PinePhone: All You Need to Know About the New Linux Smartphone

Pine64 has announced they are finally going to release their new PinePhone smartphone. What makes this phone so unique is that it isn’t powered by iOS or Android. Instead, the phone will be running a mobile version of Linux OS. The PinePhone “Braveheart” developer edition was due to start shipping on January 17. 

The “Braveheart” batch is designed for “developer and early adopter” users. It’s as basic as it gets as it doesn’t include an end-user OS built-in. Instead, it comes with a factory test image so that users can see that the hardware is working as intended. Users who purchase the phone are expected to add their OS of choice to the device. There are a number of different options available, including Sailfish OS and Ubuntu Touch. Pine64 states that Braveheart is for those who have Linux experience and that the PinePhone isn’t yet ready for the mainstream. 

PinePhone Specifications

The PinePhone is powered using an Allwinner A64 SoC with four cortex A53 CPUs at 1.2GHz built on a 40mm process. This chip is the same one that Pine64 use for their PINE A64 single-board computer. It has 2GB of RAM, a Mali-400 GPU, 16GB of storage, and a 2750mAh battery. 

There’s a 5-megapixel camera built into the back and a 2-megapixel camera built into the front of the phone. The display is a 1440x720 IPS LCD screen, and the battery can be removed and replaced as needed. The phone also features a USB-C port, a MicroSD slot, and a headphone jack. It’s possible to boot the operating system through the MicroSD slot instead of installing it directly onto the phone. The phone contains a cellular modem soldered into the motherboard – the Quectel EG25-G. 

Take off the back of the device, and you’ll see that it has some special innards. There’s a 2x3 grid of gold pogo pins in the corner that provide power, I2C, and GPIO to attached accessories for a start. Pine64 say also has plans to release a keyboard case attachment for the phone in 2020. For now, they are continuing to improve the design. They say that the keyboard they make would be inspired by the Psion Series 5 keyboards from the 90s. 

Pine64 is Planning on Releasing Additional Linux Products 

The Psion 5 was a PDA that was powered by the EPOC operating system (later called “Symbian OS”) and two AA batteries. Smartphone keyboards from back in the Moto Droid era used a single sheet of rubbery keys that were pressed down on to contacts, but the original Psion 5 keyboard worked differently. It used a smaller version of a desktop keyboard, including individual plastic keys on top of membrane switches. 

There are also six dip switches under the removable back. These switches are privacy kill switches that can disable the GPS, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, rear camera, and front camera. The final switch controls the headphone jack and isn’t a privacy thing. The headphone jack toggles the jack between the standard mode and UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter) port. 

Pine64 is hard at work with the phone ready for shipping now. They are also producing a “PineTab” Linux-powered tablet with a detachable keyboard and a “PineTime” smartwatch. Give it some time and soon you’ll have Linux on all of your devices.