I feel like it’s almost too generic to be useful. All the “standard” attachments make it a thing that already exists (and those things are usually much stable and supported). If they get enough 3rd party attention prior to launch, that could change.
I wish they would have spent the time and effort just committing to the smartphone idea. Linux and the Linux community could greatly benefit from more open source smartphone devices.
I wonder who this is made for?
The article calls it a “smartphone sized pocket computer”, but that describes smartphones too; they already are pocket computers. And they’ve had decades of design and development behind them.
So… This device has a tiny touchscreen, and a keyboard, rather than having the whole thing being a touchscreen. So instead it has a modular bottom half… Which… Sounds like it’s trying to solve a problem that would’ve been a problem in like… The 90s, maybe, but has been solved by using… A touchscreen that can change the type of input it is flexibly, like smartphones do.
It can’t call, like a smartphone, despite being a smartphone sized device. It has USB A 2.0 sockets and an Ethernet socket… Which makes it once again sound incredibly out-dated, like a device found in a time capsule, because USB C is smaller and faster than USB A 2.0, and can potentially be used for damn near anything. Which includes connecting to the Internet.
Its battery looks very weak. Its CPU looks very weak. It has a tiny amount of RAM, and a tiny amount of storage. It is outclassed by any affordable, midrange smartphone, at nearly the same price too (if you avoid big brand names).
Full-size usb, Ethernet and keyboard mean you can use it as a Linux computer, install arbitrary debian packages, run shell scripts, python scripts, and you don’t need any dongles. This is the differential factor. You can’t do the same on a smartphone, and it’s not supposed to be a smartphone. Why would you need a separate sim card when you can simply tether Internet from your phone?
I get that this device isn’t for you, but there are people who don’t want to write and maintain apps through apps stores and simply want to copy simple scripts into a small device they can have with them. It’s a niche market and good for them for trying to fill that niche.
I wonder what they use for charging port if not usb c…
You can do all that with USB C and a touch keyboard. There is no good reason under the sun to make a device that is this dated in concept.
Whatever the market is they’re trying to fill, it’ll be so extremely niche that this product is already a failure. It’s not the first time some kind of ultra niche product from kickstarter failed before launch because except for a small handful even cared.
How do you install utilities like
kubectland azure CLI on Android?I can do that and more on my Pinephone running Kali Nethunter. While it’s mostly a gimmick with awfull battery life, I’ve already used it a few times mostly in regards to wifi pentesting for my cyber-sec job, i.e when going to lunch onsite and you notice a new wifi AP you didn’t see when inside the office you’re working on.
And since it has an USB-C, I can simply plug in a dock with two USB-As, Ethernet, PD and HDMI, to turn it into a full-fledged Kali desktop.
Pinephone looks great and the keyboard case seems very ergonomic. Fo you use it as your daily driver?
I tried it like a year ago, maybe more, and it wasn’t ready for that. The battery life was awfull (which was a SW issue of the OS not being able to stand-by properly), and accepting calls wasn’t really reliable. It’s more of a gimmick and great as a side-phone, but I wouldn’t use it as a daily driver.
But the situation might’ve changed.
Can I just send you five years worth of „we’re sorry we’re behind schedule” messages and then ghost you instead? If so send me $159
My first thought: If this ever ships, I’ll eat an outboard motor.
this would have been really cool 15 years ago
Pretty neat, but probably not something I’d buy
I keep saying the same about the iPhone but they keep making new ones
Why the fuck would a handheld need an ethernet port?
The pro-linux developers just can’t stop designing things to their own specific needs and skillsets. No concept of designing & marketing for a wide audience.
The pro-linux developers just can’t stop designing things to their own specific needs and skillsets. No concept of designing & marketing for a wide audience.
You mean the wide audience that’s already catered to by every other tech company?
There it is. The self-defeating attitude that got us here, and keeps us here.
How can this possibly present a problem? People with specific needs developing new hardware - seems like a great idea to me. I can definetly see a use for this sort of device for network people. It could function as a travel router when needed. Another more obacure use could be penetration testing. Just because you can’t imagine a use case doesn’t mean it’s useless.
I can absolutely think of use cases for it. Would 100% support an expansion port for it.
But as a default feature on a mobile device? Moronic design choice. But again, just a classic out-of-touch decision from Linux developers. Very on-brand.
What do you think the obvious use case of the device ia then? It runs Linux, has pogo-ecpansion and is obviously niché as is. I would argue that it’s a device developed by Linux users/developers for Linux users/developers. In this case an Ethernet post is on brand as you said yourself. No matter if you think it’s “out of touch” or not, whatever you mean by that.
And this thinking is exactly why it will always be niche. A complete inability & unwillingness to move beyond that.
Might as well put a damn ham radio in it. The Linux crowd will love it, and everyone else won’t know what the hell to do with it. Seems what they’re going for.
yet an other hardware from 10+ years ago. here we have an ARM Cortex-A53 from what it seems to be 2012. Maybe it is actually compatible with OpenGL 3…
Our beloved consoles from the 80s and 90s were built with off the shelf parts, this is no different. Custom hardware in a niche market would lead nowhere.
