Posts made by PINE64

@libremax Nope, there won't be any 'editions' of the PineTab per se, but we may rotate the OS it ships with

@libremax There will be some PinePhone announcements soon - they may not, however, be UBports related.
As for the number ... you're very close.

Hi Everyone,
It does seem that indeed the batch is nearly completely sold out (for the past 72hrs). The reason why I say 'nearly' is because some people have either added a phone to their basket and not checked out OR checked out but the payment didn't go though. As of 48hrs ago there wae approx. 100 such phones stuck in a limbo. Phones are held in such limbo for a period of 12 hrs before they are release for sale again. If there are still any left, then there are likely no more than 20 left.

@Loops Not at this time. It is, however, much less relevant on the PineTab as it can be charged via a barrel connector.

@poVoq Those silicone covers are usually absolutely terrible however.

For those with BH phones - if you want to try out location services and provide feedback, then here's the instructions

For the PBP we have considered both key cap stickers and empty keyboards which users could populate according to their need (the controller is open sourced, so you can program it to do whatever you wish). Not completely sure if either is really feasible with Pinetab keyboard ... would have to check.

Regardless, on a fundamental level the problem with both options is user-error and subsequent support nightmare for us. This is in general why we refrain from e.g. selling a PinePhone DIY kit ... we know people want to do DIY stuff, and I fully understand why it would be 'fun' to do this sort of stuff, but we also know that if end-users mess something up during assembly, we'll end up drowning in support tickets. Keyboard sticker sets and really delicate cap-hinges seem like something that will break frequently.

... You are welcome to try to convince me otherwise of course.

@kugiigi ... also do keep in mind these are Lima GPU drivers, under constant development. There are also tweaks to be made to other components and their kernel / dts settings. The PineTab will never be a speed-demon, but will ultimately perform (much) better than shown in the video.

@Loops - I think that production PineTabs will be available in less time than production PinePhones due to the lower complexity of the device, yes. It may in fact be the case that this PCBA revision is final - we don't know this yet however. Regardless, small tweaks for efficiency or aesthetics are likely to follow in future batches.

@kugiigi - Marius was using a (terribly crude and hand assembled) 1GB dev version of the Tablet in the video [edit] 2GB version. I also believe that his demo ran from a SD card and not internal eMMC flash. Answering your implicit question: you can expect the production version to run slightly better due to more RAM + running from eMMC

@rocket2nfinity we can't obviously rule out with complete certainty the possibility of some issue on an early hardware iteration, but I since the PineTab is somewhat simpler device than the PinePhone, the chance of a serious HW issue is slim-to-none.

Quick word about BH PinePhone errata in the context of your question - most of the errata listed on our wiki are poor or non-ideal hardware implementations rather than fundamental design flaws. If they weren't made public (as is the case for most traditional HW manufacturers) then 95% of users wouldn't even be aware there is a 'problem'. All of the errata will be worked-around in software.

@Keneda @domubpkm We may consider doing one-of alternate Latin-alphabet layout batches (e.g. once a year for a particular month) if it turns out the PineTab is highly sought after. As for other languages, it is unlikely it will happen. You need to understand that 1) making keyboard layouts costs money; 2) having multiple SKUs adds to the complexity of storing and shipping; 3) keeping stock at a warehouse costs money (because as much as you want these keyboard layouts, they wont be popular nor sell a lot of units... trust me, we know) - so we'd have to produce one-of batches anyways and keep stock; 4) the first three points combined would result in a potentially significant price-bump of the device to cover the costs.

@Keneda @domubpkm Other keyboard layouts may be possible at some point in the future, but not currently I'm afraid.

@Loops The A64 SOC only supports up-to 3GB LPDDR3 RAM. An increase over 2GB RAM would require us to use a 4GB LPDDR3 RAM module (there are no odd-number modules), which would be rather expensive and increase the price of the device for a relatively low performance/ usability gain. Even high(er) end SOCs in our lineup - such as the RK3399 - support a maximum of 4GB LPDDR4 RAM. In general, SOCs that support 6+ GB of RAM are not open-sourced and run Android kernels + blobs.

For those playing along at home, images which feature OTA updates and more can now be downloaded here

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 Different OSes are at various stages of completion. There are systems that feel like 'they're almost there' while others feel distinctly like alpha software. Some systems like postmarketOS or Debian + Phosh are capable of running android applications (to a degree) - here is an example.
Perhaps there are other OSes that run android apps too - I don' know that for a fact however.

@domubpkm Not sure I understand your question? what do you mean by 'esploitation' ?

@ricardo65 We'll have some announcements coming soon

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).

Another quick video of the phone running UT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST_BjKicTAk

@Lakotaubp This is very, very unlikely now for two reasons. 1) Software needs another 1-3 months to mature a bit (also with community's help). 2), More importantly, Guangdong province has prohibited work until Feb 10th, which likely will be extended, due to the coronavirus epidemic. Moreover, Hong Kong - where we ship our devices containing batteries from (due to regulation) - has now closed the boarder to China due to the coronavirus epidemic. So even if we could manufacture phones, we couldn't ship them.

While we have some control over point 1, we have no control over point 2. My guess, however, is April/May.