(03-22-2021, 09:44 AM)moonwalkers Wrote: If I were to hazard a guess - it has to do with costs. I wouldn't be the first one to express an idea that by price-limiting their products Pine are painting themselves into a corner - they cannot get new units into the hands of the users since the shortages hit, and I have to wonder how are they financing their original R&D. Because all the economic breakdowns of the device costs I've seen show one of the biggest parts is actually amortized R&D cost, and it's the R&D that's needed to resolve the issues, not just QC alone - certain designs are just more prone to issues than others, given the same workmanship quality.

(03-22-2021, 08:36 PM)Vasant Wrote: My suggestion for them would be to partner with a high volume Android phone/tablet  manufacturer who is willing to release kernel and uboot code and resell them as development platform. Another benefit would be that we can have access to more recent SOC's built on new process technology.

(03-26-2021, 05:43 AM)dsimic Wrote:

(03-22-2021, 09:44 AM)moonwalkers Wrote: If I were to hazard a guess - it has to do with costs. I wouldn't be the first one to express an idea that by price-limiting their products Pine are painting themselves into a corner - they cannot get new units into the hands of the users since the shortages hit, and I have to wonder how are they financing their original R&D. Because all the economic breakdowns of the device costs I've seen show one of the biggest parts is actually amortized R&D cost, and it's the R&D that's needed to resolve the issues, not just QC alone - certain designs are just more prone to issues than others, given the same workmanship quality.

Please, keep in mind that Pine64 actually cannot function without the community, because pretty much the entire software support for all their products has been implemented by the community.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but the bad and weird part is that Pine64 now actually remains silent to the the community efforts aimed at product improvements.

(03-26-2021, 09:41 AM)moonwalkers Wrote: What I was talking about is that even with community actively contributing actual designs they would still need to do at least some of their own effort to integrate that, and that takes time and therefore money. But again, like I said before, I may be just talking out of my ass. All I can say with certainty is I would love to see Pine64 succeed releasing great hacker-friendly devices and fostering a great community, and if it requires to pay a bit more for their devices to help them achieve that - I'm willing to do so.

(03-26-2021, 10:54 AM)dsimic Wrote: However, even if no actual fixes for well-known major hardware issues were submitted by the community, Pine64 should discuss and acknowledge such issues, stop manufacturing and selling flawed devices, and work on the new hardware revisions either internally or (preferably) together with the community. As simple as that.

(03-26-2021, 10:54 AM)dsimic Wrote: Quite frankly, I've already invested a lot of my time into debugging more than a few issues with the PineBook Pro, but more work is still required. For example, I am not willing to risk my own PineBook Pro by testing out changes to the battery charging circuitry. So, I've asked Pine64 to donate one PineBook Pro for the purpose of testing such changes to the hardware, and I got no reply. Not even a "get lost" reply.

(03-26-2021, 03:32 PM)moonwalkers Wrote: I think "stop manufacturing and selling" would go against their stated goals, though I agree there is no point in the whole "development" if it doesn't actually manifest in improved product. But I personally would be OK with improvements incorporated on a generation-by-generation basis. That is, I'm not going to be too offended with existing PBP flaws not being addressed in the current iteration because frankly even the charging current limit is not gonna motivate me enough to buy a new unit for as long as my current one still  works fine. But if Pine64 releases next PBP iteration, say RK3588-based, and that next iteration still has the same issues with low charging current, overheating charging circuit, having to deal with SW workarounds for headphones switch-over, crappy touchpad, dislocated lid magnet, etc. - yeah, I'll definitely be upset in that case and probably will be looking into other ARM laptops.

(03-26-2021, 03:32 PM)moonwalkers Wrote: I can kinda understand that. If they sell at no profit they'd be losing money sending you a free unit. With no guarantee (no offense intended, mate) that you actually follow through and don't stuff things up. And communicating with customers (A.K.A. PR) takes a lot of time and effort even when it's just a polite "no" and is (or at least can be) pretty much a full-time job. But yes, it would be very nice if the communications were better.