My Manjaro CE Pinephone arrived and I have to say given all the discussion about people finding many of the features unreliable (which I was OK with as it's an open platform that's under development by the community), I am astonished and delighted how good it is! 
Thank you and well done to Pine64 and to everyone in the community for making a great Linux phone.
It arrived when DHL said it would. It was well-packaged and presented. I was impressed with the setup process which even included privacy-focused details like a link to UBlock Origin from the Firefox default home page.
Wifi, web surfing, the camera, all worked great. I put in my SIM card and tried out a couple of calls, expecting them to barely work but was pleasantly surprised to get crystal clear audio (the person's voice sounds altered, like talking to a different person, but it was clear and easy to understand). When I first called my partner I feared it wasn't working right because it sounded stuttery but it turned out that was just because I had it on Speaker and she was reacting to hearing her own voice! Obviously some kind of echo-cancellation algorithm could help there.
The only very minor issues I've had so far are the rapid battery drain (which I can live with); at one point the lock screen wouldn't open when I entered the correct PIN multiple times but a reboot by holding down the power switch fixed that; and when some dialog boxes pop up on the Manjaro UI (for example from some Settings) I can't figure out how I'm supposed to close them: I've just been tapping at the bottom of the screen to show all the open windows and close the dialogs that way.
Once again, thank you Pine64, Manjaro and the rest of the community! Keep up the fantastic work!
Thank you and well done to Pine64 and to everyone in the community for making a great Linux phone.
It arrived when DHL said it would. It was well-packaged and presented. I was impressed with the setup process which even included privacy-focused details like a link to UBlock Origin from the Firefox default home page.
Wifi, web surfing, the camera, all worked great. I put in my SIM card and tried out a couple of calls, expecting them to barely work but was pleasantly surprised to get crystal clear audio (the person's voice sounds altered, like talking to a different person, but it was clear and easy to understand). When I first called my partner I feared it wasn't working right because it sounded stuttery but it turned out that was just because I had it on Speaker and she was reacting to hearing her own voice!
Obviously some kind of echo-cancellation algorithm could help there.The only very minor issues I've had so far are the rapid battery drain (which I can live with); at one point the lock screen wouldn't open when I entered the correct PIN multiple times but a reboot by holding down the power switch fixed that; and when some dialog boxes pop up on the Manjaro UI (for example from some Settings) I can't figure out how I'm supposed to close them: I've just been tapping at the bottom of the screen to show all the open windows and close the dialogs that way.
Once again, thank you Pine64, Manjaro and the rest of the community! Keep up the fantastic work!