
Pinephone – “BraveHeart” Limited Edition Linux SmartPhone - mike-cardwell
https://store.pine64.org/?product=pinephone-braveheart-limited-edition-linux-smartphone-for-early-adaptor
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gorgoiler
$150 is a pretty nice price point compared to a €450 Fairphone or a $1000
iPhone. When the price is low, the expectations are low, which I find
increases the amount of _fun_ you can have with a platform.

It’s not about the raw technical specs, it’s about what doors a platform can
open. Kind of like what Arduino did for making hardware fun. The phone would
have to actually be usable though.

The last time I did anything like this was a few years ago with a £30 Alcatel
device that I repurposed as a GPS tracker, but which I couldn’t get root on.

 _I Want To Believe_

~~~
megous
Yes, I recently someone hack an e-ink reader to add GPS and show maps. I can't
find the link anymore. :)

Other avenue for fun is buying broken stuff on auction sites, and reverse-
engineering/fixing it.

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userbinator
It has a removable battery, storage "expension", _and_ a headphone jack! To
me, that puts it ahead of the majority of smartphones today...

I have a several-year-old generic Chinese smartphone with very similar specs,
although it's a Mediatek 32-bit SoC which has a built-in modem for all the
communications (GSM/GPS/WiFi/BT/FM combo chip). The Allwinner A64 is not a
smartphone SoC so I wonder what the battery life will be like, and what it
will actually have for a modem.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
It has a Quectel EG-25G according to the specs, which is even a Verizon
approved module.

Librem 5 didn't go with a smartphone SoC either. My presumption is that you
can't get as open a platform as they wanted to go with the traditional ones?

~~~
kop316
My assumption is this creates a boundary in which the phone manufacturers can
physically sever, as both have physical hardware switches for camera,
Wifi/Bluetooth, Cell, Mic. Additionally, I have seen the SoCs with integrated
modems require proprietary blobs in order to even boot.

I am getting a "Birch" Librem 5 and I just ordered a Pinephone, so I am
curious to see how they compare to my Google Pixel 3a. I really hope one or
both can be a daily driver.

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mmjaa
The more I see these kinds of products coming out, the more I realize that
Creative Labs, of all people, had something right when they designed the Zii
Egg .. if only they'd put some weight behind the platform and finished
PlaszmaOS, which was a Linux OS on par with iOS at the time - but alas
cancelled "because Android":

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zii_EGG](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zii_EGG)

I really have to wonder what could have been if CL had the balls to finish
this project and make it available to all and sundry to serve as the basis for
commercial products. It was a delightfully cheerful little system for the time
..

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branon
I'm really looking forward to getting one of these when the non-Brave Heart
editions ship later next year.

Planning to run Leste[0] on mine.

[0] [https://maemo-leste.github.io/](https://maemo-leste.github.io/)

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i_am_proteus
Can anyone here comment on the maturity of the supported OSes? UBPorts and
Sailfish(!) look like the farthest along of the bunch from a read of the docs.

~~~
em-bee
sailfish has been production quality for years. it'd pick it again without
hesitation.

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arethuza
As a total aside - perhaps worth noting that the phrase "Brave Heart", at
least in a Scottish context, has quite an interesting story that is _nothing_
like the movie and actually comes from the alleged last words of Robert
'Black' Douglas during a battle in Spain against the Moors where he is
supposed to have shouted: "Lead on brave heart, I’ll follow thee." and thrown
the casket containing the heart of Robert the Bruce at his foes before diving
into the fight:

[https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/robert-the-bruces-
heart](https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/robert-the-bruces-heart):

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squiggleblaz
It is tempting; I have been waiting for a while. Having just moved to Europe I
don't know what getting the delivery here will be like. Anyone have any
reasonable indications about customs etc?

~~~
fimdomeio
In Portugal it works something like this. If it's below 100€ it's very likely
not to be taxed (but not sure if it's a hard rule) if it's above it gets stuck
in custums you have to send the purchase documentation and you're charged for
VAT (23%). Any other costs if exist are very low value compared to the rest.

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MrMember
I'm really excited about a true Linux, non-Android, phone, but how far are we
from something that's actually usable? There's Pinephone and Librem 5 on the
horizon, but any news about their release comes with a lot of caveats. "Early
adopters and developers only, experimental software, use at your own risk,"
etc. I'll happily buy one once it can reliably be used to make and receive
calls and text messages and browse the internet, but how far away is that?

~~~
megous
I don't see it having a problem browsing the internet or sending SMS.
Making/receiving/managing calls is more complicated, and I haven't seen it
demonstrated, yet.

I really like that they're trying to break the chicken-egg problem and
kickstart the actual community oriented development of SW. I think this is
better in the long run than trying to do SW inhouse.

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blankdebut
I'm putting off buying a new phone in general until we get a decent Linux
variant. Currently rocking a Samsung S4 running LineageOS.

~~~
heyflyguy
Does lineageOS run faster on older hardware? I have a Samsung S5 Active that I
loved, and when lollipop came out it really dragged it down. My new S8 active
already has cracked screen and screwed up case, while my S5 is in perfect
physical condition.

I'd love to install some other OS and make it usable.

~~~
TwoNineFive
I don't know what the status is on the S5 Active in particular, but the S5
is/was one of the most highly used and well developed of all
Cyanogen/LineageOS phones. All the rest of the Samsung phones after the S5 had
locked down bootloaders and other crap, but the S5 has incredible support. You
should definitely go find out what the status is on it. The S5 Active probably
has some minor differences that requires a specific image version but I don't
know.

And if you don't want to mess with it yourself you could probably sell it for
$80.

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mike-cardwell
These went on pre-order this morning.

~~~
sjg007
How is this not a scam?

~~~
gorgoiler
I’ve bought other Pine64 products before (ARM SoCs) and they were high quality
and well supported. I don’t expect my recommendation to mean much, but for
$150 I’ll be taking a punt on this phone too. Even if it ends up as a brick
I’d be happy knowing I’d supported Pine64’s efforts to make commodity hardware
like this succeed.

If anyone has experience otherwise I’d be interested to hear.

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duckland
Will I have to pay extra to get it shipped to the US? I know that there will
be a 10-15% tariff on smartphones starting Dec 15.

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classified
This introduces some interesting new terms, like the "early adaptor" or
"Expension". Quite amusing.

[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Expension](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Expension)

~~~
mosselman
Making fun of non-native speakers' mistakes is so cool, it makes you look very
clever.

~~~
rkachowski
I have sympathy for people making a sincere effort to market to foreign
audiences but basic language mistakes like this damage professionalism, and
when you're trying to get money from people it can make one question whether
this is a scam or not.

~~~
dangerface
> basic language mistakes like this damage professionalism

Thats just like your opinion or whatever. I care about professional results
I'll meet people half way with their communication.

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ljcn
Is the early adaptor included?

~~~
gorgoiler
I think you are mocking the site authors’ English language skills? Even if you
are just being light hearted and don’t mean any real harm, comments like this
foster an environment where it’s acceptable to mock foreign language skills.
No one here wants to live in that kind of world.

~~~
bighi
When it's a product launch, I believe it's perfectly fine to criticize it.

Basic mistakes like that make it look like unreliable amateur work.

If you can't find anyone to help you proofread, pay someone. And I'm from a
third world country, I know paying people might be expensive. But in the case
of some basic copy like that, a $5 proofreader from Fiverr would be enough.

~~~
tremon
Agreed, but mocking is only slightly related to criticizing. There's better
ways to get a point across than slighting.

~~~
mondoshawan
I dunno -- I've been mocked for spelling mistakes in business contexts, and my
non-English speaking colleagues have mocked _each other_ over spelling
mistakes, too -- and then it turns into fun as the original author purposely
goofs in later text to continue the joke.

It all depends on context.

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PhasmaFelis
> _Small numbers (1-3) of stuck or dead pixels are a characteristic of LCD
> screens. These are normal and should not be considered a defect._

Wait, what?

~~~
MartijnBraam
While it's stated very explicitly here, it's also in the manual for every
monitor you've ever bought, you need >n dead pixels before the monitor is seen
as defect and good for warrenty replacement.

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CareyB
Scroll to the bottom of the page, and you’ll notice it weighs 0.50 kg, or
approximately ONE POUND. Just NO!

Lots and lots of ‘finger errors’, as they call them in Formula 1.

~~~
cfontes
That is probably the BOX

BODY:

Dimensions: 160.5mm x 76.6mm x 9.2mm Weight: 185 gram

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gregjw
'developer and early adaptor' 'storage expension'

guys, english proof reading, please!

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dxxvi
$150 is the price I pay for a Moto Z3 play (of course after a discount from
Motorola, which is applied to everybody). The Z3 play might not be as "open"
as this one, but it's a very nice phone, rootable, able to install TWRP. So
$150 for this phone is a little too much.

~~~
Tepix
Perhaps you haven't read the product description. Here it goes:

 _An Open Source Smart Phone Supported by All Major Linux Phone Projects_

 _Perhaps you’re in a line of work where security is a must, or a hard-core
Linux enthusiast, or perhaps you’ve just got enough of Android and iOS and
you’re ready for something else – the PinePhone may be the next Phone for you.
Powered by the same Quad-Core ARM Cortex A53 64-Bit SOC used in our popular
PINE A64 Single Board Computer, the PinePhone runs mainline Linux as well as
anything else you’ll get it to run._

 _The purpose of the PinePhone isn’t only to deliver a functioning Linux phone
to end-users, but also to actively create a market for such a device, as well
as to support existing and well established Linux-on-Phone projects. All major
Linux Phone-oriented projects, as well as other FOSS OS’, are represented on
the PinePhone and developers work together on our platform to bring support
this this community driven device._

The Moto Z3 is not competing with this phone.

