[HN Gopher] PineNote E Ink tablet and PinePhone Pro developer ve...
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PineNote E Ink tablet and PinePhone Pro developer versions now
shipping
Author : ek750
Score : 79 points
Date : 2021-12-05 16:22 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (goodereader.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (goodereader.com)
| marcodiego wrote:
| Pine64 offering are very interesting. They offer some powerful
| SBC's on a raspi which makes them compatible with many available
| cases. This also puts them on a position to release a very unique
| product: a notebook case for arm SBC. Something like a non-toy
| crowpi2. The pinebook pro is interesting but non-upgradeable, a
| arm sbc case in a notebook form would be the ultimate upgradeable
| obsolescence free cheap laptop.
| pengaru wrote:
| I've heard multiple firsthand reports that the Pinebook Pro is
| unreliable in the areas of booting and suspend/resume.
|
| Given that the Pinephone Pro is basically the Pinebook Pro
| packaged in a phone, should one expect the same problems?
|
| Can anyone here comment from firsthand experience with the
| Pinebook Pro? (or Pinephone Pro prototypes in developer hands, if
| any such thing exists?)
| nightowl_games wrote:
| I don't think the pinephone pro and pinebook pro are very
| similar.
|
| "We worked closely with Rockchip's engineering team to fine-
| tune the SoC's performance so that it meets the necessary
| thermal and battery-consumption envelopes. The result of this
| cooperation is the RK3399S - a RK3399 variant made specifically
| for the PinePhone Pro."
| pengaru wrote:
| Presumably it's a hell of a lot more similar than the
| Allwinner A64 in a regular Pinephone is.
|
| The RK3399S being a new and even less mature variant of the
| RK3399 found in the Pinebook Pro doesn't encourage me to
| expect better results.
|
| Again, honest firsthand accounts welcome.
| kop316 wrote:
| I ordered a Pinephone Pro dev edition, and my shipping notice has
| yet to arrive. I am wondering if they are waiting until Monday to
| ship it? Or if the shipping is still winding through DHL and I
| will get a shipping notice "soon".
| fartcannon wrote:
| I haven't gotten my shiping notice either. I order mid
| November. Just got some new spam from DHL addressed to my
| pine64 email address on Friday so I'm hopeful that's a sign.
| josteink wrote:
| In general Pine64 seems really terrible when it comes to
| providing shipping notifications and tracking.
|
| I have no idea why that is, or why they won't try to fix it
| up to at least meet what I consider the general industry
| minimum-standard, really.
|
| That said: So far all my orders with Pine64 have come through
| none the less. There's probably no reason to be worried.
| neilv wrote:
| If you want to order a PineNote Developer Edition, for
| $399+shipping, the correct link seems to be:
| https://pine64.com/product/pinenote-developer-edition/
|
| And you'll need some kind of "coupon code", which I didn't search
| for. But in the past they've been pretty inclusive about
| developers (for the PinePhone, which definitely was for
| developers only, and hopefully didn't result in returns).
|
| (Incorrect links: The Preorder button on
| https://www.pine64.org/pinenote/ goes to
| https://preorder.pine64.org/ , which says "There are not any on-
| going pre-order at this moment." And
| https://www.pine64.org/availability-and-shipping-status/ shows
| they have stock of the PineNote Developer Edition, and are also
| shipping it, but no links to get to where you could order it.)
| josteink wrote:
| > And you'll need some kind of "coupon code"
|
| Which you would have been given if you had registered as a
| qualified developer earlier on.
|
| For the rest of us, we just have to wait it out until these
| developers have proven the hardware somewhat.
|
| Pine64 is in the business of selling hardware, not software nor
| bundled HW+SW appliances after all.
| rjsw wrote:
| I recently got a Quartz64, it has the same SoC as the PineNote.
| I took the view that there was plenty of development to do
| before working out how to drive the e-ink display.
| kop316 wrote:
| This is the first edition soley for developers, and you had to
| specifically apply for a coupon code about a month ago to be
| able to buy one. I do not know if they have any left over ones,
| but I sincerely doubt it, as they said they got a lot of
| interested parties for it.
|
| If you are looking to get one now, you will have to wait for
| the "Explorer Edition", which I think will come out in a couple
| of months?
|
| My personal opinion, Pine64 has had to work out a few "kinks"
| in the hardware (if you look at the Pinephone Braveheart, 1.1,
| 1.2a, 1.2b). I would not be surprised if similar kinks appear
| in the PP Pro.
| novok wrote:
| It's too bad the ~10.5" e-ink display doesn't come in a higher
| resolution version. They all seem to be the same 1872x1404 227
| PPI panel. In comparison an iPad is around 267 PPI and you can
| get 8" eink ones at 300ppi. My 6.8" kindle at 300ppi seems not
| quite big enough for comics yet.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| True but eink pixels are not delineated by a grid and aren't
| exactly square so the effect presents itself as a kind of
| natural anti aliasing. I haven't seen this display but I think
| it will look similar to the iPad in question.
|
| Also you'll probably view it at a bit higher distance than a 6"
| Kindle meant for reading only. Because this one is meant to
| write on.
| dsr_ wrote:
| IMHO, comics can't be reasonably read at a screen size less
| than 25cm (10") or so. The pages are laid out for about that
| size, the letters are scaled for that... Leaning in closer
| doesn't improve the experience much.
|
| The Amazon Kindle Fire HD10 is cheap (less than $100 on sale,
| which happens every few months), has a 10.1" color LCD screen,
| and enough CPU and RAM to make it painless for reading comics.
| I recommend it for that purpose alone... and not really for
| anything else.
| novok wrote:
| Many manga are made for the smaller tankobon format, but
| reading it on a printed page is nicer than an e-ink I've
| found.
|
| Also there are many options for LCD readers, it's more about
| how there is only one option for the eink type.
| [deleted]
| amelius wrote:
| Is there a video so I can get an idea about speed of
| refreshing/tracking the pen?
| [deleted]
| throwthere wrote:
| From the pine note order page: > Most of the device's
| functionality, including the e-paper display, do not work at this
| time....
|
| At this stage it is very much for developers looking to
| contribute.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "At this stage it is very much for developers looking to
| contribute."
|
| Pretty much like anything from pine at this point?
| oynqr wrote:
| All of their SBCs, with the new Quartz64 being an exception,
| work flawlessly. Also, mainline and blobless.
| asddubs wrote:
| huh, then how do they test it?
| paulhart wrote:
| there's a working Android version for the device - the work
| is in building a FLOSS set of drivers for the display etc.
| myself248 wrote:
| I'm so phenomenally excited by this.
|
| I bought a ReMarkable 2 excited about the screen, without fully
| understanding the degree to which the general-purpose-device
| functionality had been hobbled. (No amount of we-let-you-ssh-
| into-it will get you bluetooth keyboard support when the wifi+bt
| chip has bluetooth hardware-disabled in solder. Caveat emptor.)
|
| Of course it's early days yet for the PineNote, but it's moving
| in the direction of more general-purpose functionality, not less.
| And that can only be a good thing.
| cge wrote:
| Much of the Remarkable 2's design shows this level of
| suspicious hardware design choices that cripple extra
| functionality, functionality that wasn't advertised, but would
| have been possible had work not been done to prevent it. Beyond
| just bluetooth keyboards, while USB keyboards work on the
| Remarkable 1, support was apparently intentionally broken on
| the Remarkable 2. While otherwise completely supporting USB
| OTG, the USB port has been modified, apparently at a hardware
| level, to not provide power to devices. This appears to be
| related to the addition on the Remarkable 2 of an additional,
| physically-adjacent USB-protocol interface with a proprietary
| connector, for potential future accessories, which _does_
| provide power. For those who have made adapters, this
| proprietary interface supports USB keyboards quite readily:
| apparently, the _possibility_ of developing a keyboard
| accessory in the future was sufficient motivation for the
| company to break standard keyboard support at a hardware level.
|
| While I have found the Remarkable enormously useful, that has
| largely been in spite of the company. Had I researched it more
| closely before purchasing it, I would have realized that the
| seeming openness (SSH access, Linux, a development community
| and unofficial third-party software repository) appears to have
| been forced on an otherwise hostile company by the GPLv3. So it
| is promising to see the same style of device with a
| manufacturer that actually supports it being open and
| adaptable.
| squarefoot wrote:
| > functionality that wasn't advertised, but would have been
| possible had work not been done to prevent it
|
| Not to defend them (I would choose the PineNote anyway) but I
| think the practice is common: crippling something that is
| very easy to get working in a current version of a product is
| how they can later use it as a bullet point to advertise the
| sale of the next version that contains the "latest
| development", "much wanted feature", etc.
|
| If we don't see the practice employed often, it's likely
| because most products are tight closed and the turned off
| features aren't easy to spot.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > the wifi+bt chip has bluetooth hardware-disabled in solder
|
| Just... why??
| detaro wrote:
| Potentially certification. Or it's just missing support
| components that would be needed for BT to work, but weren't
| put in because BT wasn't part of the design, and thus
| disabled since it wouldn't work either way.
| josephcsible wrote:
| Attack surface reduction, maybe? Bluetooth vulnerabilities at
| really low levels in the stack aren't that uncommon. And if
| it's just disabled in solder and not on the silicon die,
| wouldn't it be practical to re-enable it by taking it apart
| if you really wanted?
| cge wrote:
| Attack surface reduction? On a device with unencrypted
| storage, the root password displayed in the about screens,
| no verified boot, no password by default (with password
| protection that amounts to a lock screen), and unprotected
| USB access to all user files by default? Where there are
| four exposed pins on the exterior that allow mounting of
| the root filesystem as USB mass storage regardless of
| password protection
| (https://github.com/ddvk/remarkable2-recovery), and the
| root password is stored in plain text?
| josephcsible wrote:
| Doesn't everything you listed require physical possession
| of the device to do anything with, whereas Bluetooth can
| be exploited just by walking near a malicious device?
| paulcole wrote:
| Is the Remarkable2 ever advertised as having Bluetooth keyboard
| support?
|
| I bought mine based on the advertising which pretty clearly
| portrayed it as an e-ink version of a paper notebook and
| nothing more.
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(page generated 2021-12-05 23:02 UTC)