
Pinebook: An Affordable 64-bit ARM based Open Source Notebook - tonteldoos
https://www.pine64.org/?page_id=3707
======
unlimitedbacon
I have this laptop.

The beauty of it is that it is unashamedly bad. It is the humblest of laptops.
The body is a direct copy of the 13" MacBook Air. As a computer, it is at
least as usable as a Raspberry Pi. The teardown photos are hilarious because
the motherboard only takes up about 1/6 the internal space. The rest is empty.
[https://hackaday.com/2017/04/28/hands-on-with-the-
pinebook/](https://hackaday.com/2017/04/28/hands-on-with-the-pinebook/)

It comes with Ubuntu 16.04, but there are other distros available that work to
varying degrees. Since Firefox Quantum came out it's actually pretty usable
for web browsing.

Features:

* It does in fact turn on.

* It boots surprisingly fast, since it is running on flash memory.

* There is an HDMI port, which may work in the future.

* The battery life is fantastic, due to it's meager CPU.

* Most have no more than 2 dead pixels.

* You can charge it from another computer's USB port.

* Potato quality camera.

* It costs less than a replacement battery for my ThinkPad.

~~~
jandrese
It has one of those goddamned AllWinner chips in it, I wouldn't hold my breath
on the HDMI or any of the GPU acceleration working in the foreseeable future.
Hardware drivers is not their business, nor is releasing docs that might allow
someone else to write a driver.

I have a dev board with one of those chips and getting any of the peripheral
hardware working turned out to be a complete nightmare. I eventually gave up
on it. Hopefully whomever is doing the Ubuntu port knows Mandarin and is
living next to the factory in China so he can sneak out some driver specs.

~~~
ShroudedNight
> Hardware drivers is not their business, nor is releasing docs that might
> allow someone else to write a driver.

Is there a third road to device support? What's the point of selling hardware
if you're not going to provide any sort of path to enablement?

~~~
throwaway2048
This is a question that has puzzled linux devs for a long time.

Why the hell release a linux only device, marketed at the DIY/hardcore user
with no, or very limited ways to actually use the damn hardware? (like being
stuck on some ancient kernels with 3.24x10^43 remote holes)

Its pretty astonishing, and seems to be primarily driven over paranoia about
IP/patents.

After the answer a lawyer is always going to give to the question "Is there
legal risk here" is yes, companies arnt going to do better until we demand
they do.

------
mntmn
I'm also working on an ARM notebook in the spirit of Novena called Reform:
[http://mntmn.com/reform/](http://mntmn.com/reform/)

This version is 32-bit, but it has 4 cores @ 1.2GHz and 4GB of RAM. Also, it
is actually open source, meaning that all the electronic design files (made in
KiCAD) are available on GitHub and as soon as we have decided on the correct
formats the same will be true for the mechanical/case parts, so you will be
even able to 3D print replacement parts.

I could not find the design files for Pinebook so I'm not sure what is "Open
Source" about it? Schematics are not sources.

I don't know how you can sustainably make a laptop and sell it for $100. I'm
selling the first developer models for EUR 549/599 and I'm not making any
profit on these, it's basically passing on the material cost. I guess it's a
tradeoff between cutting enough corners to bring the price down and trying to
achieve some base of quality and durability. These are different goals.

Anyway, I'm happy to see more activity in the ARM space as that means more
eyeballs on ARM Linux applications, potentially more issues filed and bugs
fixed.

~~~
tomxor
I love the keyboard, reminds me of my old compaq beige brick laptop. What does
it actually feel like to type on though? They actual keys look kinda squidgy
but that may just be their translucent appearance.

~~~
mntmn
It feels good. The squishy look is irregularities of the resin printing
process for the keycaps. We are working on solving this so that all keycaps
are exactly equal.

------
limeblack
Honest question. Why don't people buy old laptops instead of cheaper new ones?
I'm no expert but the cost to performance ratio isn't to far off. I am typing
this on T420 Thinkpad laptop. I get desiring to use open hardware but at the
detriment of performance doesn't quite make sense.

~~~
megy
I bet this is cheaper, and lighter than your thinkpad, with a better battery
and require less care.

~~~
loser777
Cheap for good reason; an A53 quad core is Raspberry Pi 3 class. Hope every
package you're gonna need is precompiled for arm64 because building anything
nontrivial is not going to be fun.

~~~
geofft
Can you not cross-compile from a cloud instance? It seems like compiling
software would be a perfect fit for per-minute or per-second VMs.

~~~
RandomCSGeek
I used a aws spot instance to compile GCC for Alpine Linux. It's a decent idea
I think, especially if you already know what you need to do.

I had to do a lot of trial and error stuff to get it right, but anyway, I was
having that spot instance sitting there almost idle, while using up the
credits I got for free, so I had no issues with it.

The C5 instances are great for this kind of stuff.

------
et2o
I wish the Motorola Atrix concept of plugging your phone into a laptop-shell
and using the phone's CPU, memory, storage, etc. had taken off. My iPhone is
already much more powerful than this ARM laptop, but I obviously can't use it
like a laptop.

~~~
txsh
I’m convinced Apple is working towards something like this.

~~~
jhpankow
Why would they turn your phone into a laptop when they can sell you a Macbook?

~~~
eof
Because less people are buying macbooks and maybe you will by a macdock
instead?

~~~
jack_pp
exactly, it is hard to believe a dock would cannibalize the macbook market

~~~
andreareina
Could cannibalize the iPad market instead

------
shadeslayer
I just released a OS Image for this nifty piece of Hardware with full hardware
video decode and gpu acceleration.

Check it out here [https://kshadeslayer.wordpress.com/2018/04/17/launching-
netr...](https://kshadeslayer.wordpress.com/2018/04/17/launching-
netrunner-18-03-for-the-pinebook/)

~~~
nerdymanchild
Is the 2D X11 acceleration done via glamor using the closed source driver?

(Congrats btw!)

~~~
shadeslayer
Any EGL calls go through the armsoc driver to the closed blob.

I tried the X11 modesetting driver, but the mali blob is missing GBM support
on there.

------
leftybc
I own a 11" Pinebook - it's pretty much the same as an rpi3 with a decent
screen, decent keyboard, and a mediocre trackpad. I put a 32GB eMMC upgrade in
it right from Pine.

I find it a bit slow for web browsing with a heavy modern browser, but I
haven't spent the time to find a more optimized one.

I'd say that for $99 it's nicer than most $300-400 laptops I've used in terms
of build quality, and it makes a great dumbish terminal.

For the price I paid, if it got broken/lost/stolen I wouldn't be too worried
about it. A handy little toy that I use more often than I thought I would.

------
sien
Reviews here to save people doing what I just did:

[https://www.techradar.com/reviews/pinebook-14-inch](https://www.techradar.com/reviews/pinebook-14-inch)

[https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/pinebook-64-review/](https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/pinebook-64-review/)

It looks like it might be worth the price.

Anyone have one here? Any idea on delivery times?

~~~
pizza234
I'm think those reviews are more or less fluff pieces.

First, they intentionally gloss over the performance aspect; as a owner of
multiple ARM boards, I can tell you that the A53 performance is terrible for
desktop usage; it's not even good for headless servers (although "terrible" is
relative).

Second, I'm very skeptical about the 64-bit claim, which they haven't
investigated. While ARM CPUs are 64-bit themselves, ARM Linux distros are
typically 32-bit.

And finally, don't underestimate the lack of support for ARM builds. While of
course, the full Ubuntu repositories are available, for software outside them,
the "compiling from source" can be troublesome for ARM architectures.

I think that a high-power ARM laptop (ie. A15 or more) would be interesting;
but not a low-power one.

~~~
ulzeraj
I’m curious about Aarch64. Is it like x86 where you can just install a generic
Aarch64 kernel and operating system and just make it works or do I have to
build a very specific system for that board like images that are specifically
aimed at the pi?

To be clear I’m really interested on the Rock64 boards but I don’t like any of
their OS options. It would be great to be able to use the Aarch64 port of
Alpine Linux on those.

~~~
pizza234
In general, SBC SOCs require customizations due to (at least) bootloader and
blobs. On top of those, there are typically other patches to expose various
functionalities (eg. cooling).

There's surprising little information about 64-bit SBC O/S. It's possible that
64 bits don't give so much performance improvement, or that they increase the
power consumption - not sure. It seems that nobody really took the time (and
distro...) to do an accurate comparison.

Having said that, curiously, SUSE actually produced a 64-bit distro
([https://www.suse.com/c/suse-linux-enterprise-server-
raspberr...](https://www.suse.com/c/suse-linux-enterprise-server-raspberry-
pi)), due to them already having an ARM distribution. I'll actually try it at
some point - I'm very curious. More direct download link:
[https://www.suse.com/de-de/products/arm/raspberry-
pi/](https://www.suse.com/de-de/products/arm/raspberry-pi/)

------
stratosmacker
A few things....

Pinebook uses a Mali GPU, which if I understand correctly relies on closed
binaries to run though it looks like that is changing: [https://www.cnx-
software.com/2017/09/26/allwinner-socs-with-...](https://www.cnx-
software.com/2017/09/26/allwinner-socs-with-mali-gpu-get-mainline-linux-
opengl-es-support/)

Also my personal experience with this laptop was less than stellar. This was
last May (before Firefox Quantum), but I opened it, tried to do some things,
and immediately closed it because it's absolutely too slow to use as a laptop.
Definitely cool as a terminal. I ended up putting it back in the box and
donating it as a prize for an event

------
Schwolop
This manages to cost less than a Nexdock, which has essentially the same
components _except_ a CPU. (You attach it to a PC stick, RPi, mobile phone,
etc.)

That's pretty impressive!

------
72deluxe
I recently bought a Linx 14 from Tesco in the UK
([https://www.tesco.com/direct/linx-14-ultraslim-full-hd-
light...](https://www.tesco.com/direct/linx-14-ultraslim-full-hd-lightweight-
aluminium-4gb-ram-64gb-storage-intel-pentium-laptop-silver/609-3596.prd))
which is Intel and I've been pleasantly surprised by how good it is!
Particularly for the money! And an OS that I could get on with or give to my
mum to use.

~~~
jacek
Looks like rebranded Chinese laptop. Some Chinese companies sell very decent
low-budget laptops (Chuwi, Teclast, Jumper, etc.) and some have full Linux
support (according to reviews [1]).

[1] [https://techtablets.com/](https://techtablets.com/)

~~~
72deluxe
Yes I think it is, but it doesn't have such visible iterations as the Chuwi
(which went from having to take the bottom off to get to the SSD and then
adding a flap) and having indeterminate specs from the sellers, or having bad
reviews where the screen scratched on the body when hinged open.

At least with this one, the specifications are on a reputable seller's website
and the Linx company is a UK Ltd company; the box it came in and tiny manual
were good quality, unlike some of the Dells I have ordered!

I was pleasantly surprised! Impressed by the lack of bloatware on it too.

------
prophesi
I've had the Pinebook 11.6'' since its initial release. It's been great for
doing occasional server maintenance on-the-go.

A few tips:

\- You can install an OS on the internal 16gb memory. Then swap in an SD card
to run other OSes.

\- Performance is not too bad if you run i3wm. And Firefox Quantum helps it
out even further.

\- I've yet to try this out (waiting on another SD card to come in the mail),
but shadeslayer released an image for the pinebook that runs KDE with
accelerated X11 & video playback support[0]. Which is pretty impressive if you
know anything about Mali and the issue of closed-source binary blobs.

[0] [https://www.netrunner.com/netrunner-for-
pinebook/](https://www.netrunner.com/netrunner-for-pinebook/)

------
usr1106
They had one on display (and to touch) at FOSDEM. Mechanics felt cheap, but
what can you expect at the price point.

I asked about the Allwinner misery with Linux kernel support. They answered
that is no longer an issue with the new 64 bit chips. I have not verified the
statement.

I would try one if they had a reasonable distributor in the EU. Now it's
gambling with customs. Might not come much cheaper than e.g. an HP with Intel
Atom and 32 GB of eMMC. And those play in a whole different league in build
quality. (I use them with Linux.)

------
badsectoracula
Looks neat, but i hope they find a reseller in EU (with actual stock, not like
those "homebrew" consoles like Pandora and GCWZero that took me two years to
actually get one because it was always out of stock - which sucks since i
_really_ like it, but the limited availability harmed it considerably) since
it sounds like you'll need to pay VAT and at the customs office yourself
(which is extra annoying when you actually have to go there yourself).

------
jandrese
Front Camera: 0.3 Megapixels

Where does one source a webcam this crappy in 2018? Did someone find an old
stock of 90's sensors in the back of a warehouse somewhere?

------
wolfgke
Why is there no Ethernet port?! Even the Pine64, which the Pinebook seems to
be based on, has one. Just because Apple stopped including one does not imply
that an audience that loves to tinker will not miss an Ethernet port.

~~~
nerdymanchild
The cost of the PHY and the Ethernet interface would increase the price

------
steve19
This looks like the perfect hackable netbook with very little surface area for
attacks but sadly it has an Allwiner SoC (A64) which violates the GPL and
contains many binary blobs. I have been burnt with them, MediaTek and AMLogic
in the past. Never again.

[http://linux-sunxi.org/A64#Allwinner](http://linux-sunxi.org/A64#Allwinner)

~~~
simosx
Allwinner has done mistakes in the past and posted tarballs of the Linux
kernel source with object files for drivers they did not have the right (from
others) to post the source. They called these "SDKs" and distributed them to
those that asked.

There are ways to get around such issues like distributing those blobs or the
object files separately, but they were not savvy in free software. They
started getting savvy by posting on github sanitized Linux sources and sources
of the bootloader, [https://github.com/allwinner-
zh](https://github.com/allwinner-zh)

So what do you do if a fabless manufacturer violates the GPL out of
cluelessness? Do you follow the path of the core kernel develolpers
([https://lwn.net/Articles/698452/](https://lwn.net/Articles/698452/)) or do
you go for the nuclear option?

Well, a certain person on linux-sunxi went for the nuclear option. You can see
the `GPL violation` edits on the linux-sunxi Wiki on these obsolete tarballs
with object files. You can see the same person on
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allwinner_Technology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allwinner_Technology)
writing about 'GPL violations'.

I admit that the `nuclear option` is a strategy. If it works, it would
transform the company by force to become friendly to open-source (/sarcasm).
But it is a shitty strategy.

~~~
prophesi
They've been violating the GPL license for years. The 'nuclear option' has
been long past-due.

And the "path of the core kernel developers" is to simply not sue them. Which
this "nuclear option" follows. Plus, suing a Chinese company might be a
fruitless endeavor.

------
keyle
I'd love a computer with those specs, twice the cost, with a great keyboard
and trackpad.

~~~
bigiain
I've got one - the trackpad is kinda ordinary but the keyboard is pretty good
(as calibrated by someone who mostly uses a 2015 MacBook Air and a 2017 runout
non-retina 12" MacBook Pro).

I'm really happy with the money I paid for it - the screen is significantly
better than I expected (it's become my go-to "watch tv in bed" laptop...)

------
vermaden
The only problems I see with this laptop is the 2 GB of RAM and resolution.

Firefox with all blocking plugins takes regularly about 1.5-2.5 GB RAM on my
machine, even with 5-10 tabs only.

I would like to see 13" model with full size keyboard (not the 11.6 one with
crippled/squeezed keys) and at least Full HD screen.

Having 1366x768 resolution in 2018 is misunderstanding to say the least.

~~~
ronsor
One thing about memory usage: programs will use as much as they can. Firefox
will most likely use less memory if it has less.

------
bruceb
As it is very cheap one can't expect a lot of support but "Warranty: 30 days"
is pretty short, 90 is a little more reasonable.

~~~
fao_
FYI: If you're in the EU these sorts of warranty statements are meaningless.

As an EU citizen, regulations state that you have two years of warranty within
which, if the item is faulty, you may return it and get a refund.

~~~
lnsru
That’s why it will cost in EU closer to 300$ than original 100$.

~~~
flukus
Which would tell you a lot about the expected failure rate.

~~~
lnsru
It’s not about failure rate alone. As a seller in EU you are liable for the
product for 2 years. Plus WEEE (recycling), waste management, user manuals in
all European languages. And you also want to have some profit at the end.

------
desireco42
I found a video after a quick search on youtube that gives me a little better
impression about this laptop.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1hHRMIod0A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1hHRMIod0A)

I think for $100, I will give it a whirl. It has escape key unlike my new
fancy overpriced macbook pro.

It seems reviewer didn't like keyboard much. :( That is unfortunate.

I would say that having usb port for power would be very much welcome feature.

Also, further video review:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIF2YbnOHB4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIF2YbnOHB4)

~~~
nickwanninger
Do you rebind your caps lock to escape? That's what I did, and it's become
second nature at this point.

~~~
desireco42
Yep I did that. I still often fatfinger the brightness and other things. It is
corporate one, I have my old macbook air that works just as fine.

------
michaelmrose
Why 2G of ram? Its certainly usable but seems so limiting is there really a
huge savings from not including another 2G?

~~~
rjsw
The SoC doesn't support much more than 2G, the Allwinner Wiki says 3G is the
maximum but you probably want to just use two memory chips to keep costs down.

~~~
protomyth
Is there an ARM motherboard that accepts more that 4GB?

~~~
rjsw
You could get a Xilinx dev board and just ignore the FPGA features, this [1]
one will accept at least 6GB.

[1] [https://www.xilinx.com/products/boards-and-
kits/zcu104.html](https://www.xilinx.com/products/boards-and-kits/zcu104.html)

------
Posibyte
I have this laptop. If you find that the spacebar does not respond well if
struck in the center, I've found that a small pressing of hot glue and a quick
dab of your thumb on it on the middle ring on the underside of the key does
wonders to keep it responsive.

This computer, to me, has been a blast to tinker with. It's so crappy, yet
hides nothing. When my monitor didn't work well, I just took it apart,
rewrapped the video cable with some copper-snail tape and attached that to the
ground plane on the board, and the signal is so much better now.

------
hyperpallium
I want this, but with a 7" display: smaller, lighter, better power efficiency
(display is the main draw).

i.e. a netbook

~~~
examancer
The GPD Pocket fits this bill. It was available with Ubuntu pre-installed
during it's crowd sourcing campaign. The support under Ubuntu is pretty good,
including good support for the touch screen. 7" 1080p, atom CPU, 8GB RAM,
128GB SSD. More expensive, but under $500.

[https://github.com/stockmind/gpd-pocket-ubuntu-
respin](https://github.com/stockmind/gpd-pocket-ubuntu-respin)

~~~
voltagex_
I just need one of these with the IBM butterfly keyboard [1] and it'd be
wonderful

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ThinkPad_Butterfly_keyboar...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ThinkPad_Butterfly_keyboard)

------
dchest
Another interesting project is this open hardware ARM-based laptop made in
Bulgaria, shipped as a kit to assemble [https://www.olimex.com/Products/DIY-
Laptop/](https://www.olimex.com/Products/DIY-Laptop/) It costs €240, though.

------
mrbill
I had one of these. The concept was nice, screen was much nicer than I
expected, but the keyboard was near unusable.

You had to hit each key HARD, directly in the center, for keystrokes to
register. Touch typing was impossible.

The trackpad wasn't any better.

Ended up selling it to a coworker (with an additional standalone Pine64 board)
for $75.

------
orionblastar
It reminds me of the Commodore 64 that it was underpowered but sold cheaper
than the other computers.

I got a 99 dollar used Dell 64 but dual core system with Windows 10 on it
upgraded from Windows 7. Runs quite well, but it is not a gaming machine.

~~~
jandrese
The Commie64 didn't really have competition in its market space, which is a
big reason why it was able to sell so well despite being kind of crappy.

This laptop is competing against Chromebooks, Netbooks, old but still
functional laptops, etc...

~~~
orionblastar
The only competition to the C64 was the Atari 8 bit series in the USA and
Sinclar Spectrum in the UK.

If Commodore got the C65 to work it would have cost less to make than the C64.

So now there is a remake called the Mega65

[http://mega65.org](http://mega65.org)

------
oquidave
Do people realize how game changing this laptop would be for students in
developing countries like Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria? For $100 price tag on a
useable laptop that you can run code or productivity apps, this is an absolute
game changer. We have students at university going computer science without
owning their own laptops! So this would really go a long way in bridging that
divide. Kudo Pine64 team.

------
akhilcacharya
Maybe its a pipe dream, but I'd love to see a really affordable ARM machine
with a forever battery life - like one of the OP1 Chromebooks running Linux
instead of ChromeOS+Crouton.

Is it likely for Crostini to support ARM anytime soon?

------
VoidWhisperer
What could you feasibly use this for? The 1.2GHz CPU seems like it would put a
bit of a damper on almost anything besides answering email and basic word
processing.

~~~
hyperpallium
My phone is slightly faster, but only 1GB RAM. For linux tasks, it is overkill
- many unix utilities were designed in the 70's with many magnitudes less
power available.

Command-line java development (ecj, dx, git, etc) is practically instant. (If
you need an activity-center IDE, you're gonna have a bad time.)

The only problems I've encountered are super javascript-heavy retail pages
(Why do they do that? They can only restrict their audience. Interactivity
needn't be heavy. Are they just using frameworks upon frameworks upon
frameworks?)

And unfortunately, some Khan Academy _graphical_ exercise. Strangely, "kalite"
(offline version) works instantly, probably because it uses an older
presentation - I bet it's "modern" frameworks again (though maybe _because_
offline?).

~~~
jillesvangurp
Back in the day at Nokia Research we were abusing their N800 linux tablets
(mind you, this was 2007, way before the iphone shipped and when android was a
mere rumor). These things were running a debian linux based OS with X based
UI, and a mozilla based browser. Pretty much anything command line just worked
after a simple apt-get install and most gui stuff kind of worked except for
formfactor issues (low resolution screen, touch based interaction, keyboard
overlay, etc.).

The N800 specs were very modest compared to this stuff (something like 500Mhz
and 256MB if I'm not mistaken). So, for command line stuff, most of the stuff
you'd use 12 years ago would still be valid today. Stuff hasn't really changed
that much. If anything, some things might run a bit faster than they used to
on the same hardware due to ongoing optimizations and cumulative fixes. E.g.
python has improved a lot since 2.5, which I think was current then. Compilers
have gotten better, kernels have improved a lot, etc.

However, these days, a minimum requirement for most would be to be able to run
a modern browser (i.e. with all the security holes patched) capable of
browsing all popular websites. Unfortunately, that just requires a lot of
memory and CPU these days. Websites have gotten a lot more complex in the last
12 years. I'd say memory is actually the biggest bottleneck here. Most laptops
are effectively idling most of the time and grow extremely hot if you actually
run them at 100% CPU. So a modern low power ARM SOC with enough memory
suitable for e.g. a mid range smart phone of around 200$ should have
everything you need for comfortable browsing.

------
cwaffler
Does anyone know if this allows you to update the hardware?

------
childintime
If this included basic 10MHz 2-channel scope functionality, I'd call this a
TinkerBook. And I would definitely buy it.

------
jakeogh
Why has RAM stagnated? I want 32GB in a similar form factor, make it power
down unused chips if that's a concern.

------
kbumsik
Wow, 11' version is even under $100.

~~~
major505
They still aren't selling the 11' version. I will wait for it to be avaliable
to make a try.

------
camgunz
I was 100% gonna buy the 11" but the shift key is on the right side of the up
key.

------
giancarlostoro
I've tried to order one alas they never email me back.

------
walrus01
Wifi looks like it is 1x1 SISO and 2.4 GHz only.

Can it run Debian?

~~~
bigiain
Yep - at least my one (delivered May last year) only has 2.4GHz Wi-Fi on
board).

I run Ubuntu on mine, but there's recent Debian Jessie support in the
forums...

------
freddref
This looks like a chuwi, same body?

------
phkahler
What GPU does it use?

------
HIPisTheAnswer
Why are people still putting their computers inside keyboards !?

Put the SoC _behind the screen_ !!!

~~~
pjc50
That makes the screen thicker, and heavier, therefore more likely to tip the
whole thing over. Why do you want it behind the screen?

Other poster mentioned the thermal issues. It's probably not great for EMC
either.

~~~
rjsw
I have an HP Pavilion convertable, the keyboard is detachable and it can be
used as a tablet, I don't have a problem with it tipping over.

------
rsync
They have a typo on the spec sheet:

USB 2.0 Port

Should be _3.0 Port_.

~~~
petee
do you have a reference for that? The Main Board schematic also shows a 2.0
port...

~~~
boomlinde
I think he's trying to make a "why no USB3.0 in 2018" type argument

~~~
rsync
Close ... "why no USB3.0 port in 2015" is closer to my sentiment ...

