Pinephone Pro as of [24 March 2022]

[YellowJersey]

So I got myself a Pinephone Pro primarily because I wanted to support the project and because there is an impending price hike from $399 to $599, so I wanted to get it while it was still at the lower price. I already have an de-googled Teracube 2e running /e OS (an AOSP fork), which is my daily driver, so that'll be my point of comparison.

Set up process:
As of 2 March 2022, the Pinephone Pro, despite its impressive hardware compared to the original Pinephone, is still very much in beta when it comes to software.

 

I initially was running the pre-installed default Manjaro w/ KDE Plasma Mobile on the EMMC memory. The initial setup went fine, although it became utterly unusable and pretty much bricked after updating and restarting the phone. I'd just get a plain white screen that was unresponsive that occasionally would show some of the icons.

 So I switched to what the Pine64 forums seem to agree is the most stable setup, Arch w/ phosh, so I flashed the 20220222 release (most recent at time of writing) to a microSD card (Tip: it is currently not recommended to flash new distros directly to the EMMC at this time). (Tip: use at least something comparable to a Sanddisk Extreme i microSDXC card. I tried using a much older microSDHC card and I couldn't get the phone to boot and was stick at a loading screen for 45 minutes before I gave up). After booting the phone from the SD card, I tried inputting my passcode from my initial setup and it didn't work. The github link above says that the default passcode is 123456, but that didn't work either. I managed to get 123456 to work after reflashing the microSD card and using 123456 first. I think trying a different passcode may bork it so that 123456 won't work if tried later, so be sure to use 123456 first.

The experience:

 After booting from the SD card but before updating, the phone worked alright, if a little bit unresponsive (scrolling wasn't super smooth and there was a delay between tapping an icon before the phone would react). I was able to send and receive SMS text messages. I could also make a phonecall, but the mic didn't seem to pick up my voice, so I could hear the caller on the other end, but he couldn't hear me. Many of the default apps also wouldn't work, like koko. I didn't try the browser at this stage.

 After updating, SMS didn't work at all, nor did phone calls, but some of the default apps started working, like koko. The camera has yet to work at all (this is a known issue). But the phone seemed a bit more stable overall in terms of glitchiness, reduced functionality notwithstanding. 

 

In summary: basic functionality

What works: (from what I've tried)

-booting the as-of-now latest Arch phosh build from the SD card works

-SMS works (but only before updating)

-Angelfish browser works (successfully watched a youtube video)

-terminal

-koko app store (it at least loads, though I tried to install Discord and it crapped out on me)

 

What doesn't work:
-camera

-SMS (after updating)

-phone calls
-wake from sleep (basically requires a full reboot)

-pretty much everything else that I tried (which wasn't very much)

-power management (chews through battery really fast)

 

Conclusion: Pinephone Pro's software isn't ready to be used as a phone yet, even as a basic talk/text phone. But I knew that going into this.

Going forward: Every new software release (or at least once a month), I'll flash what the Pine64 forums consider to be the most stable distro and report my findings to inform any who may be interested and to document what changes I find. I'm not doing comprehensive testing or anything, but just a more general "how usable is this device?" Basically, I want to document at what point this phone becomes daily drivable and comparable to my Teracube 2e running /e OS. Right now, the PPP still has a ways to go.

[Commodus]

9 hours ago, YellowJersey said:

So I got myself a Pinephone Pro primarily because I wanted to support the project and because there is an impending price hike from $399 to $599, so I wanted to get it while it was still at the lower price. I already have an de-googled Teracube 2e running /e OS (an AOSP fork), which is my daily driver, so that'll be my point of comparison.

Set up process:
As of 2 March 2022, the Pinephone Pro, despite its impressive hardware compared to the original Pinephone, is still very much in beta when it comes to software.

 

I initially was running the pre-installed default Manjaro w/ KDE Plasma Mobile on the EMMC memory. The initial setup went fine, although it became utterly unusable and pretty much bricked after updating and restarting the phone. I'd just get a plain white screen that was unresponsive that occasionally would show some of the icons.

 So I switched to what the Pine64 forums seem to agree is the most stable setup, Arch w/ phosh, so I flashed the 20220222 release (most recent at time of writing) to a microSD card (Tip: it is currently not recommended to flash new distros directly to the EMMC at this time). (Tip: use at least something comparable to a Sanddisk Extreme i microSDXC card. I tried using a much older microSDHC card and I couldn't get the phone to boot and was stick at a loading screen for 45 minutes before I gave up). After booting the phone from the SD card, I tried inputting my passcode from my initial setup and it didn't work. The github link above says that the default passcode is 123456, but that didn't work either. I managed to get 123456 to work after reflashing the microSD card and using 123456 first. I think trying a different passcode may bork it so that 123456 won't work if tried later, so be sure to use 123456 first.

The experience:

 After booting from the SD card but before updating, the phone worked alright, if a little bit unresponsive (scrolling wasn't super smooth and there was a delay between tapping an icon before the phone would react). I was able to send and receive SMS text messages. I could also make a phonecall, but the mic didn't seem to pick up my voice, so I could hear the caller on the other end, but he couldn't hear me. Many of the default apps also wouldn't work, like koko. I didn't try the browser at this stage.

 After updating, SMS didn't work at all, nor did phone calls, but some of the default apps started working, like koko. The camera has yet to work at all (this is a known issue). But the phone seemed a bit more stable overall in terms of glitchiness, reduced functionality notwithstanding. 

 

In summary: basic functionality

What works: (from what I've tried)

-booting the as-of-now latest Arch phosh build from the SD card works

-SMS works (but only before updating)

-Angelfish browser works (successfully watched a youtube video)

-terminal

-koko app store (it at least loads, though I tried to install Discord and it crapped out on me)

 

What doesn't work:
-camera

-SMS (after updating)

-phone calls
-wake from sleep (basically requires a full reboot)

-pretty much everything else that I tried (which wasn't very much)

-power management (chews through battery really fast)

 

Conclusion: Pinephone Pro's software isn't ready to be used as a phone yet, even as a basic talk/text phone. But I knew that going into this.

Going forward: Every new software release (or at least once a month), I'll flash what the Pine64 forums consider to be the most stable distro and report my findings to inform any who may be interested and to document what changes I find. I'm not doing comprehensive testing or anything, but just a more general "how usable is this device?" Basically, I want to document at what point this phone becomes daily drivable and comparable to my Teracube 2e running /e OS. Right now, the PPP still has a ways to go.

Egads... I'm all in favor of choice, but I can't imagine launching a phone where the most stable OS can't even handle the basics. Hope the functionality improves very quickly.

 

There's a whiff of that "it's the year of Linux on the desktop, any decade now" vibe to this, if I'm honest... that is, the idealism of the FOSS crowd butting up against the reality that closed (Apple) or semi-closed (Google) platforms are typically developed faster and with much more polish.

[YellowJersey]

7 hours ago, Commodus said:

Egads... I'm all in favor of choice, but I can't imagine launching a phone where the most stable OS can't even handle the basics. Hope the functionality improves very quickly.

 

There's a whiff of that "it's the year of Linux on the desktop, any decade now" vibe to this, if I'm honest... that is, the idealism of the FOSS crowd butting up against the reality that closed (Apple) or semi-closed (Google) platforms are typically developed faster and with much more polish.

Well, to be fair, they make it pretty clear what you're getting into (ie, very beta software) when you buy the phone. I wouldn't say there's anything deceptive going on.

[Commodus]

14 hours ago, YellowJersey said:

Well, to be fair, they make it pretty clear what you're getting into (ie, very beta software) when you buy the phone. I wouldn't say there's anything deceptive going on.

That's good to know — it's just a bit odd to sell something while telling customers the basic functionality doesn't work yet. Like offering a toaster that needs a firmware update before it can warm your bread.

[OhioYJ]

@YellowJerseyare you US based or another Country?  With a major carrier? I've been following the Pinephone for quite some time and what really kept putting me on the fence was it seemed like US carrier support was spotty at best, and as with your experience even those that could get it to make phones calls had issues with other functionality (SMS / Data). 

 

Pinephone Carrier Support Wiki for those interested.  This is what I was looking at.

[YellowJersey]

4 hours ago, OhioYJ said:

@YellowJerseyare you US based or another Country?  With a major carrier? I've been following the Pinephone for quite some time and what really kept putting me on the fence was it seemed like US carrier support was spotty at best, and as with your experience even those that could get it to make phones calls had issues with other functionality (SMS / Data). 

 

Pinephone Carrier Support Wiki for those interested.  This is what I was looking at.

Canada based using Telus' network. I don't think my SMS and phone call issues were network related; I think they were more an issue with the software on the phone as I could send and receive SMS before I ran the update and I was able to make a call and hear the other person clearly, but it wasn't picking up my mic.

 

6 hours ago, Commodus said:

That's good to know — it's just a bit odd to sell something while telling customers the basic functionality doesn't work yet. Like offering a toaster that needs a firmware update before it can warm your bread.

 

 This is also the Explorer Edition (ie, the very early adopter version. Kind of like a pre-production software version). So it's expressly geared towards enthusiasts and supporters. My guess is that they wanted to get phones out in the wild to help with debugging, identifying issues, etc. I don't think you should approach it from the perspective of a company like Apple or Samsung, which absolutely should be providing a much more polished experience at launch. This is more of a community driven effort. So I think it needs to be judged from different standards and as a work in progress, so I'm willing to cut them some slack provided the experience does, in fact, get much better over time. Don't get me wrong, buying this phone is definitely a gamble right now and I would not recommend anyone buy this phone unless they have the money to risk on a phone that may never live up to expectations and are big into the open source community and community driven projects. It's definitely for a very niche audience at the moment.

 It's also not terribly unusual for products to be released in an unfinished state these days. Just look at the video game industry! Looking at you, Cyberpunk 2077!