The PinePhone is a smartphone, developed by computer manufacturerPine64, intended for allowing the user to have full control over the device. Measures to ensure this are running mainline Linux based mobile operating systems, assembling the phone with screws, so that it can be easily disassembled for repairs and upgrades, and including six kill switches / security switches for its hardware, which are accessible by removing the back cover of the phone.
Distribution History
Pine64 began taking orders for the so-called "BraveHeart" gamma version of the PinePhone on November 15, 2019, which is intended for early adopters and software developers, providing only a test firmware so the end user can test their phone before installing their own operating system of interest. In January 2020, Pine64 shipped thousands of BraveHeart phones to early adopters. In April 2020, the first community edition of the PinePhone began taking orders and shipped in May 2020.This edition initially featured Ubuntu Touch as the pre-installed OS, with plans to release a PostmarketOS version in July 2020. For each sale of the "Community Edition" versions of the phone, as well as those of custom back covers, the community OS project selected by the buyer will receive a $10 donation.
Features and comparison to other Linux-based phones
The PinePhone is often compared to other phones shipping with a non-Android Linux distributions, especially the Librem 5, which released around the same time, and the WiFi-VoIP phone Necuno, which does not employ a cellular modem. Pine64 notably promises 5 years of production in contrast with most smartphone manufacturers who typically produce for 1 to 3 years, and do not guarantee their production lifespan upon release. A long production life and sharing a common A64 platform with the PineTab tablet and Pine A64 boards is meant to encourage tinkerers to create mods and DIY projects based on the PinePhone.
Hardware
Compared to the Librem 5, the PinePhone has a 20% slower CPU clock speed, a third less RAM, half the Flash memory storage, and a smaller but faster-charging battery. Both phones have batteries that can be easily removed without tools. The PinePhone and Librem 5 use separate cellular baseband and WiFi/Bluetooth chips and hardware kill switches which results in larger printed circuit boards and less energy efficiency compared to the standard Android phone that uses an integrated System on a Chip, such as the Snapdragon, Helio or Exynos. The PinePhone is thinner at 9.2 mm than the Librem 5 which is 15.5 mm thick, because the PinePhone solders its communication chips to the PCB whereas the Librem 5 places the cellular baseband and WiFi/Bluetooth on two removable M.2 cards. In addition, Librem 5 adds an extra internal plastic cover over the PCB and the DIP kill switches under the back cover in the PinePhone require less space than the kill switches on the side edge of the Librem 5. Pine64 is the second phone maker to offer booting from a microSD card, which allows users to try out multiple operating systems, before installing in the internal Flash memory. Another distinctive feature of the PinePhone is the 6 pogo pinI2C connector under the back cover, which can be used for adding mods to the phone. Pine64 has reported that it is developing 3 mods, which include a physical keyboard, a 5000 mAh battery and wireless charging. The PinePhone has 6 DIP switches under the back cover, the first five of which switch off the following components:
The PinePhone relies completely on community-driven, open-source operating systems. Because these community OS projects were involved in the development of the PinePhone, it has been ported to 16 different Linux distros and 7 different graphical user interfaces, as of June 2020, such as Ubuntu Touch by UBports, postmarketOS, Mobian, LuneOS, Nemo Mobile and Maemo Leste, etc. Because no software development costs are incurred by Pine64, the PinePhone's selling price is lower compared to other Linux phones, notably the Librem 5, which comes with its own manufacturer-supported, open-source operating system, PureOS. The only proprietary software in the PinePhone's Linux file system are the firmware for the Realtek RTL8723CS WiFi/Bluetooth and optional auto-focus firmware for the OmniVision OV6540 back camera. Although the PinePhone is designed to use fully open source software in its drivers and bootloader, it is near impossible to find components, such as the cellular modem, GNSS, WiFi and Bluetooth, that do not contain proprietary blobs. For this reason, the PinePhone isolates these components by communicating over serial protocols, such as USB 2.0, I2S and SDIO, which do not allow direct memory access, and offers power separation switches for them. This way the blobs are still needed for operation of these radios, but they are isolated or even physically removed from the independent main system.
Reception
In November 2019, Phillip Prado of Android Authority said that the PinePhone had the potential to "expand our imaginations into what mobile computing could look like," but he was not expecting it to replace everyone's Android device. Linux Magazine explained the different operating systems, and the support from the community. In December 2019, Martins D. Okoi of FossMint said that the first edition of the PinePhone is aimed at Linux-savvy users who would like to test beta operating system builds, but the version for general users should be available in March 2020. In January 2020, ZDNet called the PinePhone hardware "promising" and noted six hardware kill switches for the modem, GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, microphone and cameras. Ars Technica talked about the unusual external ports of the phone, offering I2C, GPIO and serial.
