
Pinebook – Powerful, Metal and Open Source ARM 64-Bit Laptop - convivialdingo
https://www.pine64.org/pinebook-pro/
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apocalyptic0n3
Linus Tech Tips put out a video this week on Floatplane about the Pinebook
(not the Pro edition) and it was woefully underpowered. CPU was compared to
the PS3 and GPU was compared to the original Xbox, for reference. It barely
ran with the stock software (they had to install updates/new software to get
it running) and was unable to play a 480p YouTube video fullscreen without
noticeable frame drops. The hardware in it and their tablet and phone
prototype are several generations out of date (easiest example is WiFi only
being 802.11n and single band). They were also unable to get Windows running
on it when they tried using a Raspberry Pi image, if that is something you
care about. Pine64 themselves claim that the machine is not a daily driver.

The Pinebook Pro looks more respectable hardware-wise, but I would avoid
looking at it as a daily driver until you can find reviews of it saying
otherwise. I had been looking at the phone a few days before and was
astonished at how outdated the hardware was, even for an open source device
that is possibly upgradeable.

~~~
X-Istence
I own one of the original Pinebooks, and for $99 it is a great little machine.

Comparing it to my MacBook Pro... it's terrible.

It has some flaws, and it may be underpowered for things like YouTube, it
works flawlessly as a small note taker that has an extremely long battery life
and a decent screen/keyboard. It's also really nice for having a Linux machine
around that most dongles/serial consoles just work with when you head into the
datacenter to deal with a Cisco device that isn't playing nice.

For the price point, you get a lot. As an owner of a Pinebook, I am looking
forward to the Pinebook Pro.

~~~
tombert
You must have had a very different experience than I did; in my case even
running something like LibreOffice was laggy, and the default install of KDE
was laughably slow. Command-line applications worked fine, and yeah, I mostly
live in the command-line anyway, but if the computer isn't even fast enough to
go to Stackoverflow at a reasonable speed when I encounter s a problem, I
don't see how usable it is for me. It was bad enough to where I tried opening
it up to see if I could reasonably-easily install an ODroid N2 or NVidia
Jetson in there. (I'm sure someone smarter than me could make that work but it
didn't look like a trivial operation).

I'm hoping the PineBook Pro is bit better, since I love the idea of having a
good ARM based laptop with FOSS software driving it, but as it stands my
Pinebook is more or less a paperweight

~~~
znpy
In pinebook’s defense... OpenOffice/LibreOffice is slow and lags pretty much
everywhere.

~~~
tombert
Sure, and my main "word processor" is typically vim+pandoc->LaTeX, so maybe
that's a bad example anyway. Still, the fact that the web browsers are so
completely unusable (I tried Chromium and Firefox; haven't tried something
like uzbl yet) makes the entire system pretty difficult to use.

I have thought about writing some kind of ncurses application and having it
live next to my server to display some cool diagnostic screens that I pretend
to read, but most likely it'll just be a novelty that I whip out about once a
month to complain about to my wife.

~~~
asark
The only major(ish) browser I know of that seems to give half a damn about
performance—by which I mean "does not make the whole system feel slow" rather
than "achieves high scores on JS benchmarks"—is Safari, unfortunately :-/

I really miss when Firefox (Phoenix, Firebird) felt snappy and light. So,
like, pre-2.0, back before 2006 :-(

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gruturo
The ISO keyboard is unfortunately a true bummer. I hate that layout with a
passion and would gladly pay extra to have an ANSI layout keyboard (the one
with the flat Enter and the backslash above it) and even install it myself if
it's feasible.

~~~
squarefoot
And IMO that on/off button as part of the keyboard is so stupid: I've used a
cheap Asus laptop with the same arrangement and it was a painful experience.
Just why? To save half a fraction of a buck perhaps? Then bill me the cost for
a proper keyboard and I'll be glad to pay more for it. The on/off button
belongs to an area where the user cannot hit it by mistake, and the writing
surface can't be that place.

~~~
rjsw
I have never hit the power button by mistake, you have to hold it down for a
while anyway.

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iamnothere
People complaining about the old Pinebook are missing the point completely.
Pine was always super open about its limitations, even on the "purchase" page.
From the beginning, it was always intended as a product for tinkerers, ARM
enthusiasts, and OSS advocates, not for consumers. And now they've taken what
they learned and applied it to create functional, Chromebook level hardware.

Even with the Pro version, why would you ever buy this thing as a typical
consumer? I mean, how would you even find it in the first place? The Pinebook
is not aimed at the general public, even the Pro version.

The Pro will be great as a terminal and as a machine for casual development.
It's not a gaming PC, a media center, or a server.

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convivialdingo
Also see their prototype video.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mj3_jMBlbxA](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mj3_jMBlbxA)

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HeWhoLurksLate
The thing that I was missing in the last version, and most of why I didn’t buy
it, was that the GPIO present on the Pine SOC boards (and Raspberry Pi’s,
etc.) were not exposed in any way, shape or form on the last version. I think
it would be _really_ neat to have some flavor of internal GPIO (exposed pads
on the edge of something are just fine, a low-profile connector with a fanout
cable would be great for repair, too) that could be used for hobbyist projects
or some fancy integrated controller for something like industrial robotics.

~~~
pmarin
We used to have GPIO ports in all computers including laptops via the parallel
port.

~~~
HeWhoLurksLate
That thing is _so big_ , though, and doesn't really work when laptops are
really thin (which, to a certain extent, I really appreciate).

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grizzles
I bought a pinebook a few months ago. It's so bad I consider it e-waste.
They've lost me for life.

~~~
imtringued
That describes almost every SBC.

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DubiousPusher
A little disappointing it's not actually made of pine.

~~~
etu
A bit like the Raspberry Pi when it's not made of berries... ;)

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rocky1138
Do we have FOSS drivers for 100% of the hardware yet?

~~~
boxfire
There's an opensparc 1000 running proprietary firmware, much like the Intel
Management Engine and company. There's a small effort to replace that in open
software. If I had oodles of free time I might contribute, but I've got my own
projects to fry.

~~~
rocky1138
So, other than mangement engine firmware, that's a yes? We'll be able to turn
it on and run 2d and 3d acceleration without closed-source blobs?

~~~
rjsw
No, it has a Mali GPU, you still need a blob for that. The SoC doesn't have 2d
hardware, unlike some older Allwinner chips.

~~~
floatboth
You don't. Panfrost is already capable enough to run a simple desktop like
Weston :)

~~~
rjsw
Looks like Lima would be needed on the Pinebook, how well does that work ?

~~~
floatboth
Not sure. Why is everyone talking about the original Pinebook now? The Pro is
coming.

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nickik
This is the type of laptop I would get with RISC-V. That would be amazing. But
for an ARM Laptop I'm not interested enough. But decently a cool project.

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mrbill
I had one. Horribly slow, and the keyboard was terrible and near unusable.
Sold it to a coworker a couple of weeks later.

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dhruvmittal
It's a shame they're dropping the 11", though I concede that if they want this
to be feasible with the magnesium alloy body they did need to condense the
product line.

~~~
anotheryou
> there will be an upgrade path for owners of the 14" regular Pinebook to a
> 'Pro-like' Pinebook (we're exploring an upgrade path for existing 11.6"
> users too - stay tuned).

[https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=7093](https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=7093)

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apple4ever
Isn't all their software support done by the community still?

PINE's hardware has always been amazing. But their software support has always
been terrible.

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Tepix
Waiting for the successor with a RK3588

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pier25
Price?

~~~
_wp_
Allegedly around $200 source - [https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2019/05/pinebook-
pro-video-demo](https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2019/05/pinebook-pro-video-demo)

~~~
pier25
That's a really nice price point.

