

Sounds like this phone is still a work in progress.
Ubuntu 23.10 on 2019 5k iMac
Ubuntu 22.04 on Dell XPS 13

Jason

Quote from: fox on September 04, 2020, 04:39:08 PM
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.
* Zorin OS 17.1 Core and Windows 11 Pro on a Dell Precision 3630 Tower with an
i5-8600 3.1 GHz 6-core processor, dual 22" displays, 16 GB of RAM, 512 GB Nvme and a Geforce 1060 6 GB card
* Motorola Edge (2022) phone with Android 13