PinePhone

The PinePhone is a smartphone developed by Hong Kong–based computer manufacturer Pine64, designed to provide users with full control over the device. This is achieved through the utilization of mainline Linux-based mobile operating systems, assembly of the phone using screws, and facilitating simplified disassembly for repairs and upgrades. The 2G-4GLTE modem, GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and both cameras can be physically switched off. The PinePhone currently ships with the Manjaro Linux operating system using the Plasma Mobile graphic interface, although previously other distributions were shipped, which can still be installed by users.

History

Pine64 sold limited editions of the PinePhone, marketed towards developers and early adopters. The phone shipped worldwide with few geographical restrictions. The "Braveheart" edition, shipped in January 2020, was the first publicly available version of the phone, providing only a test firmware, so the user could test their phone before installing their operating system of choice.

In 2019, Pine64 partnered with existing and well established Linux-on-phone projects to launch a "Community Edition" campaign to incentivize software development for the device. Through this partnership, Pine64 donated $10 for each unit sold to the project maintainers. The community edition PinePhones featured a branding on the back cover and shipped with a custom box designed by the partnered artists. The "Mobian" community edition in February 2021 was the last to be offered.

Initially, the PinePhone was only available in one hardware configuration. The enhanced "Convergence Package" was introduced with the postmarketOS community edition announcement, featuring increased RAM, additional eMMC storage, and a USB-C dock known as a "docking bar". The docking bar is capable of delivering power to the phone via USB-C power-in (3 A 5 V), outputting digital video via HDMI, and has 10/100 Mbit/s Ethernet connectivity and two USB 2.0 ports (for example, external storage, mouse and keyboard).

In February 2021, Pine64 announced the end of community edition devices, and that the default operating system for the production-ready PinePhone would be Manjaro using the KDE Plasma Mobile graphical environment. The company then introduced the PinePhone Beta Edition several weeks later. The Beta Edition's hardware and pricing was confirmed to be the same as the previous three community edition production runs, and the "Beta" was a reference to the software only. Pine64 began pre-orders on March 24, 2021, and began shipping Beta Edition devices in late April.

In October 2021, Pine64 announced the PinePhone Pro. In January 2022, Pine64 started accepting pre-orders of PinePhone Pro for deliveries by February 2022.

Features and comparisons

The PinePhone is often compared to other phones shipping with 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 promises five years of production. The 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

The original PinePhone used an Allwinner A64 processor, which has four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.152 GHz and a Mali-400 MP2 GPU. Its frame and case cover are made of plastic. It has a 5-megapixel back camera and a 2-megapixel front camera, and a USB-C port with USB 2.0 that supports DisplayPort alt-mode. The 3000 mAh battery supports 15 W fast charging and is easily replaced without tools. It uses the same form factor as a Galaxy J7 battery to make it easier to find replacement batteries. Linux distributions configure its LPDDR3 DRAM at clock rates that vary between 552 and 624 MHz.

Like the Librem 5, the PinePhone uses separate cellular baseband and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth chips. Together with the hardware kill switches, this results in larger printed circuit boards (PCBs) and less energy efficiency compared to the mass-produced Android phone that has 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 wireless communication chips to the PCB whereas the Librem 5 places the cellular baseband and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth on two removable M.2 cards.

Pine64 is the second phone maker (after OpenMoko) to offer booting from a microSD card, which allows users to try out one or more operating systems before installing in the internal flash memory.

Another distinctive feature of the PinePhone is the I2C connector under the back cover, which can be used for adding mods to the phone. In 2019 and 2020, Pine64 stated that it was developing four mods: a Psion Series 5-inspired physical keyboard, a 5000 mAh battery, wireless charging and a fingerprint sensor.

The PinePhone has six DIP switches under the back cover, the first five of which switch off separately the cellular modem, the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth module, the microphone, the rear camera, and the front camera. The sixth DIP switch will convert the 3.5 mm headphone jack into a UART serial port, which is the first time this kind of switch has been included in a mobile phone.

Circuit schematics of the PinePhone are available.

Software

The PinePhone aims to be fully open source in its drivers and bootloader. Despite this, due to the scarcity of open-source components for cellular and wireless connectivity, the firmware for the Realtek RTL8723CS Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, as well as the optional autofocus firmware for the OmniVision OV5640 back camera, remain proprietary software. In order to mitigate potential threats to privacy, these components communicate with the rest of the system only over serial protocols, such as USB 2.0, I2S and SDIO, which do not allow direct memory access (DMA). Use of these protocols also permits them to be physically disconnected via kill switches.

In late 2020, Pine64 started an incentive called the ''Nutcracker Challenge'', in order to encourage the development of open-source wireless networking on the BL602 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth board. Some distributions support the use of USB Wi-Fi adapters that use open-source wireless firmware. Modem firmware of the Quectel EG25-G LTE board is based on a proprietary