If you weren’t already excited to get a PinePhone from Pine64 then I think I have the news that will make sure you click the add to cart button right now! Pine64 has announced that Pre-Orders for the postmarketOS Community Edition (CE) is now available. They didn’t stop there because this round of Pre-Orders comes with another new edition of the PinePhone.
In addition to the regular $149 PinePhone model, Pine64 is also offering a new PinePhone Convergence Package which comes with a more powerful PinePhone. The PinePhone Convergence Package comes in at a price of $199 and features a PinePhone with 3GB of RAM, 32GB eMMC storage (twice as much as regular model) and a USB Dock. This more powerful PinePhone is currently exclusive to the Convergence Package option.
USB Dock comes with a USB Type-C connector to connect to your phone and then from there you get HDMI out, 2 USB 2.0 ports, and even an Ethernet port.
“The dock that is included with the Convergence Package is capable of delivering power to the phone via USB-C power-in (3A 5V), outputting digital video via HDMI, 10/100 Ethernet connectivity and two USB 2.0 ports (for e.g. external storage / mouse and keyboard).”
Lukasz Erecinski | Pine64. org – July Update: biggest update in months!
Pine64 also says that they do not know whether or not the Convergence Package will become a permanent option so if you want to make sure you get one then jump over to the Pine64 Store!
As soon as I saw this announcement I was quick to try and get one for myself but unfortunately, it appears that the website is currently experiencing the “hug of death” because I am having issues loading their site. Hopefully this is addressed soon since I am very interested in getting one of these newer more powerful PinePhones!
Quick Note: the previous versions of the PinePhone will require a “minor alteration” to the phone’s mainboard in order to support USB device connections.
I was hoping they would do this. I think the original PinePhone proves that there is interest and demand for Linux smartphones. This hardware upgrade puts it more into the realm of a real replacement for a mass market smartphone. I’d love to see them do this with all their products. If they offered an entry level option and a “pro” option I think it would offer something for everyone. I expect a full review if you do happen to snag one @MichaelTunnell
I would love to see Pine64 do a Pro version of the Phone.
If they where to do it (and who knows, they might reveal something at next years Fosdem), it would probably be based on a Rockchip SoC instead, since the current A64 SoC can’t handle much more than what the 3 GB model is offering in terms of RAM, CPU speed and GPU speed.
So if I were to guess, they would base on a SoC that is pretty well supported these days, like the Rockchip RK3399 (found in the Pinebook Pro and others), which is almost fully supported in both mainline kernel and uboot.
The RK3399 is pretty much the best mainline supported consumer chip in a reasonable price range these days.
Still at only $200? That is tempting for my use case. I see it says that audio works but is there a list of providers it works with? I don’t need great picture quality, and if I can get Linux apps on there, I can bridge most gaps!
thanks on the information I am using PinePhone and have a Pinebook pro at work for light gaming and surfing using it at as portable tablet / laptop using Manjaro the pinebook ISO with plasma.
I agree on this completely Rockchip RK3399 on Pinebook Pro is great can even run cool FOSS games from steam or flatpak (with low specs): Endless Sky, OpenRA, MegaGlest, Warzone2100, supertuxkart.
The dev team at manjaro really made the arm pinebook version run optimized and really great.
Regards, Alex
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