Can the PinePhone replace your Android or iOS device?
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- Pathetically inadequate CPU
- Bluetooth 4 (dark ages Bluetooth)
- Tiny 2GB RAM (OK for 1980s-type games I suppose)
- Only 16GB eMMC†
- Only 802.11 b/g/n (now as ancient as hieroglyphics)
- Doesn't seem to have FM radio (why the hell not?)
- Screen too small
- Screen too Lo-res
- Super Lo-res cameras
- Mono speaker it seems.
It may be cheap but it's no good if you can't use it (except perhaps as a mantelpiece ornament). Why are all these type of projects always so damn inadequate/behind the times (I've yet to find an exception)?
We urgently need a REAL Google/Android replacement and we've ended up with an old fashioned toy! What's wrong with these designers, have they been in a time warp for a decade or more?
It reminds me of USB 1—stillborn and totally useless, Microsoft running 8x3 filenames a decade longer than it ought, and Bill's famous 640k disaster/fiasco (even at the time I nearly fell over with laughter at his announcement).
It seems some people never learn.
P.S.: At least it has one good point—a headphone jack. That isn't retro, it's just sensible. (But I wonder if that was by design or accident.)
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† As it is, my current phone uses 256GB/SD plus 64GB internal and I'm desperately running out of space!
All the specs of the device are limited by the CPU, which PINE64 chose because they had used it in many previous products. You can't put in more than 3GB RAM in this (a 3GB RAM/32GB eMMC PinePhone variant exists), and better cameras would also be not supported by the SoC. Same for a higher Res screen: It is fine, generally (~260ppi is nothing to sneeze at), and you would not want to force that poor Mali 400 MP2 graphics to push even more Pixels. Now PINE64 could have chosen a different chip for WiFi/BT, likely that Realtek chip was cheap and available and that's why it is used.
Anyway, the hardware is not the story here, the software is, and that is going to be reusable in large part on subsequent, more powerful hardware that is slowly landing with the Librem 5 (who deserve massive credit for developing Phosh/Phoc/libhandy, without which I could not use my PinePhone daily), and you'll soon be able to run this software on older Snapdragon phones thanks to SoMainline (e.g. OnePlus 6). And PINE64 will eventually provide faster hardware, too.
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These lines were written on that "old fashioned toy" running desktop Firefox. You're welcome!
We'll wait and see - I've been wrong before.
What's certain is that I won't be buying one as it's completely inadequate for my needs. That said, I must point out that I'm not a gamer, so I don't need the power for that. It's just that from past experience, I've found that with machines of the caliber of the PinePhone simply run out of steam to the extent that on one machine I was using the web browser couldn't access the internet as the phone's resources were so low (to temporarily solve the problem I used to reboot the machine and run the browser first off). The only other option was to unload/uninstall the vast majority of programs from the phone. Incidentally, this machine was a branded one from one of the biggest telcos/carriers.
"All the specs of the device are limited by the CPU, which PINE64 chose because they had used it in many previous products."
I used to work in a prototype laboratory for a well known electronics manufacturer so I understand that logic very well. However, as my enlightened engineering boss (the best I've ever had) pointed out that the logic of using an obsolete or outdated part simply because one knows how to use it and or is tooled up to do so has very limited virtue, as (a), your competitors will instantly realize it and upmarket you on tech by using a better part/tech and they'll be very quick about it - and will do so for around the same price as your obsolete one, and (b) when they out-market you, your customers will quickly notice the fact and you'll lose market share before you've had time to retool.
For those reasons alone I consider that PinePhone's CPU selection ill advised - quite mad really.
Still, the fact remains that no manufacturer yet makes an even modestly-spec'd privacy-based, Gapps-free Android smartphone let alone a high-end one - even though many of us are desperately hanging out for one. It really is damn annoying that PinePhone is just tinkering aound the edges.
What PinePhone needs to realize is that the moment some enterprising Chinese manufacturer enters the market with such a phone then it's curtains, PinePhone will be out of business. This could happen sooner than one thinks if the privacy and right-to-repair issues are legislated as seems likely (and I don't just mean the US - as such legislation is being considered in many countries). Such legislation would likely outlaw Google forbidding manufacturers to manufacturer a PinePhone-like phone in competition with their Gapps-equipped Android phones.
In essence, if Google tried to prevent a manufacturer from making a PinePhone-like phone in addition to a standard Android one then such actions would be deemed unlawful as Restrictive Trade Practice (such laws already exist in some countries). (People like me are hanging out on legislation like that being enacted.)
"These lines were written on that "old fashioned toy" running desktop Firefox. You're welcome!"
My post to which you replied, likewise, was written on an old fashioned desktop running Windows 7 and running what I consider a better version (fork) of Firefox, namely Palemoon. This reply however is written on an Android phone with all Gapps disabled and running the following browsers:
- Lightening
- SmartCookieWeb
- Privacy Browser
(Firefox on Android can't cut the mustard.)
For this reply, I used Lightening.