The PinePhone Pro Brings Upgraded Hardware To the Linux Phone (arstechnica.com) 23
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Pine64 is launching a major hardware upgrade in its quest to build a Linux smartphone. After the launch of the original PinePhone in 2019, the organization is now taking preorders for the PinePhone Pro, a new smartphone it's calling "the fastest mainline Linux smartphone on the market." The phone was announced in October, and you can now secure a unit. The MSRP is $599, but it's up for preorder now at an introductory price of $399.
Since Pine64 wants to make an open source Linux smartphone, its choice of hardware components is limited. Most big chip companies like Qualcomm or Samsung don't want to share open drivers or schematics, and you saw that with the original PinePhone, which was based on a 40 nm Cortex A53 SoC made by Allwinner. The PinePhone Pro is upgrading things with a Rockchip RK3399 SoC. The chip sports two Cortex A72 CPUs and four Cortex A53 CPUs, and Pine64 says it worked with Rockchip to get the chip "binned and voltage locked for optimal performance with sustainable power and thermal limits." Pine64 doesn't cite a process node, but other companies list the RK3399 at 28 nm. If that's true and you're looking for something roughly comparable in Qualcomm's lineup, the Snapdragon 618/650 (a mid-range chip from 2016) would seem to fit the bill.
The phone has a 6-inch, 1440x720 LCD, 4GB of RAM, 128GB of eMMC storage, and a 3,000 mAh battery. There's a USB-C port with 15 W charging, a headphone jack, a 13MP main camera, and an 8MP front camera. The back cover pops off, and inside the phone, you'll find a removable battery (whoa!), a microSD slot, pogo pins, and a series of privacy DIP switches that let you kill the modem, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, microphone, rear camera, front camera, and headphones. The pogo pins support a variety of attachable backs, which are compatible with both the original PinePhone and the PinePhone Pro. [...] As for the software you'll be running on this thing, that's up to you. This is a phone for the Linux enthusiast who is willing to deal with some rough edges. It ships with Manjaro Arm and the Plasma Mobile interface, which Pine64 calls "pre-beta."
Since Pine64 wants to make an open source Linux smartphone, its choice of hardware components is limited. Most big chip companies like Qualcomm or Samsung don't want to share open drivers or schematics, and you saw that with the original PinePhone, which was based on a 40 nm Cortex A53 SoC made by Allwinner. The PinePhone Pro is upgrading things with a Rockchip RK3399 SoC. The chip sports two Cortex A72 CPUs and four Cortex A53 CPUs, and Pine64 says it worked with Rockchip to get the chip "binned and voltage locked for optimal performance with sustainable power and thermal limits." Pine64 doesn't cite a process node, but other companies list the RK3399 at 28 nm. If that's true and you're looking for something roughly comparable in Qualcomm's lineup, the Snapdragon 618/650 (a mid-range chip from 2016) would seem to fit the bill.
The phone has a 6-inch, 1440x720 LCD, 4GB of RAM, 128GB of eMMC storage, and a 3,000 mAh battery. There's a USB-C port with 15 W charging, a headphone jack, a 13MP main camera, and an 8MP front camera. The back cover pops off, and inside the phone, you'll find a removable battery (whoa!), a microSD slot, pogo pins, and a series of privacy DIP switches that let you kill the modem, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, microphone, rear camera, front camera, and headphones. The pogo pins support a variety of attachable backs, which are compatible with both the original PinePhone and the PinePhone Pro. [...] As for the software you'll be running on this thing, that's up to you. This is a phone for the Linux enthusiast who is willing to deal with some rough edges. It ships with Manjaro Arm and the Plasma Mobile interface, which Pine64 calls "pre-beta."
Dip switches on the inside (Score:1)
> and a series of privacy DIP switches that let you kill the modem, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, microphone, rear camera, front camera, and headphones.
That doesn't seem convenient if you have to pull the cover off each time. I'm assuming since it's open hardware and open software you can likely trust an OS toggle of those, but the HW option is just a hard kill to disable the ability to even turn it on in software accidentally?
Re: Dip switches on the inside (Score:1)
Re: Dip switches on the inside (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, if you check the 2 stories above about surveillance in Israel and at the Beijing Olympics, hardware switches probably make sense when traveling and not just for tin-foil hatters like RMS.
Makes sense (Score:3)
Any switch on the outside would be in danger of being flipped accidentally, especially for something pocketable.
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That used to be a big problem with iPhone and their physical mute switch at least for me. But on the newer models it has not happened even once.
So there is definitely a way to make an external switch that is very hard to flip accidentally.
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Pine64 has a minuscule but loyal cult following by listening to its users. DIP switches, removable battery, hardware keyboard, USB C docking.
In any case, external switches are one more thing for wear and tear. Anecdotally, I had a 2nd hand laptop where the wifi toggle switch had broken off that otherwise lasted me 5 years.
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Can it make and receive phone calls? (Score:2)
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AFAIK it doesn't support VoLTE/Next-G/JOYN packet-mode voice calls. So no, it can't actually make calls on a lot of mobile networks, including all major US and Australian carriers.
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It also has no 5G support, which is a pretty major downside. And it is not just about speed, it is just as (or perhaps more) important for coverage.
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well, that is a bonus, longer battery life by losing... a little faster internet in big cities?!
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Bypassing carriers and going VoIP is a benefit. Decent open source VoIP clients are a problem I'd fix if I was any good at coding.
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...if I was any good at coding.
Of all the skills needed to make VoIP work, coding is at, or near, the bottom of the list. It's the easiest part of it all.
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There are several open source VoIP clients that run on Linux...
Wether the network allows it or not is another matter.
Some operators explicitly block VoIP protocols like SIP. Others don't explicitly block it, but their network setup prevents it working.
SIP is not very NAT-friendly, and almost all networks use NAT for IPv4 access, although it should work fine with IPv6.
SIP with encryption does not work with NAT at all, practically you have to use IPv6.
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When I first got my PinePhone, I was able to configure it to make and receive phone calls using Mobian. The built-in PostMarketOS was terrible, and it allowed me to lock myself out with no way to restore to factory defaults, so I downloaded and installed Mobian. It is FAR ahead of PostMarketOS in features and usability.
Phone calls were unreliable, but could be made to work...sometimes. Then the Mobian developers had the brilliant idea of no longer allowing all the necessary SIM parameters to be entered int
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i have the previous model, it works for phone and sms stuff its the various apps and features beyond that which are iffy from distro to distro
"Brings new hardware" ? (Score:1)
So they didn't bring out a phone using old hardware ?
How unusual.
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the OG Pinephone was intentionally under powered (read: cheaper) to get the platform out there and in the hands of developers. However, because everything in the Linux space is perpetually in a project state we have ~20 good OSs in varying states of completeness. Most feel like a Linux desktop trying to be a phone, not a phone that happens to run Linux.