
Pinebook – A $100 14" ARM laptop - j_s
https://www.pine64.org/?product=pinebook
======
retro64xyz
I am an early adopter of a Pine product. I purchased the Pine64, a case, and
some accessories. When I had problems with the product, the folks at Pine64
were completely silent and refused to communicate with me. It is possible that
their customer service has improved since I last made a purchase. I will not
test it and cannot recommend the Pine products. However, the idea of a $100
computer is tantalizing and I really hope they get their act together.

~~~
Retric
It sounds like they actually spent significant time helping which IMO is above
and beyond on a 100$ product. If you want significant support, don't buy
cheapest in it's category things as support is one of the things that must be
cut to dramatically reduce prices.

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
I've gotten reasonable support on $100 2-in-1s, $100 appliances, and <$100
pieces of software.

It being cheap isn't an excuse to ship a defective product.

~~~
Retric
A 100$ toaster is not a cheap in the way a 100$ laptop is. Basically, if your
buying a 1,000$ laptop and they reserve 5% of the price for support that's
50$. If your buying a 100$ laptop don't expect the same 50$ be set aside
unless your actually willing to spend 150$ on 100$ of components and 50$ of
support.

~~~
pm90
That is a reasonable analysis. I kinda agree that a computer cannot be treated
the same way as a home appliance (well not right now anyways, this made me
wonder how support for some of the smart appliances will pan out in the
future). There are exponentially more things that can go wrong, whereas with,
e.g. a Washer, there are a reasonably finite number of problems which can be
fixed by a mechanic.

That being said though, radio silence is _NOT_ the way you treat your
customers. If they don't offer support, then simply state that in an email, or
better yet, state that explicitly on the website. But if you have a customer
support email and don't honor it, it feels pretty scummy IMO.

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mafuyu
Here's a review of it by Hackaday: [http://hackaday.com/2017/04/28/hands-on-
with-the-pinebook/](http://hackaday.com/2017/04/28/hands-on-with-the-
pinebook/)

~~~
zzalpha
_You can’t give this to your kid that’s heading off to college — or even high
school — and expect them to manage. It’s also not really a replacement for a
low-end Chromebook, the desktop is sufficiently sluggish that I’d be wary of
recommending it as a cheap web browsing laptop for the sofa._

Okay, well, that's not great. I guess...

 _On the other hand, I must admit, I rather like it. It’s a lot better put
together than a $89 laptop has any right to be, and despite the battery
there’s a lot of space inside for adding things. Quite what things I’m not
entirely clear on, in the same way I’m just not sure what I’m going to do with
it quite yet. But I’ll figure something out._

Okay, now I'm confused... he likes it, but doesn't know why, and doesn't know
what he'd do with it because it's unsuitable for the things he'd normally use
a laptop for.

~~~
dagw
_Okay, now I 'm confused_

If you're the sort of person who needs a laptop to do the sort of things most
normal people use a laptop for then this probably isn't for you. If you're the
sort of person who might consider taking a laptop apart and trying to make it
do weird and wonderful things the creators had never thought of and realize
there is a good chance you'll end up bricking it in the process (and thus
don't want to spend too much money on it) then this might just be the laptop
you've been looking for

~~~
monocasa
Exactly. For instance at work (robotics) we tend to use little netbooks as
data loggers. This would be awesome for that.

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TadasPaplauskas
HN hug of death... For now, here's the cached version (text only):
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:M-Pti8N...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:M-Pti8NHnJ0J:https://www.pine64.org/%3Fproduct%3Dpinebook&num=1&strip=1&vwsrc=0)

    
    
        $99.99
        CPU: 1.2GHz 64-Bit Quad-Core ARM Cortex A53
        RAM: 2 GB LPDDR3 RAM Memory
        Flash: 16 GB eMMC 5.0 (upgradable up to 64GB)
        Wireless: WiFi 802.11bgn + Bluetooth 4.0
        USB 2.0 Port: 2
        MicroSD Card Slot: 1
        Mini HDMI: 1
        Headphone Jack: 1
        Microphone: Built-in
        Keyboard: Full Size Keyboard
        Touch-pad: Large Multi-Touch Touchpad
        Power: Input: 100~240V, Output: 5V3A
        Battery: Lithium Polymer Battery (10000mAH)
        Display: 14″ TN LCD (1366 x 768)
        Front Camera: 0.3 Megapixels
        Dimension: 329mm x 220mm x 12mm (WxDxH)
        Weight: 1.26 kg (2.78 lbs)
        Warranty: 30 days

~~~
agumonkey
Slightly better archive
[https://web.archive.org/web/20170516135311/https://www.pine6...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170516135311/https://www.pine64.org/?product=pinebook)

------
prophesi
I've been using Pine products since their Kickstarter, and received my 11''
Pinebook about two weeks ago. I currently use it for quick, on-the-go dev
work.

Mine is set so that it boots from the internal 16gb eMMC into Ubuntu Xenial w/
i3wm. Then, I can either extend the storage or have it boot into Android, or
any other distro, if I have an SD card inserted.

The Android build is well-refined with very few issues; just like the Pine64
SoC, Android is best for media-related use. The linux builds were rough at
first, but most of the major issues have been fixed already by the community
devs. They're also working on getting Linux on the mainline kernel, and to get
3D acceleration working.

It'll be a huge step for ARM if this device works out.

~~~
rlpb
> They're also working on getting Linux on the mainline kernel...

This was my first question, and there's no answer in their FAQ. Thank you for
answering it.

I used a Samsung ARM Chromebook as my main laptop for many years, running
Ubuntu. I only stopped two weeks ago when the keyboard finally broke (it did
very well for how much it cost).

The biggest problem I had was that driver support didn't appear in the
mainline kernel for years. When it finally did all work, it regressed
regularly. I gave up bisecting the regressions to keep my own laptop running;
I seemed to be the only one doing it.

Now I won't touch any ARM hardware (or any hardware, for that matter) that
apparently supports Linux unless everything I need is _already in mainline_.
Otherwise, by the time it lands (if it lands), it seems to be that there won't
be enough of a user community left to keep it from regressing.

~~~
prophesi
Yeah, that's the biggest issue with ARM. It doesn't matter what the specs are
if the driver's don't work. The reason Raspberry Pi is so great is because of
its huge community support to iron out all of its issues. There are plenty of
SoC's out there with a lot of wasted potential because of their lack of
support, and the fact that vendors only give you binary blobs for critical
system drivers...

Thankfully, Pine64 has had a decent community these past two years so I'm not
terribly afraid of the Pinebook getting left in the dust. But it's still a
gamble.

------
ah-
And the pine64 is one of the arm64 boards supported by OpenBSD:
[https://www.openbsd.org/arm64.html](https://www.openbsd.org/arm64.html)

~~~
eriknstr
Whoa, that page lists Raspberry Pi 3 as supported also.

Every time I've searched for OpenBSD for Raspberry Pi in the past, all I got
was people saying that it would never happen due to the reliance on
proprietary blobs.

------
reikonomusha
I was an early adopter of the pine64s. I was going to use them for ARM builds
at work. I had the most difficult time trying to install a Linux distro that I
could trust. Everything came in the form of binary blobs or pre-installed SD
cards.

In the end, a farm of 12 of them lay to waste. I hope I can find a reliable
way to install an OS with some semblance of trustworthiness. But the odds
don't seem so good after a year of their existence.

------
ashark
ALMOST awesome.

I'd like this but:

1) Keep it thin, _however_

2) cram all that extra space full of battery, damn the weight, and

3) make the case solid metal. Steel if you must. I want it to feel like a
contiguous block of metal with no give (doesn't necessarily mean you have to
make it impossible to open, but if that's what it takes, go for it), plus

4) some fast wired interface. Gigabit ethernet or (better) USB3.

Oh, and a screen that isn't awful (approaching MacBook territory, if not
matching it) would be nice.

And yeah, I'm aware that _exact_ thing probably can't be delivered for $100.
$200-300, though (I know, the nice screen bumps the price up)?

I'd love an absolute _brick_ of a thin, battery-filled laptop driven by
something just a bit heftier (mostly on I/O) than the Rpi3. Tech old/open
enough that there are no wrinkles to iron out, solid enough case to defend
yourself with it then flip it open and deploy to production, small enough to
pack well, old-school IBM tank-like longevity. Perfect for a lightweight
tiling WM and some terminals, and the occasional light open-source or emulated
game.

~~~
dagw
_I know, the nice screen bumps the price up_

Making the case out of solid metal rather than plastic is what will bump the
price up. Making custom plastic cases is really cheap. Doing basically
anything custom of of metal is much more expensive, doing a single pieces of
metal with a complex shape doubly so.

~~~
ashark
It's just got to _feel_ like one solid piece of metal, not actually _be_
solid. Like how iPhones give that glass-and-metal-slab vibe, or (to a lesser
extent) MacBook Pros before they thinned the body out (back when they could
fit an optical drive), not flexing like the newer ones do when you press
lightly on them. I want it to feel like something that could sit in an auto
garage seeing daily use and still work after 10 years, but not be giant
(possible because the mainboard would be tiny and power-sipping). Sturdy in
feel and in fact, though not giant and bulky, and with all-day-plus battery
life is what I'm looking for, and I'd trade raw computing power for it. A
shopworn socket set of a laptop.

------
rbanffy
Since the number of pixels is the same, I think the 11" is a nicer deal -
smaller, lighter and probably with a better battery life

~~~
adlpz
Seems like the different screen size doesn't totally translate into a
proportionally smaller device: the 11 inch is 30mm smaller in width and 20mm
in depth, that's 36mm diagonal, when the screen is 2.4 inches, or about 61mm
smaller. So around 1.4 inches of additional bezel with the smaller form
factor.

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rvense
Can I please have a $1000 ARM laptop? Or at least something that feels like a
$1000 ARM laptop. Make it good enough and I'm not actually too fussed if it
costs 500 or 1500.

~~~
jnsquire
Try a chromebook -- I'm typing this on a Acer Chromebook R13. Has a nice,
bright, Full HD IPS touch screen, 4 GB of memory, and a 4-core ARM64 cpu (2
A72, 2 A53). I'm got a terminal window open running rust builds locally in an
Ubuntu installation via crouton. I picked this one up refurb for $320.

------
jlebrech
why not something like this [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gpd-
pocket-7-0-umpc-lapto...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gpd-
pocket-7-0-umpc-laptop-ubuntu-or-win-10-os-laptop--2)

those 14" would be better served with a better cpu

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Wow, I've been pondering gutting a Toshiba Libretto and putting a Raspberry Pi
inside so I can have a modern(ish) hardware in that form factor. I am so the
target market for this!

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of faith in crowdfunded hardware projects..
:/

~~~
mafuyu
I have the same misgivings with crowdfunding hardware, but I ended up backing
this project. The same group has shipped two other similar portables in the
past, and have some working prototypes. Seems like they know what they're
doing.

Edit: I think a big part of it is that they've had prototypes since the
campaign launched, but filled the promo page with mostly renders for some
reason. If you look at the Updates section, you can see some photos and videos
of it in action.

~~~
jlebrech
It's an established manufacturer, but they seem to use indiegogo for some
reason as a launch platform.

they are in china so maybe that the best way they do it, create a few
prototypes and then have the assembly lines to allocate later.

------
midgetjones
And what exactly is wrong with a second-hand ThinkPad for the same money?

~~~
ekianjo
Nothing wrong, but some people prefer buying new stuff. I'd buy a used
thinkpad over a cheap ARM laptop any day.

------
hedora
I could see something like this being an everyday machine if it had a decent
display (even at a few times the cost). Am I the only one who wants a super
cheap SOC with a nice screen, keyboard and trackpad (and long battery life
with no fans, since the SOC draws << 10W...)

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jerguismi
Page doesn't load for me...

~~~
robinduckett
Hugged to death or just poorly managed. Doesn't bode well for a company trying
to peddle its wares.

~~~
robinduckett
It really, really doesn't, but thanks for the downvotes folks.

~~~
anc84
The performance of a website during high-stress load really, really does not
have much to do with anything else a company does.

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awinter-py
Can anyone find the option to add intel AMT to the bios? I can't see it
anywhere on the page and I also searched with ctrl+F.

~~~
uiri
It has an ARM CPU. Intel AMT is an x86(-64) technology. ARM and x86 are two
different CPU architectures with incompatible instruction sets. AMT isn't
available on an ARM chip.

~~~
smacktoward
The comment you are responding to is a joke. It is referring to recently
discovered AMT security vulnerabilities in Intel CPUs. The joke is that it is
asking how AMT can be added to an ARM CPU, when in reality nobody would
actually want to do that.

 _This has been another episode of the Hacker News Joke Explainer™_

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
Tell that to the guys who developed TrustZone technology.

~~~
monocasa
Trustzone isn't AMT; it's borderline orthogonal. Trustzone is just an extra
address bit that's only set in higher privileged modes (the "secure" modes in
ARM). Most boards like this boot into end user controlled code while in system
monitor mode, or a mode that allows you access to it trivially.

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AsakiIssa
At least this one appears real, compared to the noteslate many moons ago!

