12-14-2021, 11:49 AM
I tried the PP as a daily driver for a few months so far, and had fair success. Here's what I found:
As a phone, it's mostly OK.
As a camera, it's inadequate.
As a computer, it stinks without a monitor, keyboard and mouse (using Mobian Bookworm).
I use the phone as a phone, for work. Work pays for me to be accessible, and I need to be able to get calls at any time. For years I used a Blackberry Passport. It was a rock-solid phone, and had a good camera that was worth taking into the field where there was no phone service. The HMI was decent, and worked well on the touchscreen. The only app I used was a bible reader. Everything else was either done through the Blackberry Hub or the web browser. When the carrier stopped supporting the BB Passport, it was time to switch, and I tried the Pinephone.
The Pinephone works as a phone, although sometimes the audio is way too quiet. I didn't miss any calls when the phone was working. The browser works moderately well, and I can mostly do on it what I was accustomed to doing on the BB. Browser problems boil down to scaling/HMI/touchscreen issues. The bible readers available are not adequate! They are great on the desktop, but don't work well with the touchscreen interface, and aren't adapted to the small screen. The developers of Bibletime and Xiphos have told me they are not interested in adapting them to phones.
The camera does take pictures, but doesn't focus well, doesn't do closeups well. With the BB I was accustomed to taking detailed, in-focus macro pictures of equipment nameplates, wire terminations, fine details of broken equipment and so on. This camera isn't adequate for any of that. It's not worth carrying this for the camera. The megapixils software does seem to be doing its job, but the cheap camera can't do what I need.
SMS works well, no issues there. MMS doesn't work yet, but I can live with that.
Unfortunately, this is a computer, not a phone. It's a linux computer that requires quite a bit of typing to administer, and without docking bar, keyboard, mouse and monitor, it's terribly tedious to handle necessary tasks. Because it's a computer not a phone, the touchscreen HMI is not very smooth and easy compared to the BB Passport. Because it's a computer not a phone, none of the bits that work together seamlessly on a phone play well together. For example, I was able to get my contacts imported to the contacts app, and am able to dial a contact from the phone app, but the phone app won't tell me the name of a caller when that number is a contact.
Because it's a computer not a phone, it's running Mobian Testing, software that needs updates, and the updates occasionally break stuff. That's become a huge problem for me. I need the phone to just work ALWAYS, and being down for a few hours while I try to troubleshoot issues is a huge problem. If I'm going to keep on using this, I'll have to get a second phone so I can have one to use and one to risk an update on.
Because it's a computer not a phone, the thing is just BUSY. With the BB, I never really had to think about administration or updates, everything just worked. Linux isn't like that.
Because it's a computer not a phone, and because the software is still beta, the battery life stinks! For a while I was able to go 6 hours or so without charging, as long as the phone was suspended and in my pocket. Recently it's been emptying the battery in two or three hours in my pocket. It gets quite warm, which is nice on these cold winter days.
The plastic case back is breaking, but is still usable. The phone hardware is working fine so far.The switches to turn off stuff are OK. I don't use bluetooth, so I was able to turn it off and save a little power.
In summary, Linux is great for a computer, but isn't great for a phone. The touchscreen interface is a lousy way to administer a linux computer. The software has a long way to go, but it is already usable as a phone.
I look forward to the day when Mobian Stable is 100% functional and there is no reason to worry about the very rare updates breaking anything. That's probably a couple of years in the future.
As a phone, it's mostly OK.
As a camera, it's inadequate.
As a computer, it stinks without a monitor, keyboard and mouse (using Mobian Bookworm).
I use the phone as a phone, for work. Work pays for me to be accessible, and I need to be able to get calls at any time. For years I used a Blackberry Passport. It was a rock-solid phone, and had a good camera that was worth taking into the field where there was no phone service. The HMI was decent, and worked well on the touchscreen. The only app I used was a bible reader. Everything else was either done through the Blackberry Hub or the web browser. When the carrier stopped supporting the BB Passport, it was time to switch, and I tried the Pinephone.
The Pinephone works as a phone, although sometimes the audio is way too quiet. I didn't miss any calls when the phone was working. The browser works moderately well, and I can mostly do on it what I was accustomed to doing on the BB. Browser problems boil down to scaling/HMI/touchscreen issues. The bible readers available are not adequate! They are great on the desktop, but don't work well with the touchscreen interface, and aren't adapted to the small screen. The developers of Bibletime and Xiphos have told me they are not interested in adapting them to phones.
The camera does take pictures, but doesn't focus well, doesn't do closeups well. With the BB I was accustomed to taking detailed, in-focus macro pictures of equipment nameplates, wire terminations, fine details of broken equipment and so on. This camera isn't adequate for any of that. It's not worth carrying this for the camera. The megapixils software does seem to be doing its job, but the cheap camera can't do what I need.
SMS works well, no issues there. MMS doesn't work yet, but I can live with that.
Unfortunately, this is a computer, not a phone. It's a linux computer that requires quite a bit of typing to administer, and without docking bar, keyboard, mouse and monitor, it's terribly tedious to handle necessary tasks. Because it's a computer not a phone, the touchscreen HMI is not very smooth and easy compared to the BB Passport. Because it's a computer not a phone, none of the bits that work together seamlessly on a phone play well together. For example, I was able to get my contacts imported to the contacts app, and am able to dial a contact from the phone app, but the phone app won't tell me the name of a caller when that number is a contact.
Because it's a computer not a phone, it's running Mobian Testing, software that needs updates, and the updates occasionally break stuff. That's become a huge problem for me. I need the phone to just work ALWAYS, and being down for a few hours while I try to troubleshoot issues is a huge problem. If I'm going to keep on using this, I'll have to get a second phone so I can have one to use and one to risk an update on.
Because it's a computer not a phone, the thing is just BUSY. With the BB, I never really had to think about administration or updates, everything just worked. Linux isn't like that.
Because it's a computer not a phone, and because the software is still beta, the battery life stinks! For a while I was able to go 6 hours or so without charging, as long as the phone was suspended and in my pocket. Recently it's been emptying the battery in two or three hours in my pocket. It gets quite warm, which is nice on these cold winter days.
The plastic case back is breaking, but is still usable. The phone hardware is working fine so far.The switches to turn off stuff are OK. I don't use bluetooth, so I was able to turn it off and save a little power.
In summary, Linux is great for a computer, but isn't great for a phone. The touchscreen interface is a lousy way to administer a linux computer. The software has a long way to go, but it is already usable as a phone.
I look forward to the day when Mobian Stable is 100% functional and there is no reason to worry about the very rare updates breaking anything. That's probably a couple of years in the future.
Pinephone beta edition, convergence model, Mobian Bookworm with Phosh.