PinePhonePro

[SAS]

Pine64 announced PinePhonePro.

According to Liliputing the main differences / similarities are:

	PinePhone Pro	PinePhone
SoC	Rockchip RK3399S 2 x ARM Cortex-A72 4 x ARM Cortex-A53 @ 1.5 GHz	Allwinner A64 4 x ARM Cortex-A53 @ 1.2 GHz
GPU	ARM Mali-T760 4-cores @ 500 MHz	ARM Mali-400MP2
RAM	4GB LPDDR4 @ 800 MHz	2GB or 3GB LPDDR3
Storage	128GB eMMC	16GB or 32GB eMMC
Display	6 inch 1440 x 720 pixel IPS LCD Gorilla Glass 4	5.95 inch 1440 x 720 pixel IPS LCD
Camera (rear)	13MP Sony IMX258 LED flash	5MP Omnivision OV5640 LED flash
Camera (front)	5MP Omnivision OV5640	2MP GC2035
Modem	Quectel EG25-G with global GSM and CDMA 4G LTE GPS, A-GPS, GLONAS	Quectel EG25-G with global GSM and CDMA 4G LTE GPS, A-GPS, GLONAS
WiFi	Ampak AP6255 WiFi 6	WiFi 4
Bluetooth	Bluetooth 4.1	Bluetooth 4.0
I/O	USB 3.0 Type-C (power, data, video) pogo pins 3.5mm headphone microSD card reader	USB 2.0 Type-C (power, data, video) pogo pins 3.5mm headphone microSD card reader
Sensors	Accelerometer Gyroscope Proximity Compass Ambient Light	Accelerator Gyroscope Proximity Compass Ambient Light Barometer
Buttons	Power Volume up/down	Power Volume up/down
Hardware kill switches	Cameras Microphone WiFi & BT LTE modem Headphones	Cameras Microphone WiFi & BT LTE modem Headphones
Battery	3,000 mAh Samsung J7 form-factor	3,000 mAh Samsung J7 form-factor
Charging	5V/3A (15W)	5V/3A (15W)
Dimensions	160.8 x 76.6 x 11.1mm	160.5 x 76.6 x 9.2mm
Weight	215 grams	180 – 200 grams
Price	$399	$149 / $199

Same design, better SoC and cameras, more RAM and storage, pricier seems like it can't boot from mSD currently.

 

[Null]

Beat you to it.

The Communication Cube

I think they tend to keep that information secret. You could probably work it out if you know the real capacity and the process size, and you could make an educated guess that everything these days is MLC or more, but actually knowing for sure, I think they deliberately don't tell us that.

pyra-handheld.com

 

[SAS]

Yeap - you did

 

[Phlyra]

Beat you to it.

The Communication Cube

I think they tend to keep that information secret. You could probably work it out if you know the real capacity and the process size, and you could make an educated guess that everything these days is MLC or more, but actually knowing for sure, I think they deliberately don't tell us that.

pyra-handheld.com

Tbf it’s probably so momentous that it deserves its own thread because the thing is, if this (PPP and Librem 5) is what we can get in 2019 / 2020 / 2021 / 2022, imagine what we can get on Linux mobile in 2025 (the year in which a PP2 is expected)...

As Martijn Braam says, they basically put a current/recent laptop SoC in a mobile phone form factor AND kept the advantages the PP already had.

 

[levi]

According to Liliputing the main differences / similarities are:

	PinePhone Pro	PinePhone
GPU	ARM Mali-T760 4-cores @ 500 MHz	ARM Mali-400MP2
I/O	USB 3.0 Type-C (power, data, video) pogo pins 3.5mm headphone microSD card reader	USB 2.0 Type-C (power, data, video) pogo pins 3.5mm headphone microSD card reader

I didn't know you could use only USB2.0 signalling over USB-type C. Think of all those wasted pins!

 

[Null]

Tbf it’s probably so momentous that it deserves its own thread

Even if the existence of the thread reminds me that I recently purchased a 2nd PinePhone?

Mind you it's not likely that I would have purchased a PinePhone Pro for a year or two anyway (waiting till they'd worked out the more major kinks).

 

[Phlyra]

Even if the existence of the thread reminds me that I recently purchased a 2nd PinePhone?

Mind you it's not likely that I would have purchased a PinePhone Pro for a year or two anyway (waiting till they'd worked out the more major kinks).

I feel you on that one* but hey, why not cluster them?

*and originally I wasn’t going to order the keyboard case but then I saw that
A) it’s possible to charge both the keyboard battery and the PP battery at the same time *as well as* use the PP’s USB-C port for data etc.
B) with soldering skills it’s *possible* to combine the fingerprint sensor cover with a wireless charging coil so I imagine it must also be *possible* to combine the keyboard case with a wireless charging coil and some coding, and that someone in the community will come up with such a viable mod that they can sell?
Also C) it’s a freaking physical keyboard with a Linux phone! I wouldn’t be part of the Pyra community if I didn’t want a physical keyboard!

 

[Null]

I didn't know you could use only USB2.0 signalling over USB-type C.

Converting Existing USB Designs | Designware IP | Synopsys

Technical Bulletin: Converting Existing USB Designs to Support Type-C Connections

www.synopsys.com

 

[pyrat]

Tbf it’s probably so momentous that it deserves its own thread because the thing is, if this (PPP and Librem 5) is what we can get in 2019 / 2020 / 2021 / 2022, imagine what we can get on Linux mobile in 2025 (the year in which a PP2 is expected)...

I'm specially impressed by Rockchip customizing a SOC for Pine. They say it's about 20% slower than RockPro64 or PinebookPro, but I'm still drooling that it can fit in a phone at all.

 

[levi]

Just be aware those A72 cores are the same or very similar to those found in the Broadcom chip on a RPi4, which are known to run hot. But perhaps those with RPis tend to stress them more than you would with a typical phone usage.

 

[fusion_power]

PinePhone? Linux Smartphone? Does it work? And how does it work? (If it works of course ). I mean compared to iOS and Android.

 

[levi]

It works because it has a modem in it, and at the very least you can spit AT commands at it to set up a call or to fire off an SMS. I'd expect them to have written apps for it to call those commands for you, though to be fair I've not seen any of them running yet.

 

[SAS]

...... but then I saw that
..........................
B) with soldering skills it’s *possible* to combine the fingerprint sensor cover with a wireless charging coil so I imagine it must also be *possible* to combine the keyboard case with a wireless charging coil and some coding, and that someone in the community will come up with such a viable mod that they can sell?

Any references :- ?) The hw keyboard is the reason I bought a PinePhone as well, but though probably I'll get the qi cover - can't imagine much use of it if it is 'either - or'

 

[SAS]

And a lot more info from the monthly update:

....
Before moving on to discussing design decisions, let me clear up a few things: the PinePhone Pro is not a second-generation PinePhone, but rather a higher-end PinePhone. The original PinePhone isn’t going away anytime soon either – in fact, we have thousands of units in the pipeline. The PinePhone Pro is pogo-pin compatible with the original PinePhone, which means that peripherals, such as the keyboard and add-on back cases, will work with both devices. So if you are getting one of the add-ons for your PinePhone then don’t worry, they’ll work with the Pro if you decide to get one in the future.
Finally, let me address some of the key design choices. We chose the RK3399 as our internal development basis for two reasons: we are well acquainted with the platform and it is nearly fully mainlined (the ROCKPro64, our RK3399 development board, recently received Arm’s SystemReady IR Certification). But we aren’t using a regular RK3399 chip in the PinePhone Pro. We worked closely with Rockchip’s engineers to tweak the original SoC to fit our use case – the result of the cooperation is the RK3399S, made specifically for the PinePhone Pro. RK3399S chips are binned and voltage-locked so that they conform to a smartphone chassis thermal and power consumption envelopes. Aside from great performance, the SoC also features a stellar feature set, including native video output via USB-C, support for high-resolution cameras and USB 3.0 data transfer speeds, just to name a notable few. But choosing such a well-supported platform also means that porting existing OSes to the PinePhone Pro will be fairly trivial. While it may take some time to achieve complete feature parity with the original PinePhone, the road to full system functionality will be relatively short.
.............

 

[Phlyra]

Any references :- ?) The hw keyboard is the reason I bought a PinePhone as well, but though probably I'll get the qi cover - can't imagine much use of it if it is 'either - or'

“Vita H. says:

September 15, 2021 at 3:46 pm
Is it technically possible to combine wireless charging back case with fingerprint reader? I hoped to use both at the same time.

Lukasz Erecinski says:

September 19, 2021 at 6:39 pm
I don’t want to guarantee anything … but, if you’re half-decent with a soldering iron, I’d say yes.”

- from the comments beneath the September update here: https://www.pine64.org/2021/09/15/september-update-hurdles-and-successes/

 

[Phlyra]

It works because it has a modem in it, and at the very least you can spit AT commands at it to set up a call or to fire off an SMS. I'd expect them to have written apps for it to call those commands for you, though to be fair I've not seen any of them running yet.

It can even work without the mobile data modem because it also has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth plus the ability to run RTL-SDR, so there are already people using it without a SIM card and at least one person using Gajim + JMP.chat as well as another using Jami and another using Jitsi. There are others planning POCSAG and LoRa case add-ons so it’s definitely growing in off-grid capability.

 

[fusion_power]

It works because it has a modem in it, and at the very least you can spit AT commands at it to set up a call or to fire off an SMS. I'd expect them to have written apps for it to call those commands for you, though to be fair I've not seen any of them running yet.

I mainly thought about full hardware support like "normal" Smartphones have in between their OS and their hardware. I can imagine that this is not so easy with an open Linux OS and mobile phone hardware. But if it works without much hassle, then it's a good thing for sure.

 

[levi]

It can even work without the mobile data modem because it also has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth plus the ability to run RTL-SDR, so there are already people using it without a SIM card and at least one person using Gajim + JMP.chat as well as another using Jami and another using Jitsi. There are others planning POCSAG and LoRa case add-ons so it’s definitely growing in off-grid capability.

That sounds more like a CB-radio application than a phone to me.

 

[Phlyra]

That sounds more like a CB-radio application than a phone to me.

The point behind it is that, particularly in light of Syniverse’s existence let alone the five year long hack, SIMjacking and because of the near single point of failure that mobile phone numbers represent nowadays, people are looking at improved solutions and those I listed are some of them for different reasons. IIRC some, like Jami, can work in environments where typical mobile phone networks are down because of natural disasters, for example.

 

[Phlyra]

The latest PineTalk podcast is worth listening to if you want to hear some more PPP discussion.