The Pine64 open source community has unveiled the PinePhone Pro smartphone, which takes into account the experience of the production of the first PinePhone model and the wishes of users. The main goal of the project has not changed, and PinePhone Pro continues to be positioned as a device for enthusiasts who are tired of Android and iOS and want a fully controlled and secure environment based on alternative open Linux platforms.
The cost of the device will be $399, which is more than twice the price of the first PinePhone model, but the price increase is justified by a significant hardware upgrade. Pre-orders are open from today. The start of mass production is scheduled for November, and the first deliveries are expected in December. Production of the first $150 PinePhone model will continue unchanged.
PinePhone Pro is based on the Rockchip RK3399S SoC with two ARM Cortex-A72 cores and four ARM Cortex-A53 cores running at 1.5GHz, as well as a quad-core ARM Mali T860 (500MHz) GPU. It is noteworthy that, together with Rockchip engineers, a new version of the RK3399 chip, RK3399S, was developed specifically for PinePhone Pro, which implements additional energy-saving techniques and a special sleep mode that allows you to receive calls and SMS.
The device is equipped with 4 GB of RAM, 128GB eMMC (internal) and two cameras (5 Mpx OmniVision OV5640 and 13Mpx Sony IMX258). In comparison, the first PinePhone came with 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB eMMC and 2 and 5Mpx cameras. As in the previous model, a 6-inch IPS screen with a resolution of 1440 Γ 720 is used, but it is better protected thanks to the use of Gorilla Glass 4. PinePhone Pro is fully compatible with add-ons that plug in instead of the back cover previously released for the first model and PinePhone are almost indistinguishable).
From the filling of PinePhone Pro, one can also note Micro SD (with support for booting from an SD card), a USB-C port with USB 3.0 and a combined video output for connecting a monitor, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, GPS-A, GLONASS, UART (via headphone jack), 3000mAh battery (fast charge at 15W) . As in the first model, the new device allows you to turn off LTE / GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, cameras and a microphone at the hardware level. Size 160.8 x 76.6 x 11.1mm (2mm thinner than the first PinePhone). Weight 215 gr.
The performance of the PinePhone Pro is comparable to today's mid-range Android smartphones and about 20% slower than the Pinebook Pro laptop. By connecting a keyboard, mouse and monitor, PinePhone Pro can be used as a portable workstation suitable for watching 1080p video and performing tasks such as photo editing and office suite.
By default, PinePhone Pro will be bundled with Manjaro Linux distribution with KDE Plasma Mobile user environment, but the developers are also working on creating alternative builds with firmware based on platforms such as postmarketOS, UBports, Maemo Leste, Manjaro, LuneOS, Nemo Mobile, Sailfish, OpenMandriva, Mobian and DanctNIX, which can be installed or downloaded from an SD card. The firmware uses the regular Linux kernel (with patches planned for inclusion in the main kernel) and open source drivers.
The Manjaro distribution is based on the Arch Linux package base and uses its own BoxIt toolkit, designed in the image of Git. The repository is maintained on the principle of continuous inclusion of updates (rolling), but new versions go through an additional stage of stabilization. The KDE Plasma Mobile user environment is based on the Plasma 5 mobile desktop edition, the KDE Frameworks 5 libraries, the Ofono phone stack, and the Telepathy communications framework. Qt, the Mauikit component set, and the Kirigami framework are used to create the application interface. The kwin_wayland composite server is used to display graphics. PulseAudio is used for sound processing.
Includes apps such as KDE Connect to pair your phone with your desktop, Okular document viewer, VVave music player, Koko and Pix image viewers, buho note taking system, calindori calendar planner, Index file manager, Discover app manager, sending SMS Spacebar, plasma-phonebook address book, plasma-dialer phone call interface, plasma-angelfish browser and Spectral messenger.
Source: opennet.ru