It has come to our attention that Marius' beloved grandfather has passed away. We are tremendously saddened by the news, and wish to extend our sincerest condolences to Marius and his entire family on behalf of our team and community.

May he rest in peace.

I'm told it works a lot of testing ahead to determine if its all OK, but for now it looks like we're at least on schedule

Originally tweeted by Marius https://twitter.com/Mariogrip/status/1166813051510755328

Hi all,
For those of you happy to help with development and testing, the PinePhone early batch (Brave Heart) edition are now available on our store. Do note: if you want an end-user ready phone DO NOT buy it.

@domubpkm To be honest, we don't have an estimate. Here is what we're thinking: late this year and early next year we will release two batches of Pinephones geared toward enthusiasts happy to accept some potential sw shortcomings. Which OS, if any, these early phones will ship with is anyone's guess at the moment - its still early in the process. Then there will be a pause in production (kind-of-forced and not up to us; CNY - which realistically lasts over a month). This will give us an idea of the interest in the device and, as a bonus, also give some time for the software to mature as phones end-up in the users hands and people report issues (perhaps you guys even help devs out in the polishing process).

Once CNY storm blows over (late Feb/ early March 2020) we may decide to ship the phones cyclically changing the OS per batch (batch 1 UT; batch 2 LuneOs; batch 3 Maemo Leste, etc.,). We are even toying with the idea of having different color back-plates for each of the projects (UT = Orange/ KDE = Green etc.,) - perhaps even with a stamped-in logos, for when a batch ships with a particular OS. The default black back-plate will obviously always be there as an option. And I hope its clear to all that you can run whatever you desire on your PinePhone ... I'm sure someone will end up running XFCE just because its possible So what the Phones ship with doesn't really matter all that much.

Anyways, we'll probably play it by the ear and see how it goes this years and early the next and take it from there. BTW, all I have written may not happen or may change - just letting you know what we're currently planning and thinking

Hi guys. The PinePhone is now real, developer pre-orders this month. Two enthusiast production-runs this year (Oct & Nov): https://www.pine64.org/2019/09/05/september-update-the-pinephone-is-real-shipping-soon/

Shipping starts tomorrow PINE64 community update post: https://www.pine64.org/2020/01/15/pinephones-start-shipping-all-you-want-to-know/

Hey all, a significant milestone has been reached - the PinePhone now supports OTA updates. If you have a BH phone, you can download the image here. You no longer need to reflash to stay up-to-date, just update. The image also features a significant performance improvement.

@domubpkm There will be world-wide shipping. As for RAM - the SOC supports up-to 3GB of LPDDR3 memory. So yes, in theory there could be more, but lets see if the devs are content with the current specs. If we buy more RAM then we will have to spend less on other components, so if the experience is solid with 2GB of RAM then its better to spend the money on better plastic, LCD panels, battery, etc., I hope this makes sense.

@Josele13 as @UniSuperBox said, lets take one step at a time. We think that the best chance to have a significant adoption of the PinePhone (and exposure to Linux on a phone in general) is by making a solid device, that performs well, and is inexpensive. As it currently stands, even the majority of Linux enthusiasts do not consider Linux on a Phone as a replacement for their iOS or Android daily driver - this is the reality of things. There is, however, a good chance that the same people will be willing to pick up the PinePhone... even if its just out of curiosity. This in turn will lead to exposure to the Linux phone OS platform such as Ubuntu Touch and help it grow.
The more people interested, the bigger the market, the more reasonable it is to create a higher-end device One thing at a time.

Here is an update to the general hardware development progress. A revised and final version of the dev kit PCB (v2.0) is now being laid out. It fixes a few issues with the first iteration of the PCB (like e.g. some GPIO mis-allocations) as well as adds community requested features, like the multi-color LED discussed in this thread few weeks back. If all features on this PCB work as intended - and devs are happy with it - then it will become the design to be shrunk down into the PCB that will go into the phone.

We're in talks with multiple factories to deliver the phone. This is good news because, well, they need to compete for our business and this translates to quality (as in any business they need to outdo one-another). I won't say more than this at this point - not because its a secret, but rather because I don't want to raise anyone's hopes for improvements to X or Y which may not happen in the end. Once we've got a deal you'll be the first to know. Regardless, this is good news for everyone.

Lastly, since 'battery' has now become a conversation point I'll learn more about it in coming days and see what is already known - perhaps we can add this information to the known feature-list by the end of next week.

Hey all,
Will be getting a Pinephone mockup as well as other stuff announced at FOSDEM soon, and figured I could do a livestream showcasing it all and answering whatever I can live. I am thinking about the 28th at 22:00 GMT - this is a Sunday and will likely work best for most people.
Once the parcel clears customs, and I know for certain that the stuff will be delivered to me on time, I'll let you all know and provide the streaming link. Lets hope customs are kind and it all goes smoothly

Pictures of the PinePhone case. Now we're eagerly waiting for the PCB [edit] hope no one minds the images being so large...

@ernest We're working with many different projects to deliver a number of Linux OS'. The Phone will sell with an OS - we currently aim to ship the PinePhone with Ubuntu Touch. But as with any FOSS hardware, you'll be able to install whatever you want from from the OS' that will be available and more (you can run a standard desktop Linux for instance ... for whatever reason).

@visiblink Yes and it goes together like a puzzle Think anyone will be able to fix it by themselves.

Here is the PCB in a few days we'll know if we've got a PinePhone or not yet

@the7thstranger Two things: 1) Brave Heart will likely ship with a Linux factory test image and 2) I'll put together a 'rough' SD->eMMC image in time for when phones are delivered later this month.

Answering the question regarding pace of PinePhone BH sales. There are two ways to look at it - a positive way and a less positive way.

A positive way to look at it is that people (potential end-users) understood that at this point in time the phone is meant for technically capable enthusiasts, who can contribute to the development and testing processes. So, in other words, people correctly held back from getting a PinePhone until the software matures a bit, reviews come out, and we (PINE64 + Developers) tell them that it now good for the average end-user to have as a daily driver.

A less positive view to take is that people say that they want a Linux phone, but in reality are not quite able to let go of their Android for iOS phones. There may be other reasons too: they don't think that PinePhone will deliverer the performance they want; they believe in some of the misconceptions which are floating around online; or simply that interest in a device doesn't mean putting down money to buy it. Whatever the case, there may be fewer people actually interested in purchasing one than we all anticipated.

I choose to believe that its the prior rather than the latter option. I think we did a good job communicating about the BH batch and people listened. Still, this remains to be seen.

Today's build brings many new improvements to the PinePhone, including performance and the modem automatically starting at boot (as well as auto-rotating the display - although I haven't gotten that working just yet).

@hummlbach Those are all good, difficult and complex questions indeed. These are also questions that are beyond my competence and insight, as I know little about the manufacturing process. I'll do my best to give you a broad overview of how the Pinephone is being born and hope that you will be able to deduce answers from what I write.

Large, complex and custom built components - such as for instance a LCD + TP panel - are very expensive. Custom plastic/metal molds are expensive too, as is extensive retooling of plastic/metal molds. To maintain the Pinephone price-point, some of the components - such as parts of the case and the LCD+TP - have been sourced from reliable vendors with two major factors in mind: quality of the components (+ their long-term supply safety) and the ability of the component in question to work "seamlessly" with mainline Linux. Then there are the many custom components - including the main PCB, the inside layout of the phone, parts of case, etc., - that are assigned to design studios and manufactured by factories the studios work with.

We do not have the means or ability to vet every vendor (the number of reasons why is beyond the scope of this post, but spans from cultural to practial) nor can we influence which factories design studios work with. Now, with that said, all component vendors meet all standard manufacturing practices that apply to 99% of quality electronics on the market. We cut no corners and work with reliable partners only.