New Pine64 phones with upgraded hardware begin shipping in August

submitted by runtis from arstechnica.com

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[–]africant 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (6 children)

purism librem is junk. overpriced and shitty build quality

[–]runtis[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Yep, I've seen some bad reviews

[–]whistlepig 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

To be fair... its hasn't even really been "released" yet.. More like an alpha compared to pine's beta

[–]LarrySwinger2 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

The problem is that the CEO of the company is dishonest about the status of the device, and effectively screwing the backers. See this article for details.

[–]whistlepig 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I don't need to read Jay's articles again.. I've been in the middle of it and still hold quite a grudge about that fiasco. None the less, the quality of the product is a potentially separate issue that cannot really be objectively determined yet, any more than we can fairly determine how useful the pinephone will become.

Note that I bought a librem back in 2018 when they claimed it would be done early 2019 and I'm still waiting. Also bought the braveheart pinephone which is still not useful. My main cell phone is still a nokia n900... as it has been for the last decade. Just so you have an idea where I'm coming from. I'll give up on using a cell phone entirely before using an android or mac phone.

[–]LarrySwinger2 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

One can hope that they'll be able to solve all the issues described in the articles, but it seems unlikely. Especially the lack of quality control, and the fact that they had to resort to producing prototype boards locally due to lack of funds are alarming.

I didn't expect to encounter someone who still uses the N900. I have mine in a drawer, relied on it for a couple of years. Being stuck on Debian Etch is not nice. One thing to try is install a modern distro and access it via chroot. But I take it device is too slow for you?

[–]whistlepig 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I have about 7 of them in my drawer. I'd buy another every 1.5-2 years when the modem breaks. Most that time you could get them for around $100 to $150.

The real problem with the n900 is that for the last 4 or so years they stopped updating and when tls updated to v1.2 it never got updated on the n900 and a lot of sites no longer work. gps, email, gpodder and mahjong still work great. ;]

I've actually set up a voip line at home this year and don't really bring a cell with me much anymore. It will be ironic if by the time one of these linux phones becomes usable that I've grown tired of using a cell phone and no longer carry one. ;]